"Hindko Language: Where It Is Spoken and How It Differs"

The Hindko language is the main language of the Hazara division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, spoken by most people in Abbottabad, Haripur and Mansehra, and by old families in Peshawar's walled city, Kohat and Attock. In the 2023 census about 5.6 million Pakistanis, 2.32 per cent of the population, gave Hindko as their mother tongue. It is close to Punjabi and Saraiki, so a Punjabi speaker from Lahore will follow much of it, but it has its own sounds, grammar and literature.

This guide covers where Hindko is spoken, how it differs from Punjabi, its dialects and writers, and what it means for a traveller driving north through Hazara.

What does "Hindko" mean?

The name means roughly "the language of Hind", the Indian language. It was the name Pashto speakers used for the Indo-Aryan speech of their neighbours, to set it apart from their own Iranian language, Pashto. It is not one standard language so much as a family of closely related local varieties, grouped together under one name.

Where is Hindko spoken?

Hazara

Hazara is the heart of Hindko today. The 2023 census figures, as reported on Wikipedia's district pages, show how dominant it is:

In Mansehra the picture changes as you go up the Kaghan valley. Hindko remains the bazaar language, but Gujari and Kohistani are also spoken there, and the census puts other languages at about 12 per cent of the district.

Peshawar and Kohat

Peshawar's walled city was for centuries a Hindko-speaking town inside a Pashto-speaking countryside. Before 1947, a large share of Peshawar's Hindko speakers were Hindus and Sikhs, and most of them left for India at Partition. Pashto speakers moved into the city's trade, and later the arrival of Afghan refugees added to that shift. By 2023 the census counted 93.07 per cent of Peshawar district as Pashto speakers and 3.79 per cent as Hindko speakers. Hindko is still heard among old families of the inner city, and Peshawari Hindko has the strongest literary tradition of any dialect. Kohat has followed a similar path.

Attock and Azad Kashmir

Across the Indus in Punjab, the Chhachhi and Ghebi varieties of Attock district are usually counted as Hindko. Hindko is also spoken in parts of the Neelum valley in Azad Kashmir; our guide to languages spoken in Azad Kashmir covers that side.

How is Hindko different from Punjabi?

Hindko and Punjabi are related closely enough that speakers of each understand a good deal of the other. Linguists class Hindko in the Lahnda, or western Punjabi, group, alongside Saraiki and Pothwari. The term Lahnda was coined by the missionary William St. Clair Tisdall around 1890 and taken up by George Grierson in his Linguistic Survey of India. Wikipedia sums up the current view: Hindko is to some extent mutually intelligible with standard Punjabi and Saraiki, and has more in common with Saraiki.

The main differences a listener notices are these.

• The future tense. Lahnda languages, Hindko included, form the future with an -s- sound, where the Punjabi of Lahore uses -ga. This is the single most quoted difference.
• Tone. Like Punjabi, Hindko lost its old breathy consonants and developed tones in their place. The pattern differs, though: where central Punjabi has a low-rising tone, Peshawari Hindko has a high-falling one, which gives it a different melody.
• Consonants. Hazara Hindko pronounces some sounds as ch and j where Awankari, a more southerly variety, keeps a harder stop.

The practical result: a Lahori in an Abbottabad bazaar will understand much of what is said, will notice that it sounds different, and will usually be answered in Urdu or Punjabi if they speak first.

What are the Hindko dialects?

Linguists usually group them like this:

• Peshawari Hindko, the urban variety of the old city, with the strongest written tradition.
• Northern or Hazara Hindko, spoken across Abbottabad, Mansehra and the Kaghan side, including the Tanoli variety and the Hindko of the Kaghan valley. These are fairly uniform.
• Central varieties, including Kohati, Chhachhi and Ghebi (Attock) and Awankari.

Ethnologue divides them into Northern Hindko and Southern Hindko. The best academic description of a single variety is A Descriptive Grammar of Hindko, Panjabi, and Saraiki by Thomas Conners and Elena Bashir (2019), which takes the Hindko of Abbottabad as its model.

Is Hindko written? Its writers and books

Hindko is written in Shahmukhi, the Perso-Arabic script that Punjabi uses in Pakistan. Its literary tradition is strongest in Peshawar, where Sain Ahmad Ali is among the celebrated poets.

The main organisation is the Gandhara Hindko Board, founded in Peshawar in 1993, with its office at Rampura Gate in the old city. It publishes magazines and books, including two large Hindko dictionaries, and it published the first Hindko translation of the Quran, by Haider Zaman Haider. It also holds regular literary sittings. In Abbottabad, the linguist Sultan Sakoon compiled a Hindko dictionary published in 2003.

What it means for travellers

For most travellers Hindko is the language of the road north. Drive the Hazara Motorway from Islamabad towards Abbottabad, Mansehra and the Kaghan valley, and much of what you hear at petrol stations, dhabas and bazaars is Hindko, not Pashto. The drivers, shopkeepers and hotel staff you deal with will switch to Urdu without being asked.

You do not need any Hindko. What helps is knowing that Hazara is not mainly Pashto country: fewer than 6 per cent of Abbottabad district speak Pashto as a first language. Urdu is the safe choice, and a Punjabi speaker will usually be understood in Punjabi. Our guide to places to visit in Hazara covers the region, and places to visit in Abbottabad has the town itself.

In Peshawar's old city, Hindko marks out the old trading families of the walled city. If you hear it in the lanes behind Qissa Khwani, that is what you are hearing. The UK government currently advises against all travel to Peshawar and Kohat, and against all travel on the Karakoram Highway between Mansehra and Chilas, so check current advice and local news before planning those parts of a trip. Abbottabad, Haripur and Mansehra town are not on that list.

Is Hindko worth learning about?

If you live in Islamabad and spend weekends in the Galiyat or Abbottabad, yes: it is the language all around you, and knowing a little about it makes the region make more sense. It also explains why Hazara feels different from Swat or Mardan, even though all of them are in the same province.

If you want a phrasebook, Hindko is the wrong place to spend your effort. Urdu does the work in Hazara, and Pashto is more useful if you are heading to Swat or Peshawar. Our languages of Pakistan guide puts Hindko alongside the others, our basic Pashto phrases guide covers the Pashto side, and the Pakistan travel guide has the practical basics.

Frequently asked questions