Page:A grammar of Panjabee language (IA dli.csl.8227).pdf/2



OF THE

PANJÁBEE LANGUAGE.

This language, as spoken in large Towns, is a dialect of the Urdoo or Hindus­tany, and differs from it chiefly in having those vowels short, that the latter has long, and in having the Sanscrit Visarg in the middle of words otherwise Hindustany: for example, the number eighteen they call attàhràn, and not athàrà,

On the Sikh frontiers, Panjabee slightly mixes with the neighbouring dialects. In Bhawalpoor it partakes of Sindhy. There are two characters in which the language is written; Goormukhee, the character of the Granth (Gospels of 10 holy men), and Lande, used by the merchants in their accounts. The character used in the mountains of Jammoo and Nadoun, differs from the Lande of the capital, and the merchants even of different cities and districts, as Sealkot and Guzerat for instance, differ slightly in their manner of writing this character.

The Sikhs under their preceptor Guroo, Govind Singh, carried their hatred of the Mabhommedans to such an extent, as to substitute a vocabulary for their native Panjabee, because the latter was spoken by the Masalmen.

The vocabulary is composed of ridiculous and disrespectful epithets of every thing relating to Islamism, it is not however used by Mahàrajah Runjeet Singh, the ruler of the Sikh nation.