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Lahndā and Lahndī

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Extract

In the Linguistic Survey of India the language spoken in the Western Panjāb is called Lahndā. Previously it had, in India, not been recognized as any independent form of speech, the many local dialects there spoken—Mūltānī, Sirāikī, Hindkī, Jaṭkī, and so on—being looked upon merely as so many dialects of Panjābī. Panjābīs themselves had no general name for this group as a separate entity. When they wished to express that idea they employed a periphrasis, such as Lahndē-dī bōlī, or “ the dialect of the West ”.

European scholars, however, had by that time long recognized the fact that a general name for the whole group was needed, and more than forty years ago one of the first describers of the language, Mr. Tisdall, named it “ the Lahindā ”, i.e. Lahndā, “ dialect.” I am not especially enamoured, myself, of this name, but as it had not been challenged for some thirty years, as it was not inconsistent with English idiom, and as no better name had been suggested, I employed it in the Survey.

Type
Papers Contributed
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1930

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References

page 883 note 1 I may add that in the year 1898 I consulted the Panjāb Education Department on this particular point, and the result of the inquiries then instituted, was as above.

page 883 note 2 As we shall see “ Lahindā ” and “ Lahndā ” are only local varieties of spelling the same word.

page 883 note 3 See BSOS., vol. 5, p. 617.Google Scholar

page 884 note 1 The word presents difficulties in transliteration, as the n is merely a nasalization and not a pure consonant. But, for our present purposes, the above spelling will do. So also for lahindā, later on.

page 886 note 1 Cf. what I have said above about “ The Lahndā ”. It is hardly necessary to point out that this country is quite distinct from “ Mālwā ”of Rājpūtānā.