Sindhi language - Definition and Overview

Sindhi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by approximately 17 million people in the province of Sindh, Pakistan. Sindhi is also a recognised official language of India, where it is spoken by approximately 1.2 million members of an ethnic group which migrated from the province of Sindh, 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.

External links

Wikipedia articles written in this language are located at the

Sindhi language Wikipedia