Saraiki language

Saraiki
سرائیکی
Saraiki in Shahmukhi script (Nastaʿlīq style)
Native to	Pakistan
Region	South Punjab and neighbouring regions
Ethnicity	Saraiki
Native speakers	26 million (2017)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Northwestern Saraiki
Writing system	Perso-Arabic (Saraiki alphabet)
Official status
Regulated by	Saraiki area study centre (SASC), BZU Multan
Language codes
ISO 639-3	skr
Glottolog	sera1259
The proportion of people with Saraiki as their mother tongue in each Pakistani District as of the 2017 Pakistan Census
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Saraiki ( سرائیکی Sarā'īkī; also spelt Siraiki, or Seraiki) is an Indo-Aryan language of the Lahnda group, spoken by 26 million people primarily in the south-western half of the province of Punjab in Pakistan. It was previously known as Multani, after its main dialect.

Saraiki appears to be a transitional language between Punjabi and Sindhi. Spoken in Upper Sindh as well as the southern Panjab, it is sometimes considered a dialect of either Sindhi or of Panjabi due to a high degree of mutual intelligibility.^[2] Saraiki has partial mutual intelligibility with Standard Punjabi,^[3] and it shares with it a large portion of its vocabulary and morphology. At the same time in its phonology it is radically different^[4] (particularly in the lack of tones, the preservation of the voiced aspirates and the development of implosive consonants), and has important grammatical features in common with the Sindhi language spoken to the south.^[5] Saraiki however, does relate considerably with other Western Punjabi dialects.^{[citation needed]} There is a political movement in Pakistan to declare Saraiki the administrative language of its own region.^[2]

The Saraiki language identity arose in the 1960s, encompassing more narrow local earlier identities (like Multani, Derawi or Riasati),^[6] and distinguishing itself from broader ones like that of Punjabi.^[7]

Due to effects of dominant languages in Pakistani media like Urdu, Standard Punjabi and English and religious impact of Arabic and Persian, Saraiki like other regional varieties of Pakistan are continuously expanding its vocabulary base with loan words.^[8]