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Saraiki people

Multi-ethnic group in Pakistan

Saraiki people

Multi-ethnic group in Pakistan

FieldValue
groupSaraikis
native_name
native_name_langskr
population
region1Pakistan
pop120,324,637
ref1
languagesSaraiki
rels

The Saraikis () are an Indo-Aryan community native to central Pakistan, unified by their use of the Saraiki language and a shared regional identity that transcends tribal and ethnic affiliations.

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, 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, hitherto only used for a Sindhi dialect spoken in northern Sindh.

The Saraikis follow many religions, though most are predominantly followers of Sunni Islam. A small minority of Saraikis follow Christianity in Pakistan. There used to be a large Hindu and Sikh minority, however majority of them migrated to India after Partition of India in 1947. These Hindus and Sikhs now have assimilated into larger Punjabi-speaking and Hindi-speaking populations.

Etymology

Painting of Saraikis (or Seraikis) from a series of twelve paintings, ca.1850

The present extent of the meaning of ** is a recent development, and the term most probably gained its currency during the nationalist movement of the 1960s. 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. In this context, the term can most plausibly be explained as originally having had the meaning "the language of the north", from the Sindhi word siro 'up-river, north'. This name can ambiguously refer to the northern dialects of Sindhi, but these are nowadays more commonly known as "Siroli" or "Sireli".

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

Currently, the most common rendering of the term is Saraiki. However, Seraiki and Siraiki are also commonly used.

Notable people

Main article: List of Saraiki people

Notes

References

Sources

References

  1. "Saraiki".
  2. "Pakistan Census 2017".
  3. (1 September 2020). "Ethnicity, marginalization, and politics: Saraiki identity and the quest for a new Southern Punjab province in Pakistan". [[Routledge]].
  4. Grierson, George Abraham. (1919). "Linguistic survery of India specimens of Sindhi and Lahnda vol.8; pt.1".
  5. "About Punjab: Geography". Tourism Development Corporation, Government of the Punjab.
  6. "People & Culture". Government of the North-West Frontier Province.
  7. "Key Findings Report - The Largest Digitization Exercise of South Asia".
  8. {{harvnb. Lewis. Simons. Fennig. 2016: "Until recently it was considered a dialect of Panjabi."; {{harvtxt. Masica. 1991. Shackle. 2003
  9. Nazir, Kahut. (24 May 2009). "The origin and politics of the Seraiki movement". DAWN.
  10. (2017). "Handbook of comparative and historical Indo-European linguistics ; Volume 1". De Gruyter Mouton.
  11. Qadeer, Mohammad. (22 November 2006). "Pakistan – Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation". Routledge.
  12. (15 April 2008). "The Handbook of Bilingualism". John Wiley & Sons.
  13. {{harvnb. Rahman. 1995. Shackle. 1976. Shackle. 1977
  14. "The Islamia University of Bahawalpur Pakistan – Department". iub.edu.pk.
  15. "Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan". bzu.edu.pk.
  16. "Department Detail". aiou.edu.pk.
  17. "History of Bahawalpur". bahawalpur.gov.pk.
  18. "Introduction -City District Government Multan". multan.gov.pk.
  19. [https://www.census.gov.pk/MotherTongue.htm Population by Mother Tongue] {{webarchive. link. (12 September 2011 , website of the Population Census organization of Pakistan)
  20. link. (6 October 2014 , website of Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation)
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