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Pahari-Pothwari

Lahnda dialect group spoken in Pakistan

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The group is transitional between Hindko and Majhi-based Standard Punjabi and is mutually intelligible with both. There have been efforts at cultivation as a literary language, although a local standard has not been established yet. The Shahmukhi script is used to write the language, such as in the works of Punjabi poet Mian Muhammad Bakhsh.

Grierson in his early 20th-century Linguistic Survey of India assigned it to a so-called "northern cluster" of Lahnda (Western Punjabi), but this classification, as well as the validity of the Lahnda grouping in this case, have been called into question. In a sense all Lahnda varieties, and Standard Punjabi are "dialects" of a "Greater Punjabic" macrolanguage.

Geographic distribution and dialects

There are at least three major dialects: Pothwari, Mirpuri and Pahari.

The dialects are mutually intelligible, but the difference between the northernmost and the southernmost dialects (from Muzaffarabad and Mirpur respectively) is enough to cause difficulties in understanding.

Pothohar Plateau

Pothwari (پوٹھوہاری), also spelt Potwari, Potohari and Pothohari, is spoken in the northern half of Pothohar Plateau of northwestern Punjab, an area administratively within Rawalpindi Division. Pothwari is its most common name, and some call it Pindiwal Punjabi to differentiate it from the dialects spoken elsewhere in Punjab.

Pothwari extends southwards up to the Salt Range, with the city of Jhelum marking the border with Majhi dialect. To the north, Pothwari transitions into the Pahari-speaking area, with Bharakao, near Islamabad, generally regarded as the point where Pothwari ends and Pahari begins. In Attock and Talagang districts of Pothohar, it comes in contact with other Lahnda varieties, namely Chacchi, Awankari and Ghebi. In Chakwal, yet another dialect is spoken, Dhani.

Pothwari is generally viewed as a dialect of Punjabi, and in census reports the speakers in Punjab return their language as Punjabi.

Mirpur

East of the Pothwari areas, across the Jhelum River into Mirpur District in Azad Kashmir, the language is mostly indistinguishable from the Pothwari spoken in the neighbouring Pothohar Plateau rather than the Pahari which is spoken in the rest of Azad Kashmir. Locally it is known by a variety of names: Pothohari, Mirpur Pothwari, Mirpuri, and Pothwari, while some of its speakers call it Punjabi. Mirpuris possess a strong sense of Kashmiri identity that overrides linguistic identification with closely related groups outside Azad Kashmir, such as the Pothwari Punjabis. The Mirpur region has been the source of the greater part of Pakistani immigration to the UK, a process that started when thousands were displaced by the construction of the Mangla Dam in the 1960s and emigrated to fill labour shortages in England. The British Mirpuri diaspora now numbers several hundred thousand, and Pothwari has been claimed to be the second most common mother tongue in the UK till replaced by Polish, yet the language is little known in the wider society there and its status has remained surrounded by confusion.

Kashmir, Murree and the Galyat

Pahari (پہاڑی) is spoken to the north of Pothwari. The central cluster of Pahari dialects is found around Murree. This area is in the Galyat: the hill country of Murree Tehsil in the northeast of Rawalpindi District (just north of the capital Islamabad) and the adjoining areas in southeastern Abbottabad District. One name occasionally found in the literature for this language is Dhundi-Kairali (Ḍhūṇḍī-Kaiṛālī), a term first used by Grierson who based it on the names of the two major tribes of the area – the Kairal and the Dhund. Its speakers call it Pahari in Murree Tehsil, while in Abbottabad District it is known as either Hindko or Ḍhūṇḍī. Nevertheless, Hindko – properly the language of the rest of Abbottabad District and the neighbouring areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – is generally regarded as a different language. It forms a dialect continuum with Pahari, and the transition between the two is in northern Azad Kashmir and in the Galyat region. For example, on the road from Murree northwest towards the city of Abbottabad, Pahari gradually changes into Hindko between Ayubia and Nathiagali.

A closely related dialect is spoken across the Jhelum River in Azad Kashmir, north of the Mirpuri areas. Names associated in the literature with this dialect are Pahari (itself the term most commonly used by the speakers themselves), Chibhālī, named after the Chibhal region or the Chibh ethnic group, and Pahari (Poonchi) (پونچھی, also spelt Punchhi). The latter name has been variously applied to either the Chibhali variety specific to the district of Poonch, or to the dialect of the whole northern half of Azad Kashmir. This dialect (or dialects) has been seen either as a separate dialect from the one in Murree, or as belonging to the same central group of Pahari dialects. The dialect of the district of Bagh, for example, has more shared vocabulary with the core dialects from Murree (86–88%) than with the varieties of either Muzaffarabad (84%) or Mirpur (78%).

In Muzaffarabad the dialect shows lexical similarity of 83–88% with the central group of Pahari dialects, which is high enough for the authors of the sociolinguistic survey to classify it is a central dialect itself, but low enough to warrant noting its borderline status. The speakers however tend to call their language Hindko and to identify more with the Hindko spoken to the west, despite the lower lexical similarity (73–79%) with the core Hindko dialects of Abbottabad and Mansehra. Further north into the Neelam Valley the dialect, now known locally as Parmi, becomes closer to Hindko.

Pahari is also spoken further east across the Line of Control into the Pir Panjal mountains in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir. The population, estimated at 1 million, is found in the region between the Jhelum and Chenab rivers: most significantly in the districts of Poonch and Rajouri, to a lesser extent in neighbouring Baramulla and Kupwara, and also – as a result of the influx of refugees during the Partition of 1947 – scattered throughout the rest of Jammu and Kashmir. Pahari is among the regional languages listed in the sixth schedule of the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir. This Pahari is sometimes conflated with the Western Pahari languages spoken in the mountainous region in the south-east of Indian Jammu and Kashmir. These languages, which include Bhadarwahi and its neighbours, are often called "Pahari", although not same they are closely related to Pahari–Pothwari.

Diaspora

Pahari Pothwari is also very widely spoken in the United Kingdom. Labour shortages after World War II, and the displacement of peoples caused by the construction of the Mangla Dam, facilitated extensive migration of Pahari-Pothwari speakers to the UK during the 1950s and 1960s, especially from the Mirpur District. Academics estimate that between two thirds and 80% of people officially classified as British Pakistanis originate as part of this diaspora, with some suggesting that it is the second most spoken language of the United Kingdom, ahead of even Welsh, with hundreds of thousands of speakers. However, since there is little awareness of the identity of the language among speakers, census results do not reflect this. The highest proportions of Pahari-Pothwari speakers are found in urban centres, especially the West Midlands conurbation and the West Yorkshire Built-up Area.

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