Doabi ( ; ), also known as Bist Doabi or Jalandhari, is an
eastern dialect of the
Punjabi language
Punjabi, sometimes spelled Panjabi, is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language native to the Punjab region of Pakistan and India. It is one of the most widely spoken native languages in the world, with approximately 150 million native sp ...
. The dialect is named after the region in which it originated,
Doaba or
Bist Doab, between the
Beas and
Sutlej
The Sutlej River or the Satluj River is a major river in Asia, flowing through China, India and Pakistan, and is the longest of the five major rivers of the Punjab region. It is also known as ''Satadru''; and is the easternmost tributary of t ...
. Its occurrence in parts of
Pakistani Punjab
Punjab (, ) is a province of Pakistan. With a population of over 127 million, it is the most populous province in Pakistan and the second most populous subnational polity in the world. Located in the central-eastern region of the country, i ...
owes to
post-1947 migration of
Punjabi Muslim populace from
East Punjab
East Punjab was a state of Dominion of India from 1947 until 1950. It consisted parts of the Punjab Province of British India that remained in India following the partition of the state between the new dominions of Pakistan and India by the ...
. The region it is now spoken includes: the
Jalandhar
Jalandhar () is a city in the state of Punjab, India, Punjab in India. With a considerable population, it ranks as the List of cities in Punjab and Chandigarh by population, third most-populous city in the state and is the largest city in the ...
,
Hoshiarpur
Hoshiarpur () is a city and a Municipal corporations in India, municipal corporation in Hoshiarpur district in the Doaba region of the Indian state of Punjab, India, Punjab. It was founded, according to tradition, during the early part of the ...
,
Kapurthala
Kapurthala () is a city in Punjab state of India. It is the administrative headquarters of Kapurthala District. It was the capital of the Kapurthala State, a princely state in British India. The aesthetic mix of the city with its prominent b ...
,
Una and
Nawanshahr districts of
Indian Punjab, including the areas known as the Dona and
Manjki; and the
Toba Tek Singh and
Faisalabad
Faisalabad, formerly known as Lyallpur, is the List of cities in Punjab, Pakistan by population, second-largest city and primary List of cities in Punjab, Pakistan by population, industrial center of the Pakistani province of Punjab, Pakistan ...
districts of
Pakistani Punjab
Punjab (, ) is a province of Pakistan. With a population of over 127 million, it is the most populous province in Pakistan and the second most populous subnational polity in the world. Located in the central-eastern region of the country, i ...
; and some areas of
Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh (; Sanskrit: ''himācāl prādes;'' "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a States and union territories of India, state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen Indian Himalayan ...
and
Jammu and Kashmir.
The sub dialects of Doabi include Dona and Manjki.
Phonology
Consonants
Spirantisation of // and // is quite common in Punjabi, but this is less apparent in Doaba. Similarly, other Persian-borrowed phonemes are also pronounced in a more indigenous manner. are pronounced respectively. Another surprising aspect is that is almost always pronounced as .
Debuccalisation of , to in between vowels also occurs.
In the modern generation, and are pronounced as and . Except, some youngsters end up replacing and with and completely, rather than preferring the alveolar counterparts. and are also often realised as
nasal
Nasal is an adjective referring to the nose, part of human or animal anatomy. It may also be shorthand for the following uses in combination:
* With reference to the human nose:
** Nasal administration, a method of pharmaceutical drug delivery
* ...
and
lateral flaps.
Doabi's
fortition
In articulatory phonetics, fortition, also known as strengthening, is a consonantal change that increases the degree of stricture. It is the opposite of the more common lenition. For example, a fricative or an approximant may become a stop (i ...
at the start of a word to
as in (big) to .
They also use elsewhere in a word instead of as in (dream) to . A distinctive feature of Doabi is the use of w. Where appears in the middle of a word in
Standard Punjabi
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 the world, with approximately 150 million native speakers.
Punjabi is t ...
, Doabis use so that (wind) becomes .
Also, the vowel is pronounced . Accordingly, (happy) becomes or (to beat - noun form) becomes . In Doabi, any word beginning with stressed is pronounced . For example, the word (to pull - noun form) is pronounced as or the word (in
omething is pronounced as .
The Doabi dialect in its eastern part blends with the Malwai dialect of Ludhiana District, and in its Northern side, it shares the linguistic features of Pahari. Some of the linguistic features of the Doabi dialect that separate it from other Punjabi dialects are as below:
* does not occur word initially
Vowels
Doabi has ten vowels. These are
For example:
One of the most distinctive feature of Doabi is how its short close vowels are pronounced. Phonemically, they are:
*
*
But are phonetically :
*
*
Nasalisation
Nasalisation in Punjabi is phonemic.
Suprasegmental Features
Tone
Three tones are used in Doabi; low, mid and high. For example;
This
tonogenesis
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All oral languages use pitch to express emotional and other para-linguistic information and to convey emphasis ...
occurred from the loss of
breathy voiced
Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like s ...
consonants. Word-initially, they became voiceless plosives, but remained voiced word-medially and finally. This loss of
phonemes
A phoneme () is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages con ...
led to tone to distinguish between similar
morphemes
A morpheme is any of the smallest meaningful constituents within a linguistic expression and particularly within a word. Many words are themselves standalone morphemes, while other words contain multiple morphemes; in linguistic terminology, this ...
.
When the consonant (that was breathy-voiced) is word initial, the vowel that follows has a falling tone. When the consonant is medial or word-final, it has a rising tone.
Loss of word-final also led to a rising tone in the preceding vowel.
Stress, however can change what tone on what syllable is present.
Stress
Stress in Doabi is realized in two ways, syntagmatically and paradigmatically.
Syntagmatically, stress-shift results in change of meaning. This kind of stress is often orthographically unmarked, and may shift any tone present in a word to the stressed syllable.
For example:
Paradigmatically, Doabi has stressed and unstressed syllables;
Some basic vocabulary items
Fortition of word-initially
Doabi's drop the letter "v" at the start of a word and use the letter "b"
as in "vàdda" (big) to "bàdda". They also use the letter "o" elsewhere in a word instead of a "v" as in "Khvab" (dream) to "Khoaab". A distinctive feature of Doabi is the use of the "w" sound. Where "v" appears in the middle of a word in standard Punjabi, Doabis use "w" so that "hava" (wind) becomes "hawa". Also, the vowel "u" is pronounced with an "o". Accordingly, "khush" (happy) becomes "khosh" or "kuht" (to beat) becomes "koht". In Doabi, any word beginning with "i" is pronounced with "e". For example, the word "khich" (to pull) is pronounced as "khech" or the word "vich" (inside) is pronounced as "bech".
Doabis do not use "z" and therefore substitute "j". This is common in the Punjabi language as "z" is not indigenous to the area.
Grammar
Sentence structure
Doabi's end sentences with "aa" (present tense) and "sigey" (past —tense), instead of "han" (present tense) and "san" or "si" (past tense). "Aiddan", "Jiddan", "Kiddan" are all commonly used adverbs in Doabi as opposed to the "Aistaran/Enj," "Jistaran/Jivven," and "Kistaran/Kivven," used in Punjabi's
prestige dialect
Prestige in sociolinguistics is the level of regard normally accorded a specific language or dialect within a speech community, relative to other languages or dialects. Prestige varieties are language or dialect families which are generally c ...
,
Majhi.
Present Tense: Usage of aa (sing.) and aa (plu.)
Examples:
Past Tense: Uninflected sī, or number- and gender-inflected sīgā/sīgī/sīge/sīgīā, in Doabi
Examples:
Vocabulary
Orthograpy
Doabi uses the Gurmukhi script.
Tone that occurs from the loss of breathy voiced consonants is shown through the following characters in
orthography
An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis.
Most national ...
:
* ਘ
* ਝ
* ਢ
* ਧ
* ਭ
* ੜ੍ਹ
See also
*
Languages of Pakistan
Pakistan is a List of multilingual countries and regions, multilingual country with over 70 languages spoken as first languages. The majority of Pakistan's languages belong to the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian group of the Indo-European l ...
*
Languages of India
Languages of India belong to several list of language families, language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 78.05% of Indian people, Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64% of Indians; both fami ...
*
List of Indian languages by total speakers
The Republic of India is home to several hundred languages. Most Indians speak a language belonging to the families of the Indo-Aryan branch of Indo-European (c. 77%), the Dravidian (c. 20.61%), the Austroasiatic (precisely Munda and Kha ...
*
Malwi dialect
*
Puadhi dialect
*
Omission of word-final shwa in Indo-Aryan languages
Notes
References
{{Punjabi dialects
Languages of Punjab, Pakistan
Languages of Punjab, India
Languages of India
Punjabi culture
Punjabi dialects