Hinduism: Details about 'Sindhi Language'

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Sindhi (سنڌي، सिन्धी sindhī)
Spoken in:Pakistan, India. Also Hong Kong SAR, Oman, Philippines, Singapore, UAE, UK, USA 
Region:South Asia
Total speakers:19.7 million 
Ranking:47
Language family: Indo-European
 Indo-Iranian
  Indo-Aryan
   Northwestern Zone
    Sindhi 
Official status
Official language of:Pakistan, India
Regulated by:no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1:sd
ISO 639-2:snd
ISO/DIS 639-3: 
This page contains Indic text. Without rendering support you may see irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. More..

Sindhi (سنڌي، सिन्धी sindhī) is the language of the Sindh region of South Asia, which is now a province of Pakistan. It is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by approximately 35 million people in Pakistan, and 2.8 million in India; it is also a recognised official language in both of these countries. َAlthough the language is predominantly Aryan, it also shows up signs of Dravidan influence, making it unique in its importance and identity. Most Sindhi



speakers in Pakistan are concentrated in Sindh. The remaining speakers are found spread throughout the many areas of the world (mainly other parts of India) to which members of an ethnic group migrated when Sindh became a part of Pakistan during the partition of British India in 1947. The language is written using the modified Arabic script. In 1948, the govt. of India implemented Devanagari script for the Sindhi language that didn't get the wider acceptance.

Contents

Geographical distribution

Sindhi is taught as a first language in the schools of south-east Pakistan. Sindhi language has a vast vocabulary; this has made it a favourite of many writers and so a lot of literature and poetry has been written in Sindhi. Dialects of Sindhi are spoken in southern Panjab, Balochistan, Northwest province of Pakistan (NWFP), and also Gujrat as well as Rajistan in India.

History

Sindhi was a very popular literary language around the 14th-18th centuries. This is when sufis such as



Shah Abdul Latif (as well as numerous others) narrated their theosophical poetry depicting the relationship between humans and God.

The Qur'an was first translated into Sindhi in rhymatic format. This was the first ever translation of Qur'an in the 12th century or earlier.

Sounds

Sindhi has a very rich sound inventory. It has 46 distinctive consonant phonemes (more than all the phonemes of English combined) and a further 16 vowels. All plosives, affricates, nasals, the retroflex flap and the lateral approximant /l/ have aspirated or breathy voiced counterparts. The language also features four separate implosives.

Consonants

Bilabial Labiodental Dental Alveolar Post-
alveolar
Palatal Velar Glottal
Plosives p
ph
b
bɦ
t
th
d
dɦ
ʈ
ʈh
ɖ
ɖɦ
k
kh
g
gɦ
Implosives ɓ ɗ ʄ ɠ
Affricates c
ch
ɟ
ɟɦ
Nasals m
mɦ
n
nɦ
ɳ
ɳɦ
ɲ ŋ
Fricatives f s z ʂ x ɣ h
Taps and flaps r ɽ
ɽɦ
Approximants ʋ j
Lateral
approximants
l
lɦ

The phoneme /r/ is usually pronounced as an alveolar tap, , though occasionally reminiscent of a trill with two or more contacts. The affricates /c, ch, ɟ, ɟɦ/ are pronounced with a relatively short release and corresponding plosives symbols have therefore been used. /ʋ/ can be realized as either or with free variation.

Vowels

Writing system

In Pakistan, Sindhi is written in a variant of the Arabic script, which was adopted under the encouragement of the British when Sindh fell to the British in the 19th century. It has a total of 52 Arabic-derived letters, accommodating the additional sounds peculiar to Indo-Aryan languages.

In India, Sindhi is widely written in the same standard modified Arabic script, with some u,popular use of Devanagari script as well.

See also

  • Osar Peerrhkaa اوسر پيڙھڪا --

References

  • International Phonetic Association (1999) Handbook of the International Phonetic Association ISBN 0-521-63751-1

External links

Sindhi Sindhi Sindhi Bahasa Sindhi Sindhi 信德语


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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Sindhi_language". A list of the wikipedia authors can be found here.