53-629: A Jatha ( Punjabi : ਜੱਥਾ [sg] ; ਜਥੇ [pl] ( Gurmukhi ) ) is an armed body of Sikhs that has existed in Sikh tradition since 1699, the beginning of the Khalsa (Sikh martial order). A Jatha basically means a group of people. The word derives from the Sanskrit word yūtha , meaning a "herd, flock, multitude, troop, band, or host". After the creation of the Khalsa, Guru Gobind Singh is said to have created
106-472: A Khalsa, all the warriors were equipped with a long-sword and dagger ( kirpan ). Some but not all of the warriors wore body armour, excluding helmets. Horses were incredibly valued and mounts of high-quality were targeted during raids on the enemy transport convoys (columns and baggage trains). Later-on as the Jathas succeeded in capturing hostile resources, they came into the possession of more firearms in
159-597: A Sikh had to master to succeed in a Jatha. The Jathas were in ordinary times independent of one another and had to depend on itself to survive, but they co-operated on missions. All of the Jathas submitted to the authority of the Sarbat Khalsa and attended the annual Diwali convening in Amritsar. If a Gurmata was passed by the Sarbat Khalsa, the Jathas obeyed it. The Mughal government made peace with
212-576: A descendant of Prakrit. Punjabi emerged as an Apabhramsha, a degenerated form of Prakrit, in the 7th century AD and became stable by the 10th century. The earliest writings in Punjabi belong to the Nath Yogi -era from 9th to 14th century. The language of these compositions is morphologically closer to Shauraseni Apbhramsa , though vocabulary and rhythm is surcharged with extreme colloquialism and folklore. Writing in 1317–1318, Amir Khusrau referred to
265-668: A historian in 1809, and died in 1846 at the Battle of Sobraon . Rattan Singh's father, Rai Singh (d. 1810), would become the founder of Karor Singhnia Misal. Bhangu is primarily known for his historical text, (Pracheen) Panth Prakash ( Gurmukhi : ਪ੍ਰਾਚੀਨ ਪੰਥ ਪ੍ਰਕਾਸ਼). He was approached by the British East India Company who wished to know how the Sikhs rose to power in the Punjab Region. Vir Singh believes
318-589: A liberal approach. Through Persian, Punjabi also absorbed many Arabic-derived words like dukān , ġazal and more, as well as Turkic words like qēncī , sōġāt , etc. After the fall of the Sikh empire , Urdu was made the official language of Punjab under the British (in Pakistani Punjab , it is still the primary official language) and influenced the language as well. In the second millennium , Punjabi
371-706: A word will be pronounced, and vice versa. Tone is often reduced or rarely deleted when words are said with emphasis or on their own as a form of more exact identification. Sequences with the consonant h have some additional gimmicks: The consonant h on its own is now silent or very weakly pronounced except word-initially. However, certain dialects which exert stronger tone, particularly more northern Punjabi varieties and Dogri , pronounce h as very faint (thus tonal) in all cases. E.g. hatth > àtth . The Jhangvi and Shahpuri dialects of Punjabi (as they transition into Saraiki ) show comparatively less realisation of tone than other Punjabi varieties, and do not induce
424-482: Is a tendency with speakers to insert /ɪ̯/ between adjacent "a"-vowels as a separator. This usually changes to /ʊ̯/ if either vowel is nasalised. Note: for the tonal stops, refer to the next section about Tone. The three retroflex consonants /ɳ, ɽ, ɭ/ do not occur initially, and the nasals [ŋ, ɲ] most commonly occur as allophones of /n/ in clusters with velars and palatals (there are few exceptions). The well-established phoneme /ʃ/ may be realised allophonically as
477-436: Is always written as نگ . Like Hindustani , the diphthongs /əɪ/ and /əʊ/ have mostly disappeared, but are still retained in some dialects. Phonotactically , long vowels /aː, iː, uː/ are treated as doubles of their short vowel counterparts /ə, ɪ, ʊ/ rather than separate phonemes. Hence, diphthongs like ai and au get monophthongised into /eː/ and /oː/, and āi and āu into /ɛː/ and /ɔː/ respectively. The phoneme /j/
530-696: Is cognate with Sanskrit áp ( अप् ) and with the Av- of Avon . The historical Punjab region , now divided between India and Pakistan, is defined physiographically by the Indus River and these five tributaries . One of the five, the Beas River , is a tributary of another, the Sutlej . Punjabi developed from Prakrit languages and later Apabhraṃśa ( Sanskrit : अपभ्रंश , 'deviated' or 'non-grammatical speech') From 600 BC, Sanskrit developed as
583-570: Is identical to the Urdu alphabet , however various attempts have been made to create certain, distinct characters from a modification of the Persian Nastaʿlīq characters to represent Punjabi phonology , not already found in the Urdu alphabet . In Pakistan, Punjabi loans technical words from Persian and Arabic , just like Urdu does. Punjabi is the most widely spoken language in Pakistan ,
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#1732797634399636-452: Is very fluid in Punjabi. /j/ is only truly pronounced word-initially (even then it often becomes /d͡ʒ/), where it is otherwise /ɪ/ or /i/. Unusually for an Indo-Aryan language, Punjabi distinguishes lexical tones . Three tones are distinguished in Punjabi (some sources have described these as tone contours, given in parentheses): low (high-falling), high (low-rising), and level (neutral or middle). The transcriptions and tone annotations in
689-681: Is widely used in the TV and entertainment industry of Pakistan, which is mainly produced in Lahore . The Standard Punjabi used in India and Pakistan have slight differences. In India, it discludes many of the dialect-specific features of Majhi. In Pakistan, the standard is closer to the Majhi spoken in the urban parts of Lahore. "Eastern Punjabi" refers to the varieties of Punjabi spoken in Pakistani Punjab (specifically Northern Punjabi), most of Indian Punjab ,
742-489: The Babbar Akali Movement , formed in 1921, rejected non-violence and gave stiff resistance to the British, which led to small battles and assassinations, and eventually by 1939 were down to large shootouts. During the partition of Punjab in 1947, many Sikhs began to form armed Jatha squads for both defensive and offensive purposes against Muslims . When British rule came to an end in India, it had to make
795-681: The British colonial police . During these difficult times, Sikhs began forming jathas and new armed squads in British India, and many villages and towns relied on the protection of the Sikh jathas. Sikhs carried out many attacks and assassinations on the British, resulting in many Sikhs arrested and executed. The Sikhs played an influential role in the Indian independence movement . Prominent figures include Bhagat Singh and Udham Singh , who traveled to London and hunted down people who got away with
848-547: The Damdami Taksal in 1706. Its first Jathedar (leader) was Baba Deep Singh who died at the age of 83 by having his head severed in a battle against Durrani forces. In the Sikh tradition, a Jatha refers to a group of Sikh volunteers working together for a common cause, whether that cause is violent or peaceful. The term was already in use by the first half of the 18th century amongst the Sikhs but its exact point of origin has not been traced as of yet. The aftermath of
901-465: The Hazara region , most of Azad Kashmir and small parts of Indian Punjab such as Fazilka . These include groups of dialects like Saraiki , Pahari-Pothwari , Hindko and the extinct Inku ; common dialects like Jhangvi , Shahpuri , Dhanni and Thali which are usually grouped under the term Jatki Punjabi; and the mixed variety of Punjabi and Sindhi called Khetrani . Depending on context,
954-758: The Majha region of the Punjab. In India , Punjabi is written in the Gurmukhī script in offices, schools, and media. Gurmukhi is the official standard script for Punjabi, though it is often unofficially written in the Latin scripts due to influence from English , one of India's two primary official languages at the Union -level. In Pakistan, Punjabi is generally written using the Shahmukhī script, which in literary standards,
1007-468: The Singh Sabha movement to refer to "bands of preachers and choirs", an association which survives until the present-day. However, during the later Gurdwara reform movement , the terms began to take on a martial tone once again, resuscitating and harking back to the 18th century's context for the word. The group of Sikhs protesting and fighting for the freedom of Sikh shrines and places of worship from
1060-839: The United States , Australia , and the Gulf states . In Pakistan, Punjabi is written using the Shahmukhi alphabet , based on the Perso-Arabic script ; in India, it is written using the Gurmukhi alphabet , based on the Indic scripts . Punjabi is unusual among the Indo-Aryan languages and the broader Indo-European language family in its usage of lexical tone . The word Punjabi (sometimes spelled Panjabi ) has been derived from
1113-413: The h consonant itself and any voiced consonants appended with [h] (Gurmukhi: ੍ਹ "perī̃ hāhā" , Shahmukhi: ھ "dō-caśmī hē" ); usually ṛh , mh , nh , rh and lh . The five tonal plosives also become voiceless word-initially. E.g. ghar > kàr "house", ḍhōl > ṭṑl "drum" etc. Tonogenesis in Punjabi forfeits the sound of [h] for tone. Thus, the more [h] is realised, the less "tonal"
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#17327976343991166-503: The voiceless retroflex fricative [ʂ] in learned clusters with retroflexes. Due to its foreign origin, it is often also realised as [s] , in e.g. shalwār /salᵊ.ʋaːɾᵊ/ . The phonemic status of the consonants /f, z, x, ɣ, q/ varies with familiarity with Hindustani norms, more so with the Gurmukhi script, with the pairs /f, pʰ/ , /z, d͡ʒ/ , /x, kʰ/ , /ɣ, g/ , and /q, k/ systematically distinguished in educated speech, /q/ being
1219-779: The 1981 and 2017 censuses respectively, speakers of the Western Punjabi 's Saraiki and Hindko varieties were no longer included in the total numbers for Punjabi, which explains the apparent decrease. Pothwari speakers however are included in the total numbers for Punjabi. Punjabi is the official language of the Indian state of Punjab , and has the status of an additional official language in Haryana and Delhi. Some of its major urban centres in northern India are Amritsar , Ludhiana , Chandigarh , Jalandhar , Ambala , Patiala , Bathinda , Hoshiarpur , Firozpur and Delhi . In
1272-475: The 19th century from the Medieval Punjabi stage. Modern Punjabi has two main varieties, Western Punjabi and Eastern Punjabi , which have many dialects and forms, altogether spoken by over 150 million people. The Majhi dialect , which is transitional between the two main varieties, has been adopted as standard Punjabi in India and Pakistan for education and mass media. The Majhi dialect originated in
1325-684: The 2011 census of India, 31.14 million reported their language as Punjabi. The census publications group this with speakers of related "mother tongues" like Bagri and Bhateali to arrive at the figure of 33.12 million. Punjabi is also spoken as a minority language in several other countries where Punjabi people have emigrated in large numbers, such as the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada. There were 670,000 native Punjabi speakers in Canada in 2021, 300,000 in
1378-548: The East Punjab for Pakistan and thousands of Sikhs left Pakistan to go to "New" Punjab, but this journey resulted in thousands of lives lost due to massacres committed by both sides. Punjabi language Europe North America Oceania Punjabi , sometimes spelled Panjabi , is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Punjab region of Pakistan and India . It is one of the most widely spoken native languages in
1431-515: The Sikhs for a short sliver of time between 1733 and 1735 and allowed the Jathas to reside in Amritsar without being harassed. During this period, Nawab Kapur Singh, leader of the Sikhs at that time, decided to organize the various Jathas into two groups (' Dals ', referring to a "branch" or "section"): the Budha Dal (army of the old) and the Taruna Dal (army of the young). The Taruna Dal itself
1484-463: The United Kingdom in 2011, 280,000 in the United States and smaller numbers in other countries. Standard Punjabi (sometimes referred to as Majhi) is the standard form of Punjabi used commonly in education and news broadcasting , and is based on the Majhi dialect . Such as the variety used on Google Translate , Standard Punjabi is also often used in official online services that employ Punjabi. It
1537-570: The United States found no evidence of a separate falling tone following a medial consonant. It is considered that these tones arose when voiced aspirated consonants ( gh, jh, ḍh, dh, bh ) lost their aspiration. In Punjabi, tone is induced by the loss of [h] in tonal consonants. Tonal consonants are any voiced aspirates /ʱ/ and the voiced glottal fricative /ɦ/ . These include the five voiced aspirated plosives bh , dh , ḍh , jh and gh (which are represented by their own letters in Gurmukhi),
1590-656: The contemporary Ali ud-Din Mufti in his Ibrat Namah . Finally, on the annual Diwali meeting of the Sarbat Khalsa in Amritsar in 1748, the Jathas were reorganized into a new grouping called misls , with 11 Misls forming out of the various pre-existing Jathas and a unified army known as the Dal Khalsa Ji . Ultimate command over the Misls was bestowed to Jassa Singh Ahluwalia . The words Jatha and Jathedar began to fall into disuse after this point, as leaders of Misls preferred
1643-497: The control of hereditary mahants were termed Akali Jathas . The term Jatha began to refer to a "band of [Sikh] volunteers going forward to press a demand or to defy an unjust fiat of the government". This semantic of the word is still used. Jathas existed during the British Raj in the Punjab , northern India. During this time, the British imprisoned many Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims, and many villages and towns being raided by
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1696-460: The crucial decision of determining the borders of the new country of Pakistan. Some historians say the biggest mistake the British made before they left India was splitting the Sikh main land of Punjab in two, giving one half to the Islamic government of Pakistan and the other half to be run by a Hindu government. This led to non-stop bloodshed between many Sikhs and Muslims. Thousands of Muslims fled
1749-659: The devoicing of the main five tonal consonants ( bh , dh , ḍh , jh , gh ). The Gurmukhi script which was developed in the 16th century has separate letters for voiced aspirated sounds, so it is thought that the change in pronunciation of the consonants and development of tones may have taken place since that time. Some other languages in Pakistan have also been found to have tonal distinctions, including Burushaski , Gujari , Hindko , Kalami , Shina , and Torwali , though these (besides Hindko) seem to be independent of Punjabi. Ratan Singh Bhangu Ratan Singh Bhangu
1802-466: The eleventh-most widely spoken in India , and also present in the Punjabi diaspora in various countries. Approximate distribution of native Punjabi speakers (inc. Lahndic dialects ) (assuming a rounded total of 157 million) worldwide. Punjabi is the most widely spoken language in Pakistan , being the native language of 88.9 million people, or approximately 37% of the country's population. Beginning with
1855-488: The examples below are based on those provided in Punjabi University, Patiala 's Punjabi-English Dictionary . Level tone is found in about 75% of words and is described by some as absence of tone. There are also some words which are said to have rising tone in the first syllable and falling in the second. (Some writers describe this as a fourth tone.) However, a recent acoustic study of six Punjabi speakers in
1908-459: The execution of Banda Singh Bahadur and persecution of the Sikhs by the Mughal authorities led to the Sikhs gathering in armed nomadic groups, termed Jathas. Each Jatha was headed by a local leader, known as a Jathedar . The Jathedar was chosen based on merit alone, as only the most daring and courageous warrior of a particular band was selected for the honour. Devout Sikhs of the Khalsa joined
1961-418: The far-north of Rajasthan and on the northwestern border of Haryana . It includes the dialects of Majhi , Malwai , Doabi , Puadhi and the extinct Lubanki . Sometimes, Dogri and Kangri are grouped into this category. "Western Punjabi" or "Lahnda" ( لہندا , lit. ' western ' ) is the name given to the diverse group of Punjabi varieties spoken in the majority of Pakistani Punjab ,
2014-441: The form of matchlocks to equip their ranks with. The Sikhs avoided the use of heavy-artillery pieces as it impeded their military strategy of being quick and mobile. As per Rattan Singh Bhangu in his Panth Prakash , some light-artillery pieces were used by the Sikhs of this era, such as zamburaks (camel-mounted swivel cannons) and a long-range musket known as a janjail . The terms "jatha" and "jathedar" were revived during
2067-548: The killings in India. Most Sikh prison inmates were executed after the assassination of the high ranking British officer John Simon, 1st Viscount Simon , head of the Simon Commission from the British Parliament. There was also a bombing targeting the British courts. Bhagat Singh was said to have been behind most of the actions carried out against the British and was later hanged. Some Sikh jathas such as
2120-540: The language spoken by locals around the area of Lahore as Lahauri . The precursor stage of Punjabi between the 10th and 16th centuries is termed 'Old Punjabi', whilst the stage between the 16th and 19th centuries is termed as 'Medieval Punjabi'. The Arabic and Modern Persian influence in the historical Punjab region began with the late first millennium Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent . Since then, many Persian words have been incorporated into Punjabi (such as zamīn , śahir etc.) and are used with
2173-574: The latter three arise natively. Later, the letters ਜ਼ / ز , ਸ਼ / ش and ਫ਼ / ف began being used in English borrowings, with ਸ਼ / ش also used in Sanskrit borrowings . Punjabi has also had minor influence from and on neighbouring languages such as Sindhi , Haryanvi , Pashto and Hindustani . Note: In more formal contexts, hypercorrect Sanskritized versions of these words (ਪ੍ਰਧਾਨ pradhān for ਪਰਧਾਨ pardhān and ਪਰਿਵਾਰ parivār for ਪਰਵਾਰ parvār ) may be used. Modern Punjabi emerged in
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2226-602: The most rarely pronounced. The retroflex lateral is most commonly analysed as an approximant as opposed to a flap . Some speakers soften the voiceless aspirates /t͡ʃʰ, pʰ, kʰ/ into fricatives /ɕ, f, x/ respectively. In rare cases, the /ɲ/ and /ŋ/ phonemes in Shahmukhi may be represented with letters from Sindhi . The /ɲ/ phoneme, which is more common than /ŋ/, is written as نی or نج depending on its phonetic preservation, e.g. نیاݨا /ɲaːɳaː/ (preserved ñ ) as opposed to کنج /kiɲd͡ʒ/ (assimilated into nj ). /ŋ/
2279-465: The standard literary and administrative language and Prakrit languages evolved into many regional languages in different parts of India. All these languages are called Prakrit languages (Sanskrit: प्राकृत , prākṛta ) collectively. Paishachi Prakrit was one of these Prakrit languages, which was spoken in north and north-western India and Punjabi developed from this Prakrit. Later in northern India Paishachi Prakrit gave rise to Paishachi Apabhraṃśa ,
2332-460: The term ' Sardar ' to refer to themselves, due to Afghan influence. After the rise of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and the establishment of the Sikh Empire , various aspects of 18th century Sikhism, including Jatha formations, were abolished. 18th century warriors of a jatha were equipped at-first with knobbed clubs , spears , battle axes , bow and arrows , and matchlocks . As mandatory for
2385-539: The terms Eastern and Western Punjabi can simply refer to all the Punjabi varieties spoken in India and Pakistan respectively, whether or not they are linguistically Eastern/Western. While a vowel length distinction between short and long vowels exists, reflected in modern Gurmukhi orthographical conventions, it is secondary to the vowel quality contrast between centralised vowels /ɪ ə ʊ/ and peripheral vowels /iː eː ɛː aː ɔː oː uː/ in terms of phonetic significance. The peripheral vowels have nasal analogues . There
2438-456: The text was completed in 1841. However, Gurinder Mann suggests the work was completed in the early 1810's. Vir Singh is believed to the first to publish the text in 1914. In 2004, Balwant Singh Dhillon published a revised larger version of the text utilizing manuscripts, including the material that was excised in Vir Singh 's version. Scholars like Fenech and Harinder Singh have documented
2491-399: The various Jathas, which appealed to them to advance the cause of their religion and fight oppression. An important selection criterion for joining a Jatha was skill in horsemanship, as cavalry tactics and guerilla warfare was vital to the fighting style of the Jathas against the far more numerous Mughal and Afghan forces. Therefore, agility and maneuverability were the most critical skills that
2544-492: The various edits by Vir Singh (writer) in their scholarship, see Bhai Vir Singh’s Editing of Panth Prakāsh by Rattan Singh Bhangu. Bhangu was a member of the ruling Sikh aristocracy and had first-hand knowledge of the struggle and success of the Khalsa . Due to lack of written records at the time, the work was primarily compiled from oral histories , including interviews, family history, and information collected from British and French officers in Punjab. The work describes how
2597-581: The word Panj-āb , Persian for 'Five Waters', referring to the five major eastern tributaries of the Indus River . The name of the region was introduced by the Turko-Persian conquerors of South Asia and was a translation of the Sanskrit name, Panchanada , which means 'Land of the Five Rivers'. Panj is cognate with Sanskrit pañca ( पञ्च ), Greek pénte ( πέντε ), and Lithuanian Penki , all of which meaning 'five'; āb
2650-525: The world with approximately 150 million native speakers. Punjabi is the most widely-spoken first language in Pakistan, with 88.9 million native speakers according to the 2023 Pakistani census , and the 11th most widely-spoken in India, with 31.1 million native speakers, according to the 2011 census . It is spoken among a significant overseas diaspora , particularly in Canada , the United Kingdom ,
2703-514: Was lexically influenced by Portuguese (words like almārī ), Greek (words like dām ), Japanese (words like rikśā ), Chinese (words like cāh , līcī , lukāṭh ) and English (words like jajj , apīl , māsṭar ), though these influences have been minor in comparison to Persian and Arabic. In fact, the sounds / z / (ਜ਼ / ز ژ ذ ض ظ ), / ɣ / (ਗ਼ / غ ), / q / (ਕ਼ / ق ), / ʃ / (ਸ਼ / ش ), / x / (ਖ਼ / خ ) and / f / (ਫ਼ / ف ) are all borrowed from Persian, but in some instances
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#17327976343992756-629: Was a Sikh historian and Nihang who wrote about the Sikhs' struggles and rise to power in North India , in his book Prachin Panth Prakash. This work describes how the Sikh people came to dominate Punjab in the 1700s and remains one of the few historical accounts of the era. Rattan Singh was likely born in 1785 and passed in 1846. His grandfather, Mehtab Singh Bhangu , was a famous Sikh warrior who assassinated Massa Ranghar for defiling Darbar Sahib, Golden Temple . He began his work as
2809-470: Was further split into five sub-sections. Each sub-section of the Taruna Dal flew its own banner. However, state oppression of the Sikhs shortly after began again and the jathas started dividing themselves into more and more groups. Then on the annual Diwali convening of the Sarbat Khalsa in 1745, a Gurmata was passed that reorganized the Jathas into 25 groups. Yet the number of Jathas kept on ballooning until around 65 Jathas had begun to be known, as recorded by
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