Punjabi Language: Where It Is Spoken and Useful Phrases

The Punjabi language is the most widely spoken mother tongue in Pakistan. The 2023 census counted about 88.9 million native speakers, 36.98 per cent of the population, most of them in Punjab, from Lahore and Gujranwala to Faisalabad, Sargodha and the Pothohar plateau around Rawalpindi. In Pakistan it is written in Shahmukhi, a form of the Urdu alphabet, and it comes in several dialects, of which Majhi, the Punjabi of Lahore, is the base of the standard form.

You do not need Punjabi to travel in Punjab, since almost everyone also speaks Urdu. But a few words of it change the tone of a conversation in a bazaar or a village. This guide covers where Punjabi is spoken, how it is written, the main dialects, and the phrases worth learning.

Where is Punjabi spoken in Pakistan?

Punjabi is the home language of most of Punjab province, which holds more than half of Pakistan's people. You hear it in Lahore, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Sheikhupura, Faisalabad, Sargodha, Jhang and Sahiwal, in the villages between them, and in the Pothohar towns of Rawalpindi, Jhelum, Chakwal and Gujar Khan. Islamabad hears it constantly too, as do the large Punjabi-speaking communities in Karachi and other cities.

Further south, around Multan, Bahawalpur and Dera Ghazi Khan, the main language is Saraiki. To the north-west, in Attock and the Hazara division, speech shades into Hindko. Both are close relatives of Punjabi, and many linguists place all three in one dialect continuum, but the census counts Saraiki and Hindko as separate languages and most of their speakers see them that way. Our guide to the Saraiki language covers the south.

For how Punjabi fits alongside Urdu, Sindhi, Pashto and the languages of the north, see our languages of Pakistan guide.

How is Punjabi written in Pakistan?

In Pakistan, Punjabi is written in Shahmukhi, a version of the Perso-Arabic alphabet. The name is usually explained as "from the mouth of the king". It runs right to left and is normally written in the flowing Nastaliq style, so a line of Shahmukhi looks almost the same as Urdu. The difference is a handful of extra letters for sounds Urdu lacks, such as the retroflex n (ݨ) heard in the Punjabi pronunciation of paani, water.

Shahmukhi took shape from the early 17th century, when Punjabi writers of the Mughal period adopted the Persian alphabet. Across the border, Indian Punjab writes the same language in Gurmukhi, an entirely different script. A Lahori and a visitor from Amritsar can talk without difficulty, but they cannot read each other's books.

Day to day, you will see far less Punjabi written down than spoken. Road signs, menus, newspapers and school books are almost all in Urdu or English. Written Punjabi lives mainly in poetry, literary magazines and the books of Lahore's Punjabi publishers.

What is Punjabi's official status?

Under Article 251 of the Constitution, Urdu is the national language and English is used for official purposes. The same article allows a provincial assembly to take measures for the teaching, promotion and use of a provincial language alongside Urdu. In practice Punjabi has only nominal provincial status in Punjab. It is not the language of government or of most schooling, and the provincial body responsible for it is the Punjab Institute of Language, Art and Culture (PILAC) in Lahore.

A revival movement has worked since the 1990s to counter the decline of Punjabi in reading and writing. For a visitor, the practical picture is simple: Punjabi is the language of home, the street and the bazaar, and Urdu is the language of forms, signs and offices.

What are the main dialects of Punjabi?

Punjabi changes from district to district, in vocabulary, verb endings and the music of the sentence. Linguists group the Pakistani varieties as Western Punjabi. These are the ones you are most likely to meet.

Majhi

Majhi is the Punjabi of the Majha region: Lahore, Gujranwala, Sheikhupura, Sialkot and Gujrat. The standard form of the language is based on the urban speech of Lahore, so Majhi is what most people think of as plain Punjabi. It sits between the eastern and western varieties, which is one reason it is so widely understood.

Jhangvi

Jhangvi, also called Jhangochi, is spoken in central Punjab along the Ravi and Chenab, from Jhang to Khanewal, and in Faisalabad, Chiniot, Toba Tek Singh, Okara, Sahiwal, Hafizabad and Pakpattan. It stands between Majhi and the Multani speech of the south.

Shahpuri and Dhanni

Shahpuri is spoken in Sargodha and Mandi Bahauddin. Dhanni belongs to Chakwal, Talagang and Khushab, the edge of the Salt Range. Both are close to Jhangvi.

Pothwari

Pothwari, often written Pahari-Pothwari, is spoken on the Pothohar plateau: Rawalpindi, Jhelum, Gujar Khan, Chakwal and up into Murree. It continues into Azad Kashmir as Pahari, the language of Mirpur and of many British Pakistani families. It is mutually intelligible with both standard Punjabi and Hindko. Our Pahari language guide covers it in more depth.

One feature runs through all of them: Punjabi is tonal. The pitch of a syllable can change a word's meaning, often where Urdu has an h sound. It is the reason Punjabi sounds so different from Urdu even when the words are close.

Who are the great Punjabi poets?

Much of the finest Punjabi literature is Sufi poetry. Baba Farid, buried at Pakpattan, is the earliest major poet. Shah Hussain of Lahore, Sultan Bahu, and Bulleh Shah of Kasur followed, and in the 18th century Waris Shah wrote Heer, the version of the Heer Ranjha story that is still sung at weddings and shrines. Mian Muhammad Bakhsh wrote Saif-ul-Malook in the Pothohar and Mirpur tradition. Our guide to Bulleh Shah's tomb in Kasur covers a visit to his shrine.

The language also carries much of Pakistan's popular music, from Noor Jehan and Alam Lohar to Abrar-ul-Haq and Arif Lohar, and a long run of Lahore-made Punjabi films. The Legend of Maula Jatt (2022), a Punjabi-language film built on the characters of the 1979 classic Maula Jatt, became the highest-grossing Pakistani film.

Useful Punjabi phrases for travellers

These are in Lahore-style Punjabi and written in roman letters the way they are said. Adding ji to a reply makes it more polite, and it is used constantly.

Greetings themselves are the same as anywhere in Pakistan: "Assalam-o-alaikum" works with everyone. If you get stuck, switch to Urdu; everyone in Punjab will follow you. Our Urdu phrases for travellers is the better starting point if you speak neither.

Do you need Punjabi to travel in Punjab?

No. Urdu works everywhere in the province, from Lahore's malls to the smallest village, and English works in hotels, airports and most city shops. Pakistani travellers from Karachi or Khyber Pakhtunkhwa who speak no Punjabi will follow much of it anyway, because so much vocabulary is shared with Urdu.

Where Punjabi helps is warmth. Older people in villages, shopkeepers in the walled city and drivers on long journeys relax when you try it, and a "kinne da ae?" in a bazaar can get you a better start to the bargaining than the Urdu. It is also the key to the shrines and folk music: the qawwali and Sufi verses sung across Punjab are mostly in Punjabi.

If you are a foreign visitor, learn a dozen words of Urdu first, then add the Punjabi greetings above. For planning the rest of a trip, from transport to what to wear, see our Pakistan travel guide.

Frequently asked questions