Saraiki language
| Saraiki | |
|---|---|
| سرائیکی | |
| Native to | Pakistan |
| Region |
|
| Ethnicity | Saraikis |
Native speakers | 28.84 million |
| Shahmukhi (Saraiki alphabet) Gurmukhi | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | skr |
| Glottolog | sera1259 |
The proportion of people with Saraiki as their mother tongue in each Pakistani District as of the 2017 Pakistan Census | |
Saraiki ( سرائیکی, Sarā'īkī, [səɾaːiːkiː]; also spelt Siraiki, or Seraiki) is a Lahnda language variety in the Indo-Aryan language family. It is spoken by 28.84 million people, as per the 2023 Pakistani census, taking prevalence in southern Punjab with remants in northern Sindh and southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Saraiki has partial 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 effects of dominant languages in Pakistani media like Urdu, Standard Punjabi and English and religious impact of Arabic and Persian, Saraiki, like other regional varieties of Pakistan, is continuously expanding its vocabulary base with loan words.