From the Historical Archive: Saraiki Language and the Sociopolitical Identity of Saraiki Community

Abstract

This article endeavours to establish the antiquity of Saraiki language and its culture as well as civilization. It is unfortunate for this language that it used to be considered a dialect of Punjabi language in Pakistan for long time before its recognition as a separate linguistic entity. The works by Saraiki activists and language researchers helped in its recognition as a separate language entity in the Census. There are three traditions for tracing the relation between the Saraiki and the Punjabi language. The first tradition argues that Saraiki is the dialect of Punjabi while the second tradition states Punjabi to be a dialect of the Saraiki language. The third tradition claims the simultaneous development of Saraiki and Punjabi in different geographical regions independent of each other. The convergence of two languages took place in the later phase and the cross linguistic influences led to mutual intelligibility. This seems to be more realistic and also the main proposition of the current research. Pakistan is currently home to more than 70 languages out of which six languages claim more than 10 percent of the speakers of the whole population of the country. Saraiki language is among those six major languages, and it is widely spoken in the country especially in the southern part of the Punjab province. Despite its recognition as a language, the community of the Saraiki speakers is living in shambles as their sociopolitical conditions are not very good. This has resulted in the formation of Saraiki movement as its activists use language to mark their ethnic identity and build a pressure group in order to articulate their political, economic and cultural dispossession. The current research endeavours to document the sociopolitical struggle of the Saraiki community in Pakistan.