Punjabi Vocatives (Ex: Oye Sohneya!)

[Ali_Syed]

Re: Punjabi Vocatives (Ex: Oye Sohneya!)

@MacchiAmritsari

Anyone know more about these? I suppose you might have them in Urdu also? Kind of hard to explain, but a general rule is to take a word, make it plural and use it to call someone. Like…

Munda, which becomes Mundeyo
Kuri , which becomes Kuriye
Jatt, which becomes Jatta

Do you hear these used in every day speech? I use them all the time, peppering my speech with such words. Like I’ll greet my friends with something like “O main kya ki haal hai badhshaho!” or “Oye Jatta, kiddan!?”

*We also find this rule being applied to people’s names. You see it a lot, especially in some Punjabi movies. Like in Maula Jatt, you see people calling him as “Mauleya!” *

I sometimes do this also with some of my friends, provided their names have a nice ring to them. Doesn’t work with some names obviously.

You also use kiddan??? were your ancestors from faisalabad??