[4] Mostly inhabiting southern Punjab as well as most parts of Derajat, which is located in the region where southwestern Punjab, southeastern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and northeastern Balochistan meet,[5][6] the Saraiki regional identity arose in the 1960s, separating itself from the broader Punjabi ethnic identity; this was a result of a political movement, arising in 1962, to separate the Derawali, Multani and Riasti dialects from the Punjabi language, and to instead declare them to constitute a separate language for which the term Saraiki was adopted,[7][8][9] hitherto only used for a Sindhi dialect spoken in northern Sindh.

[12] The present extent of the meaning of Sirāikī is a recent development, and the term most probably gained its currency during the nationalist movement of the 1960s.

[13] It has been in use for much longer in Sindh to refer to the speech of the immigrants from the north, principally Siraiki-speaking Baloch tribes who settled there between the 16th and the 19th centuries.

[14] This name can ambiguously refer to the northern dialects of Sindhi, but these are nowadays more commonly known as "Siroli"[15] or "Sireli".

[16] An alternative hypothesis is that Sarākī originated in the word sauvīrā, or Sauvira,[17] an ancient kingdom which was also mentioned in the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata.