Number of native speakers: 113 million
Official language: Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, West Bengal (India)
Language of diaspora: Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, Germany, Kenya, Libya, Malaysia, Nepal, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States
Script: Gurmukhi, 41 letters/Shahmukhi, 38 letters
Linguistic typology: agglutinative, SOV
Language family: Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Indo-Aryan, Northwestern Indo-Aryan
12th century - first written evidence
16th century - start of the literary tradition
Writing system and pronunciation
These are the letters that make up the Gurmukhi script: ੳ ਅ ੲ ਕ ਖ ਗ ਘ ਙ ਚ ਛ ਸ ਝ ਞ ਟ ਠ ਡ ਢ ਣ ਤ ਥ ਦ ਧ ਨ ਮ ਫ ਬ ਭ ਮ ਯ ਰ ਲ ਵ ੜ ਸ ਹ ਸ਼ ਖ਼ ਗ਼ ਜ਼ ਫ਼ ਲ਼.
These are the letters that make up the Shahmukhi script: ا ب پ ت ٹ ث ج چ ح خ د ڈ ذ ر ڑ ز ژ س ش ص ض ط ظ ع غ ف ق ک گ ل م ن ں و ء ه ی ے.
There are three tones, high-falling, low-rising, and level. Stress can occur on any syllable, but normally falls on the penultimate one.
Nouns have two genders (masculine and feminine), two numbers (singular and plural), and seven cases (nominative, genitive, accusative-dative, instrumental, ablative, locative, and vocative).
Only declinable adjectives agree in gender, number, and case. Third-person personal pronouns are not used.
Verbs are conjugated for tense, mood, aspect, voice, person, and number. They agree with their subjects in the active voice and with their objects in the passive.
There are ten dialects: Majhi, Pothowari, Hindko, Jhangochi, Shahpuri, Dhani, Saraiki, Malwi, Doabi, and Pwadhi.
They mainly differ in phonology and lexicon.
turnnoffyourmind
dededos
kianamaiart
ellievsbear
titsay
blakekathryn
jbbartram-illu
snowghoul
yousharknotpass
annaxmalina
