History of Punjabi

History of PunjabiThe history of Punjabi dates back to the time before the origin of Sanskrit. There are strong reasons to believe that the Punjabi is a modified or modern version of Prakrit. In fact the name ‘Prakrit’ (un-adorned) was assigned to the spoken language of the people of the Punjab when Panini grammatized the language of the Punjabi people and named it Sanskrit (means adorned). Pali/Prakrit is much older than Sanskrit. In fact, the very meaning of the word “Prakrit” is “original”, or “natural”, and “Sanskrit” means “refined” or “modified”. So Sanskrit is just a corruption of Pali/Prakrit, which was created by the brahmins. That is the reason that Punjabi of today is very close to the Prakrit. On the Indian subcontinent there are several regional languages, and like the Punjabi, each has a script of its own. These scripts are distinctly different from Dava-Nagari, the usual script of Sanskrit.

In the early days, due to the lack of the writing media, very large majority of the population only used the spoken Punjabi language and they never learned to read or write. Their linguistics skills, i.e. vocabulary and grammar, were orally passed from one generation to the next, through their stories, their songs and their dramas (nataks). In Punjab, the area of five rivers, there existed a script called Landay. The origin of Landay script or when it came into being is unknown and the name Landay (meaning abbreviated) might have come from the fact that it did not use any diacritics to modify the inherent vowel of the consonants. This script was mainly used by village traders to keep their account and money lending operation.

Perhaps at the same time the Brahmins were using Sanskrit for their religious ceremonies, and for some record keeping. However the Sanskrit was deliberately kept away from the populace by Brahmins.

It is believed that Guru Nanak devised a new script during the 16th century to write his Bani and Guru Angad named it Gurmukhi, as it came from the mouth of his Guru. Gurmukhi script was modeled after the Script of Landay. Notable features for Gurmukhi are:

• This is a syllabic alphabet in which all consonants have an inherent vowel. Diacritics when required can appear above, below, before or after the consonant they belong to, are used to change the inherent vowel. • When the vowel appears at the beginning of a syllable, it is written as an independent letter. • When certain consonant occur together, a special conjunct symbol is used. Examples:

The Aad Guru Granth Sahib (AGGS) and other Sikh religious literature were exclusively written in Gurmukhi script. For a period of time (hard to pin point the duration) the Gurmukhi was exclusively used for Sikh religious writings only, the other literature was considered inappropriate to be written in Gurmukhi script. Later on the other literature was also written in the Gurmukhi script.

Conversely AGGS and Bani were also published in other scripts. During the 11th century, either by pre-Islamic rule migration from the Northwest or soon thereafter, the Persian script was introduced to the area of Punjab. The Islamic rulers, mostly Persian speaking, took control of the Punjab and made the Persian as an official working language. A large number of local population accepted Islam, either by attrition or by force, however they retained their Punjabi language and folklore's. They started writing Punjabi in Persian script.

Now the Punjabi language, perhaps the only language, was written with two separate scripts. The two populace, Moslem and non-Moslem, could orally communicate seamlessly but the reading and writing was on strictly on religious bases. I must add here that the large proportion of the population was still illiterate and used only the spoken language. The oral literature was predominantly in the form of folklore, songs and bedtime stories. The written literatures, in Persian script, were the long dissertation like Heer, Soni Mahiwal and the religious writings of Baba Farid.

Punjabi is very resilient and robust language; it survived the brunt of many invading armies, political upheavals, religious strife, last but not the least an attempted-linguist suppression by Hindi and Urdu for last fifty years or so. The Punjabi did survive it all, but we may yet loose it if our coming generations do not accept the task of expressing themselves literarily in Punjabi. A language is judged by the richness of its literature. It is not sufficient to just speak and teach our children to speak Punjabi; it is only the first step towards the preservation of Punjabi. A rich and varied literature is essential for any language to survive in shrinking global village we live; there are no exceptions for Punjabi. Our current newspapers do not have any attention grabbing articles, not even cartoons, comic strips, cooking tips or any sections dedicated for children. Also in this age of high literacy and technology it is very important for a language to stay competitive with other languages, in conveying some useful technical information, such as operating manual for appliances.

For Diaspora Punjabis it is very important to, more so for Sikhs as a language of liturgy, pass on our Punjabi linguistic heritage in the real sense to our next generation. There is no simple formula or magic potion, which will work to achieve this goal. One has to grab the attention of the children and feed the message subtly in very small potions.

My request to the parents/grand parents of young children is to get some glitzy storybooks, pictures, cartoons etc. with Punjabi inscription on them and throw them around the house, and see how well it catches their attention, spend a little bit of money and effort. You may surprise your self for its effectiveness. It is a small price to pay for a huge return.