Europe North America Oceania Punjabi,[g] sometimes spelled Panjabi,[h] is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Punjab region of Pakistan and India.

The name of the region was introduced by the Turko-Persian conquerors[17] of South Asia and was a translation of the Sanskrit name, Panchanada, which means 'Land of the Five Rivers'.

The historical Punjab region, now divided between India and Pakistan, is defined physiographically by the Indus River and these five tributaries.

[22] The language of these compositions is morphologically closer to Shauraseni Apbhramsa, though vocabulary and rhythm is surcharged with extreme colloquialism and folklore.

[2][3][4][5][6][7] The Arabic and Modern Persian influence in the historical Punjab region began with the late first millennium Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent.

[28] In fact, the sounds /z/ (ਜ਼ / ز ژ ذ ض ظ), /ɣ/ (ਗ਼ / غ), /q/ (ਕ਼ / ق), /ʃ/ (ਸ਼ / ش), /x/ (ਖ਼ / خ) and /f/ (ਫ਼ / ف) are all borrowed from Persian, but in some instances the latter three arise natively.

Note: In more formal contexts, hypercorrect Sanskritized versions of these words (ਪ੍ਰਧਾਨ pradhān for ਪਰਧਾਨ pardhān and ਪਰਿਵਾਰ parivār for ਪਰਵਾਰ parvār) may be used.

The Majhi dialect, which is transitional between the two main varieties, has been adopted as standard Punjabi in India and Pakistan for education and mass media.

In Pakistan, Punjabi is generally written using the Shahmukhī script, which in literary standards, is identical to the Urdu alphabet, however various attempts have been made to create certain, distinct characters from a modification of the Persian Nastaʿlīq characters to represent Punjabi phonology, not already found in the Urdu alphabet.

Some of its major urban centres in northern India are Amritsar, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Jalandhar, Ambala, Patiala, Bathinda, Hoshiarpur, Firozpur and Delhi.

The census publications group this with speakers of related "mother tongues" like Bagri and Bhateali to arrive at the figure of 33.12 million.

[38][39] These include groups of dialects like Saraiki, Pahari-Pothwari, Hindko and the extinct Inku; common dialects like Jhangvi, Shahpuri, Dhanni and Thali which are usually grouped under the term Jatki Punjabi; and the mixed variety of Punjabi and Sindhi called Khetrani.

The phonemic status of the consonants /f, z, x, ɣ, q/ varies with familiarity with Hindustani norms, more so with the Gurmukhi script, with the pairs /f, pʰ/, /z, d͡ʒ/, /x, kʰ/, /ɣ, g/, and /q, k/ systematically distinguished in educated speech,[46] /q/ being the most rarely pronounced.

[51][52][53] The transcriptions and tone annotations in the examples below are based on those provided in Punjabi University, Patiala's Punjabi-English Dictionary.

)[51] However, a recent acoustic study of six Punjabi speakers in the United States found no evidence of a separate falling tone following a medial consonant.

These include the five voiced aspirated plosives bh, dh, ḍh, jh and gh (which are represented by their own letters in Gurmukhi), the h consonant itself and any voiced consonants appended with [h] (Gurmukhi: ੍ਹ "perī̃ hāhā", Shahmukhi: ھ "dō-caśmī hē"); usually ṛh, mh, nh, rh and lh.

[61] However, certain dialects which exert stronger tone, particularly more northern Punjabi varieties and Dogri, pronounce h as very faint (thus tonal) in all cases.

[k] There is a tendency to irregularly geminate consonants which follow long vowels, except in the final syllable of a word, e.g.menū̃ > mennū̃.

The true gemination of a consonant after a long vowel is unheard of but is written in some English loanwords to indicate short /ɛ/ and /ɔ/, e.g. ਡੈੱਡ ڈَیڈّ /ɖɛɖː/ "dead".

[65] Punjabi distinguishes two genders, two numbers, and six cases, direct, oblique, vocative, ablative, locative, and instrumental.

[68] Being an Indo-Aryan language, the core vocabulary of Punjabi consists of tadbhav words inherited from Sanskrit.

[73] In India, Punjabi Sikhs use Gurmukhi, a script of the Brahmic family, which has official status in the state of Punjab.

In Pakistan, Punjabi Muslims use Shahmukhi, a variant of the Perso-Arabic script and closely related to the Urdu alphabet.

The Janamsakhis, stories on the life and legend of Guru Nanak (1469–1539), are early examples of Punjabi prose literature.

The Victorian novel, Elizabethan drama, free verse and Modernism entered Punjabi literature through the introduction of British education during the Raj.

After independence of Pakistan and India Najm Hossein Syed, Fakhar Zaman and Afzal Ahsan Randhawa, Shafqat Tanvir Mirza, Ahmad Salim, and Najm Hosain Syed, Munir Niazi, Ali Arshad Mir, Pir Hadi Abdul Mannan enriched Punjabi literature in Pakistan, whereas Jaswant Singh Kanwal (1919–2020), Amrita Pritam (1919–2005), Jaswant Singh Rahi (1930–1996), Shiv Kumar Batalvi (1936–1973), Surjit Patar (1944–) and Pash (1950–1988) are some of the more prominent poets and writers from India.

[88] Pupils in secondary schools can choose the language as an elective, while Punjabi instruction or study remains rare in higher education.

The preeminence of Urdu in both broadcasting and the Lollywood film industry is seen by critics as being detrimental to the health of the language.

Thinktanks, political organisations, cultural projects, and individuals also demand authorities at the national and provincial level to promote the use of the language in the public and official spheres.

[105] In 2012, it was also made additional official language of West Bengal in areas where the population exceeds 10% of a particular block, sub-division or district.