Sindhi language

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{{language |name=Sindhi |nativename=سنڌي، सिन्धी sindhī |states=Pakistan, India. Also Hong Kong SAR, Oman, Philippines, Singapore, UAE, UK, USA |region=South Asia |speakers=19.7 million |rank=47 |familycolor=Indo-European |fam2=Indo-Iranian |fam3=Indo-Aryan |fam4=Northwestern Zone |nation=Pakistan, India |iso1=sd|iso2=snd|iso3=snd |notice=Indic}} 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 did not get wide acceptance.

1 Geographical distribution
2 History
3 Sounds
- 3.1 Consonants
- 3.2 Vowels
4 Writing system
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

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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 Punjab, Balochistan, Northwest province of Pakistan (NWFP), and also Gujrat as well as Rajasthan in India.

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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.

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Sounds

Sindhi has a large 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.

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Consonants

	Bilabial		Labiodental	Dental		Alveolar		Post- alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Plosives	p p^h	b b^ɦ		t t^h	d d^ɦ			ʈ ʈ^h	ɖ ɖ^ɦ			k k^h	g g^ɦ
Implosives		ɓ					ɗ				ʄ		ɠ
Affricates										c c^h	ɟ ɟ^ɦ
Nasals	m m^ɦ					n n^ɦ		ɳ ɳ^ɦ		ɲ		ŋ
Fricatives			f			s	z	ʂ				x	ɣ	h
Taps and flaps						r		ɽ ɽ^ɦ
Approximants			ʋ							j
Lateral approximants				l l^ɦ

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

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Vowels

Image:Sindhi vowel chart.png

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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 popular use of Devanagari script as well.

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