Hindko (ہندکو, romanized: Hindko, IPA: [ˈɦɪndkoː]) is a cover term for a diverse group of Lahnda dialects spoken by several million people of various ethnic backgrounds in several areas in northwestern Pakistan, primarily in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northwestern regions of Punjab.

[21][22] Rensch's classification based on lexical similarity[c] also assigns to this group the rural dialects of Peshawar District.

[24] In a group of its own is Peshawari,[e] the prestigious urban variety spoken in the city of Peshawar and the one that is promoted as a standardised literary language.

This grouping finds support in the results of the intelligibility testing done by Rensch, which also found out that the southern dialects are more widely understood throughout the Hindko area than are the northern ones.

For example, to the southwest across the Salt Range are found dialects of Saraiki,[35] and at least one of these – the one spoken in the Dera Ismail Khan District – is sometimes also referred to as "Hindko".

[36] To the southeast, Hindko is in a dialect continuum with Pahari–Pothwari, with the Galyat region of Abbottabad district and the area of Muzaffarabad in Azad Kashmir approximately falling on the boundary between the two.

[41] There is no generic name for the speakers of Hindko because they belong to diverse ethnic groups and tend to identify themselves by the larger families or castes.

With the exodus of the Hindko-speaking Hindus and Sikhs after Partitition and the consequent influx of Pashtuns into the vacated areas of the urban economy, there have been signs of a shift towards Pashto.

[47][48] Hindko contrasts stop consonants at the labial, alveolar, retroflex, palatal and velar places of articulation.

[50] For the stop consonants of most varieties of Hindko there is a three-way contrast between voiced (b d ɖ dʒ ɡ), voiceless (p t ʈ tʃ k) and aspirated (pʰ tʰ ʈʰ tʃʰ kʰ).

[51] Awankari,[52] Kohati,[53] and the varieties of Neelum Valley of Kashmir also distinguish voiced aspirated stops (bʱ dʱ ɖʱ dʒʱ ɡʱ).

[68] The velar nasal /ŋ/ is phonemic in Tanoli: /bɑːŋ/ 'prayer call', /mɑːŋ/ 'fiancée',[69] and in the Hindko of Kashmir, and in both cases it is found only in the middle or at the end of the word.

[73] There are two rhotic sounds in Hindko: an alveolar trill /r/ (with a varying number of vibrations dependent on the phonetic context), and a retroflex flap /ɽ/.

[83] Peshawari and Kohati presumably follow the pattern of Awankari but have historically lost nasalisation from the round vowels (like /u/ or /o/) at the end of the word.

In the varieties of Tanawal and Kashmir both long and short vowels can be nasalised in this way, but only if they precede the nasal consonant: [dõːn] 'washing', [bẽːn] 'crying'.

[87] In Punjabi, pitch accent has historically arisen out of the loss of voiced aspirates (/bʱ dʱ ɖʱ dʒʱ ɡʱ ɦ/.

According to preliminary observations on the Hazara Hindko variety of Abbottabad, the low tone is less prominent than in Majhi Punjabi, and a trace of the aspiration is preserved: for example 'horse' would be /k(h)òːɽaː/.

[89] The variety spoken to the north-east, in Neelam Valley, has preserved voiced aspirates at the start of the word, so presumably the low tone is not established there.

The board was launched in Peshawar in year 1993 to preserve and promote Hindko —the second most spoken of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan.

Late professor Zahoor Ahmad Awan of Peshawar city, the author of 61 books and publications, was the founding-chairman of the board.

The board published a second more comprehensive Hindko dictionary in 2007 prepared by Elahi Bakhsh Awan of the University of London.

An excerpt from the Kalām of Ahmad Ali Saayein:[95] الف اول ہے عالم ہست سی او ہاتف آپ پکاریا بسمہ اللہ فیر قلم نوں حکم نوشت ہویا ہس کے قلم سر ماریا بسمہ اللہ نقشہ لوح محفوظ دے وچ سینے قلم صاف اتاریا بسمہ اللہ اس تحریر نوں پڑھ کے فرشتیاں نے سائیاں شکر گزاریا بسمہ اللہ Transliteration: Alif-Awal hai Alam e hast sī o Hātif āp pukārā Bismillah Fīr Qalam nū̃ hukum e Nawišt hoyā Hus ke qalam sir māriyā Bismillah Naqšā Loh e Mahfūz dai wic sine Qalam sāf utāriyā Bismillah Is Tahrīr nū̃ paṛah ke Farištiyā̃ ne Sāiyā̃ Šukar guzāriyā Bismillah Translation: "He is the foremost from the world of existence Voice of the unseen exclaimed Bismillah The pen was ordered to write Pen carried out the order to write Bismillah When angels read this composition Saaieaan, they showed their thankfulness with Bismillah" Hindko has a rich heritage of proverbs (Hindko matlaan, sg.

[96][97] An example of a proverb: جدھر سر ادھر سرہانڑا Transliteration: Jidur sir udur sarhanra Translation: "Good person gains respect everywhere."