język: Punjabi language

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

Punjabi (sometimes spelled Panjabi) is an Indo-Aryan language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken by the Punjabi people native to the Punjab region of Pakistan and India. With over 156 million speakers across all its varieties, it is the seventh most spoken native language and the twelfth most spoken language by the total number of speakers in the world. Punjabi is the third most spoken native language in South Asia (after Hindi and Bengali). It is the most widely-spoken native language in Pakistan, with 123.2 million speakers across all its language varieties, according to the 2023 census, and the 11th most widely-spoken in Indi…

Evidence: 43 • authority: 88

Indian Epigraphy. Abstract This book provides a general survey of all the inscriptional material in the Sanskrit, Prakrit, and modern Indo-Aryan languages, including donative, dedicatory, panegyric, ritual, and literary texts carved on stone, metal, and other materials. This material comprises many thousands of documents dating from a range of more than two millennia, found in India and the neighboring nations of South Asia, as well as in many parts of Southeast, central, and East Asia. The inscriptions are written, for the most part, in the Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts and their many varieties and derivatives. Inscriptional materials are of particular importance for the study of the Indian…

Evidence: 43 • authority: 72

Prakrit ( PRAH-krit) is a group of vernacular classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages that were used in the Indian subcontinent from around the 5th century BCE to the 12th century CE. The term Prakrit is usually applied to the middle period of the Middle Indo-Aryan languages, excluding Pali. The oldest stage of Middle Indo-Aryan language is attested in the inscriptions of Ashoka (c. 260 BCE), as well as in the earliest forms of Pāli, the language of the Theravāda Buddhist canon. The most prominent form of Prakrit is Ardhamāgadhı̄, associated with the ancient kingdom of Magadha, in modern Bihar, and the subsequent Mauryan Empire. Mahāvīra, the 24th and last Tīrthaṅkara of Jainism, was born in…

Evidence: 43 • authority: 72

Saraiki ( سرائیکی, Sarā'īkī, [səɾaːiːkiː]; also spelt Siraiki, or Seraiki) is an Indo-Aryan language of the Lahnda group. It is spoken by 28.84 million people, as per the 2023 Pakistani census, mostly in southern Punjab, northern Sindh and southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Saraiki has 90%+ mutual intelligibility with Standard Punjabi, and it shares with it a large portion of its vocabulary and morphology. At the same time in its phonology it is radically different (particularly in the lack of tones, the preservation of the voiced aspirates and the development of implosive consonants), and has important grammatical features in common with the Sindhi language spoken to the south. Due to the effect…

Evidence: 43 • authority: 72

Khasa or Khasa Prakrit (also known as Khas Prakrit, Sanskrit Khasa, Himalayan Prakrit, Northern Prakrit, Khas Kura) is a Prakrit language of medieval South Asia and a common ancestor language of the Pahari languages, which includes Nepali, Kumaoni, Jaunsari, Mandeali, Garhwali, and Mahasuvi languages. It was commonly referred to as खश (Khaśa), खष (Khaṣa), and खशीर (Khaśīra) in the Sanskrit texts. Indian linguist Suniti Kumar Chatterji suggests that Nepali language developed from Khasa Prakrit. Khas Prakrit is named after the speakers of language, Khas people, who live in the Himalayas.

Evidence: 43 • authority: 72

Magadhi Prakrit (Māgadhī) is of one of the three Dramatic Prakrits, the written languages of Classical-Medieval India following the decline of Pali. It was a vernacular Middle Indo-Aryan language, replacing earlier Vedic Sanskrit.