75km
50miles

Baramulla

Srinagar

Bagh

Rajouri

Poonch

Jhelum

Murree

Mirpur

Gujarkhan

Bharakao

Abbottabad

Muzaffarabad

  

There are at least three major dialects: Pothwari, Mirpuri and Pahari. The Pothwari spoken in Gujar Khan is regarded as the most prestigious dialect of Pothwari spoken in Pakistan.

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

Pothwari extends southwards up to the Salt Range, with the city of Jhelum marking the border with Majha Punjabi. 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. Pothwari has been represented by their own people and their own community as they re-presented with their own ethnic group., 85.1% of households had Pothwari as mother tongue.

Among the dialects of the Pahari-Pothwari dialect cluster, the variety spoken on the Pothohar is the only native language in the Rawalpindi division and it is ethno-linguistic group. This Pothwari is also regarded as the most prestigious dialect spoken in the region.

Mirpur

East of the Pothwari areas, across the Jhelum River into Mirpur District in Azad Kashmir, the language is more similar to Pothwari than to the Pahari spoken in the rest of Azad Kashmir. Locally it is known by a variety of names: Pahari, Mirpur Pahari, 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 Pahari has been argued to be the second most common mother tongue in the UK, 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 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 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.

Phonology

Vowels

A long diphthong /ɑi/ can be realized as [äː].

Consonants

• Sounds [f, ʒ, χ, ʁ, q] are heard from Persian and Arabic loanwords.
• /h/ is realized as voiced [ɦ] in word-initial position.
• /n/ before a velar consonant can be heard as [ŋ].

Grammar and notable features

Future Tense

The future tense in Pothwari is formed by adding -s as opposed to the Eastern Punjabi gā.

This tense is also used in other Western Punjabi dialects such as the Jatki dialects, Shahpuri, Jhangochi and Dhanni, as well as in and Hindko and Saraiki.

This type of future tense was also used by classical Punjabi poets. Punjabi poet Bulleh Shah sometimes uses a similar form of future tense in his poetry

Shahmukhi: جو کُجھ کَرسین, سو کُجھ پاسیں

Transliteration: Jo kujh karsãi, so kujh paasãi

Translation: Whatsoever you do, is what you shall gain

- From one of Bulleh Shah's poems

Continuous Tense

Similar to other Punjabi varieties, Pothwari uses peyā (past tense form of pēṇā) to signify the continuous tense.

Present Continuous

Past Continuous

The past continuous tense in Pothwari resembles that of Eastern Punjabi, however depending on the dialect, there may be slight variations.

The place of "peyā" may sometimes be switched with respect to the verb.

"Tusā̃ báhū̃ changā kamm pa'e karne ò", meaning "You (plural/sing. formal) are doing a very good thing"

"Mē̃ vī tā̃ éhe gall karnā sā̃ peyā", meaning "I was also saying the same thing"

"Mē̃ vī tā̃ ehe gall peyā karnā ā̃̀", meaning "I am also saying the same thing"

Tribal groupings

Pahari-Pothwari speakers belong to the same tribes found in Punjab. While the names of the tribes remain the same, the Punjabi word for tribe Birādrī/Barādarī (برادری) becomes Bilādrī/Balādarī (بل ادری) in Pahari-Pothwari.

Numbering system

Pahari-Pothwari follows the numbering traditions of Standard Punjabi. A point of departure from Eastern Punjabi dialects occurs in the use of Trai (ترَے) instead of Tinn (تِنّ) for the number 3. Western Punjabi and Doabi also tend to use trai over tinn.

Similarly, Pothwari and other Western Punjabi dialects use "Yārā̃" (یاراں) for "Gyarā̃" (گیاراں), "Trei" (ترئی) for "Tei" (تئی) "Panji" (پنجِی) for "Pachchi" (پچّی) and "Trih" (ترِیہہ) for "Tih" (تِیہہ), for the numbers 11, 23, 25, and 30.

Ordinals

The ordinal numbers are largely the same. The only difference occurs in the words for Second and Third. Second is Doowa (دووا) in Pothwari, whilst it is Dooja (دوجا) in Punjabi. Likewise Third is Treeya (تریا) in Pothwari whilst it is Teeja (تیجا) in Punjabi. Western Punjabi in general tends to follow this trend.

Direct case in Pahari-Pothwari

The direct case endings in Pahari-Pothwari remain the same as Standard Punjabi however the Direct pronouns differ.

The oblique/ergative case

Oblique case endings remain the same between Pahari-Pothwari and Standard Punjabi however Oblique/Ergative pronouns are not used in Pahari-Pothwari.

Vocative , Locative and Instrumental case in Punjabi

These cases remain the same between Pahari-Pothwari and Standard Punjabi.

Dative and definite object marker

The dative and definite object marker in Pothwari is kī (ਕੀ /کی) as opposed to nū̃ (ਨੂੰ / نوں) in Standard Punjabi.

For example:

The phrase: lokkā̃ nū̃ (ਲੋਕਾਂ ਨੂੰ / لوکاں نوں), meaning "to the people" in Standard Punjabi, would become lokkā̃ kī (ਲੋਕਾਂ ਕੀ / لوکاں کی) in Pothwari.

Hence, the personal pronouns would be as follows:

Genitive marker

The genitive marker in Pahari-Pothwari is represented through the use of nā (ਨਾ / نا) as opposed to dā (ਦਾ / دا).

For example:

The phrase: lokkā̃ dā (ਲੋਕਾਂ ਦਾ / لوکاں دا), meaning "people's" or "of the people" in Pahari-Pothwari, would become lokkā̃ nā (ਲੋਕਾਂ ਨਾ / لوکاں نا).

This also affects some of the possessive pronouns as described above.

It should also be noted that in Pahari-Pothwari, the present form of verb does not end with the standard dā sound either, and is replaced with nā.

For example:

Miki eh nahi si chāhinā (میکی ایہہ نہیں سی چاہی نا), meaning "This is not what I wanted"

Oh kay pyā ākhnā ae? (اوہ کے پیا آکھنا اے؟), meaning "What is he saying?"

This also affects the common Punjabi passive tense:

Isrā̃ nahi ākhee nā (اِسراں نہیں آکھی نا), instead of "ākhee dā", meaning "This is now how it should be said"

genitive pronouns also change

Oblique case of nouns

Pahari-Pothwari has unique forms for nouns in oblique cases. This is not observed in Standard Punjabi, but is seen in Hindko.

Adding "i" to root form of verb

A peculiar feature of Pahari-Pothwari is to end the basic root form of verbs with an "i" sound.

Vocabulary

Words for "Coming" and "Going"

The Pahari-Pothwari word for "coming" is acchṇā, whereas for "going" gacchṇā, julṇā and jāṇā are used.

The imperative for gacchṇā is both gacch and gau.

Causative verbs

Pahari-Pothwari causative verbs end with -ālnā.

*notes

Not all causative verbs are formed like this to play-Kherna to kharāna

Words used for "Taking" and "Bringing"

Commonly observed in the Lahnda dialects is the use of Ghinṇā (گھِننا) and Aaṇnā (آننا) instead of the Eastern Punjabi words Laiṇā (لَینا) and Lyāṇā (لیانا).

Notice how Ghin āo becomes Ghini achho, and Ghin ghidā becomes Ghini ghidā in accordance with Pothwari grammar and vocabulary.

Irregular past tense of verbs

Pahari-Pothwari generally follows the common Punjabi irregular verbs (e.g. khādhā, peetā, nahātā, dhotā, moyā, latthā, khalotā, ḍaṭṭhā, suttā, keetā, dittā, ghidā, seetā, baddhā).

Some additional forms are observed in bantā (بنتا) for banyā and khaltā (کھلتا) for khalā.

For example:

Miki sarkay apar khaltyon addhā ghantā hoi gya sā

Menu sark tey khalyā̃/khlotyā̃ addhā ghantā ho gya si

(It had been an hour since I was waiting on the road)

Chā kadon ni banti hoi ae

Chā kadon di bani hoi ae

(The tea has been ready for quite some time)

Interrogative words

Pahari-Pothwari vocabulary similarities with other Western Punjabi dialects

*note

for boy murra is generally preferred