Sindhi is the language of the Sindh region of South Asia, which is now a province of Pakistan. It is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by approximately 17 million people in Pakistan, and 2.8 million in India; it is also a recognised official language in both of these countries. Most Sindhi speakers in Pakistan are concentrated in Sindh. The remaining speakers are found spread throughout the many areas of the world (mainly other parts of India) to which members of an ethnic group migrated when Sindh became a part of Pakistan during the partition of British India in 1947. The language can be written using the Devanagari or Arabic scripts.
Alphabet
Sindhi has its own script which is similar to that of Arabic but with many extra accents and phonetics. There are 52 characters in the Sindhi language.
Similarities to related languages
There are many words similar to traditional Indo-Aryan languages such as:
- Ar compared to arable, aratro, etc.
- Hari (Farmer) similar to harvest and so on.
History
Sindhi was a very popular literary language around the 14th-18th centuries. This is when sufis such as Shah Abdul Latif (as well as numerous others) narrated their theosophical poetry depicting the relationship between humans and God.
The Qur'an was first translated into Sindhi in rhymatic format. This was the first ever translation of Qur'an in the 12th century or earlier.
Current status
Sindhi is taught as a first language in the schools of south-east Pakistan, except in large metropolises like Karachi. Sindhi language has a vast vocabulary; this has made it a favourite of many writers and so a lot of literature and poetry has been written in Sindhi.
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