Sindhi Language

PUBLISHER’S NOTE:
“The Sindhi Language and Literature” is a
brief account of the evolution of different
literary genres of literature as well as research
work conducted on Sindhi Language.
The project was assigned to the renowned
poet, writer and researcher Mr. Anwar Pirzado,
about five years back. Although he had
completed the script but could not finalize and
send it to us due to his sudden and sad demise
last year. We are thankful to his son Mr. Zarar
Pirzado who, not only retrieved it from his
father's computer but checked its proofs and
gave it a final shape before sending it for
publishing.
Mr. Pirzado has tried to give a brief but
comprehensive account of a vast treasure of
Sindhi literature and language in English, which
will help readers to have an idea of the
development of the two in the last few centuries.
It is hoped that this book would be
appreciated by students and scholars alike.
Dr. Fahmida Hussain
Chairperson
Content
Chapter 1
SINDHI LANGUAGE
7
Chapter 2
LINGUISTIC DEVELOPMENT
37
Chapter 3
SINDHI LITERATURE
59
Chapter 4
DEVELOPMENT OF SINDHI PROSE
88
Chapter 5
SINDHI LITERATURE AFTER 1947
105
Chapter 6
COMMENDABLE CONTRIBUTION OF
SINDHI HINDU WRITERS
119
PART - I
SINDHI LANAGUAGE
Chapter 1
SINDHI LANGUAGE
The word ‘Sindhi’ is an adjective, and
means ‘of’ or ‘belonging to Sindh’, or so to say,
the language of Sindh - the country on each
side of the River Indus, commencing about
latitude 29 N and stretching thence down to the
Arabian sea in the South.
In written history, the word “Sindhi” is
found recorded first time in rock inscriptions
around 2500 years ago:
“The Aryans were settled in a vast
region: in sixteen lands in Avestan period.
In addition to their patronymic and tribal
names, they must have had a way to
designate each other collectively by the
names of their respective lands. This is
why we find that the Achaemenian Shahs
of 2500 years ago provide us, in their rock
inscriptions, with some thirty names of
sixteen Aryan provinces. Among them, we
have Hindu (Sindhu) and its adjective
Hinduya (Sindhi). This is the first time on
record that the name “Sindhi” was
employed to designate the people of the
valley. The word ‘Sindhu’ in Sanskrit, in
plural, meaning ‘men from Sindh’, occurs
first in the Mahabharta. Following the
Iranian pronunciation, the contemporary
Greek writers use 'Indos', ‘India’ and
‘Indioi’, and are therefore the second on
record to call the people ‘Sindhi’ (Jafarey:
1981:65).
It is presumed, therefore, that ‘Sindhi’ as
a name of a language might have come in
effect first time around the same period, e-g
2500 years ago. But, it cannot be ruled out at
the same time that the Sindhi language was in
vogue in the Indus Civilization of the 3rd
millennium B.C. and its age encompasses a
period of about six millennia.
1. ORIGIN
Sindhi is a member of the Indo-
European family of languages, classified by
Grierson (1919: 01) as one of the northwestern
group of the Indo-Aryan vernaculars. It is
spoken in the lower Indus Valley of South Asia,
now Pakistan.
The origin of Sindhi language is buried
somewhere in the time immemorial. The
academic research so far conducted by
indigenous and foreign scholars about the
ancestry of Sindhi language still remains
inconclusive as to whether it is the language of
the great Pre-Aryan Indus Civilization of the
third millennium B.C., or an offshoot of
Sanskrit; or has emerged from some pre-
Sanskrit Indo-Aryan language.
The dilemma is caused mainly because
of the un-deciphered script of the Indus
civilization of the 3rd millennium BC. The
hypothesis that Sindhi is the language of
Mohenjodaro is based on strong cultural
similarities still existing between Indus
civilization of the 3rd millennium BC and
today’s Sindh civilization of the 3rd millennium
AD.
The well-trimmed beard of King Priest of
Mohenjodaro is visible on the face of every
second or third Sindhi man in the pastoral
Sindh. The bangles on the arms of
Mohenjodaro’s Dancing Girl are still used by
the womenfolk in the legendary desert of Thar.
The double-edged comb for women, the flourgrinding
stone, bullock-cart, pottery, birds like
peacock and stork; and animals like bull and
Ibex that came to light during excavations at
the world heritage site of Mohenjodaro, can be
seen in today’s Sindh too. The crescent-horned
bull of Mohenjodaro is still bred in Thar and
Bhagnari area of northern Sindh while the
charisma of Ibex still reigns in the western
mountains of Khirthar range. The ornaments of
gold and silver, almost of the same style and
fashion of Mohenjodaro, are worn by the
women of Sindh even today.
Hypothetically speaking, there is a
strong probability that the present spoken
Sindhi is the language of Indus Civilization of
3rd Millennium B.C. The question is, while
there is continuity of innumerable other
features of the Indus Civilization, still prevalent
in Sindh, why not the legacy of the language?
It is besides the fact that no such scientific
proof has so far been available to the men of
letters in the world.
The language of the period is still a
mystery, although several scholars throughout
the world have attempted to decipher, but they
hardly agree to each other’s viewpoint.
(Gidwani: 1996: 6)
Dr Asko Parpola and Simo Parpola, the
scholars of the Scandinavian Institute of Asian
Studies also tried to resolve the mystery of the
Indus script and attempted to decipher the
language of Mohenjodaro but in vain.
M. H. Panhwar is critical of all those
experts who have so far attempted at
decipherment of the Indus script presupposing
that it is a Dravidian language. He argues that
those who have worked on the Indus scripts
took for granted an assumption that
Mohenjodaro people were Dravidians and
spoke a Dravidian language. They went to the
extent of feeding data to computers to resolve
what human brain cannot. The results have
been total failure. When the Egyptian script
was deciphered first, the Egyptologists turned
to rural areas and from their day to day
language, they were able to pick words which
belonged to the period of early dynasties, and
subsequently they were able to translate lines,
paragraphs and whole stories. Unfortunately,
we have been on the wrong track in our
assumption that Dravidian was the language of
the people of Indus Civilization. (Panhwar:
1988)
1.1 Different Theories
Many academics, scholars, linguists and
experts of ethno-archaeology have put forth
different theories on the origin and ancestry of
Sindhi language. But still the linguistic roots of
Sindhi are not traced out with authenticity.
They include G.A. Grierson, Ernest Trumpp,
Caldwell, Hoernle, George Stack, Emeneau,
H.T. Sorley, N.A. Baloch, Sirajul Haq Memon,
Murlidhar Jetely, Parso Gidwani, Massica, S.K.
Chatterji, M.H. Panhwar, Bherumal Advani,
Jairamdas Daulatram, G.A. Allana and Y.K.
Wadhwani etc.
Tracing the origin of the Sindhi
language, the western scholars of 19th and
20th century such as Stack, Hoernle, Trumpp,
Beames, Grierson, and following them many
Indian scholars, Bhandarkar, Vasnani,
Chatterji, Bherumal Advani etc, relied mainly
on the statement of Prakrit grammarian
Markandeya. They traced the origin of modern
Sindhi to Vrachada Apabhramsa, said to be
one of the most corrupt forms of language
derived from Sanskrit. The indigenous scholars
of Sindh, however, seek to find the origin of
their language in the ruins of the World
Heritage site of Mohen-jo-daro, one of the
principal cities of the Indus Valley civilization,
wherefrom so far no clue has been found to
justify their theories, except the undeciphered
script of a language prevalent in these days.
Of the various theories as yet floated
about the origin of the Sindhi language, some
are unacceptable while others appear to be
probable in some respects and improbable in
others. But, mostly hypothetical approach is
visible among the scholars engaged in tracing
out the roots of Sindhi language. On the other
hand, E. Trumpp (1872) and Grierson (1903)
despite being authority in the field, were earlier
researchers while the scientific data pertaining
to the burials of Mohen-jo-daro came later in
the thirties, rejecting theories of Indus
Civilization being exclusively Dravidian in
character.
It is therefore not out of place to conclude
that unless the Indus Script is fully deciphered,
no authentic theory about the origin and
ancestry of Sindhi language could be developed
forthwith. It is, however, beyond any doubt that
the Sindhi language has developed since
centuries fully well through universal process of
language change caused by its interaction with
both the Dravidian as well as other Indo-Aryan
languages having their sway in the South Asia.
Ernest Trumpp was the first scholar
floating the theory that Sindhi was derived from
Sanskrit.
“Sindhi is a pure Sanskritical
language, more free from foreign
elements than any other language of the
North Indian vernaculars. The old Prakrit
grammarians may have had their good
reason to designate the Apabhramsa
dialect, from which the modern Sindhi is
derived, as the lowest of all the Prakrit
dialects. But if we compare now the
Sindhi with its sister-tongues, we must
assign to it, in a grammatical point of
view, the first place among them. It is
much more closely related to the old
Prakrit than Marathi, Hindi, Punjabi and
Bengali of our days. It has preserved an
exuberance of grammatical forms, for
which all its sisters may envy it. For, while
all modern vernaculars of India are
already in a state of complete
decomposition, (the old venerable mother
tongue being hardly recognizable in her
degenerate daughters), the Sindhi has,
on the contrary, preserved most important
fragments of it and erected for itself a
grammatical structure, which surpasses
in beauty of execution and internal
harmony by far the loose and leveling
construction of its sisters. The Sindhi has
remained steady in the first stage of
decomposition after the old Prakrit,
whereas all the cognate dialects have
sunk some degrees deeper. The rules,
which the Prakrit grammarian
Kramadishvara has laid down in
reference to Apabhramsa, are still
recognizable in the present Sindhi, which
by no means can be stated of the other
dialects. The Sindhi has thus become an
independent language, which, though
sharing a common origin with its sister
tongues, is very materially differing from
them.” (Trumpp: 1872:1)
G.A. Grierson thought that Sanskrit was
one of the primary languages of the
subcontinent and was in vogue somewhere in
its northwestern part. His theory originally
written in 1903 A.D. was held by a large number
of scholars from Sindh. We have mentioned
about the statement of the Prakrit grammarian
Markandeya (XVIII, 1) that the Apabhramsa
Prakrit, spoken in Sindh was called ‘Vrachada’.
It is from this that Sindhi is derived. According to
him, the Sindhi language belongs together with
Lahnda or Western Punjabi to the northwest
group of the outer circle of the Indo-Aryan
vernacular. He believes that both Sindhi and
Lahnda are closely related to Dardic languages
further in the north, to Kashmiri in particular
(1919: 136).
Dr. N.A. Baloch believes that Sindhi is
an ancient Indo-Aryan language, probably
having its origin in a pre-Sanskrit Indo-Iranian
Indus Valley language.
“The Lahnda and Kashmiri appear
to be its cognate sisters with a common
Dardic element in all of them. The distinct
nature of Sindhi, Lahnda and Dardic
languages (of Kashmir and Kohistan in
Gilgit) rather suggest that they owe their
origin to the common stock of Aryan
tongues spoken at the time of early Aryan
settlement all along the Indus Valley. It
has already been accepted that
Paishachi, the mother of Dardic
languages was a sister, and not a
daughter of the form of speech that
ultimately developed as the literary
Sanskrit. Sindhi in particular, may have
imbibed some influence of the ancient
language of the Mohen-jo-Daro
civilization having affinities with the
Sumerian and Babylonian tongues. In the
more historical times, the influence of
Iranian languages on Sindhi appears to
be a certainty. This influence was
followed by the influence of Sanskrit
through Pali-Prakrit, particularly from the
days of Kanishka (78-144 AD). In the
more recent times, the influence of
Arabic, which was the State language in
Sindh from 8th to 11th (possibly 13th)
century A.D. and of Persian, which was
the State language for more than five
centuries (14 to19th) has been deep and
permanent. Thus, with its long history and
rich linguistic background, the philological
peculiarities and structural complexities of
Sindhi are so challenging that at the
present stage of our knowledge, it is not
possible to trace many of its words to
their origin. Besides, for want of time and
adequate research, it has not been
possible to go deep into the etymology of
words. There is a considerable room for
improvement in this aspect of the work,
but it must be left to the future research
workers” (1960: 19).
M.H. Panhwar taking support of
archaeology rejects the theory of Sindhi being
a Dravidian language and summarizes the
language situation of Sindhi in the light of
chronology authenticated by scientific data
produced as a result of the Carbon Testing of
the Mohen-jo-daro remains. According to the
conclusion drawn by him in the light of the
chronology of the development of Sindhi, as a
Proto Indo-European language. He believes
that:
“It evolved into Proto Indo-Iranian,
Proto-Indian and Dravidian to become
Proto-SINDHI. Then it came into contact
with Rig Vedic Sanskrit (1000-600 B.C.),
Late Sanskrit (600-500 B.C.), Aramaic &
Pahlavi (500-400 B.C.), Pali (325-187
B.C.), Pali & Greek (87 B.C.- 283 A.D.)
and Pahlavi (283-356 A.D.) to take form
of early SINDHI. Under the influence of
Sanskrit during 356-711 A.D. and Arabic
& Sanskrit during 711-1011 A.D. it took
shape of Medieval SINDHI by 1011-1315
A.D. The Persian again came in contact
with it during 600-1315 A.D., that was an
era of Classical SINDHI. It further evolved
under the influence of Persian (1600-
1843 A.D.), and became Mid-19th
Century SINDHI.
MODERN SINDHI finally took its
shape after coming in contact with
English-Persian during 1843-1947
A.D”(Panhwar: 1988)
Yashodhra K. Wadhwani believes that
the modern Sindhi, like most other North Indo-
Aryan languages attained the status of an
independent language for widespread use in its
more or less present-day form, somewhere
around the 10th century AD. Although some
language would certainly have been in vogue
in Sindh ever since the dawn of civilization, the
claim of such hoary antiquity for present-day
Sindhi smacks of undue dogmatism and
linguistic fanaticism. We must be sporting
enough to admit that modern Sindhi, like most
other North Indo-Aryan languages, attained the
status of an independent language for
widespread use in its more or less present-day
form somewhere around the 10th century. It is
with the origin and development of this modern
Sindhi that we should and can possibly
concern ourselves. Of course, even the verse
of a 10th century poet from Sindh quoted by
Baloch has not a single word that a presentday
Sindhi speaker can understand even
vaguely. Drastic language-change could be the
main cause (Wadhwani: 1981: 239).
Jairamdas Daulatram examines in detail
the nine peculiarities of Vrachada given by
Markandeya and shows that they hardly
correspond with developments found in
modern Sindhi. On these grounds, he rejects
Vrachada as the source of modern Sindhi, and
proposes that the Lower Indus Valley region
comprising modern-day Sindh might have
evolved a local Sindhi Apabhramsa having
integral links with Nagara Apabhramsa, both
having a common earlier source, viz an ancient
variant of the pre-Vedic Prakrit. Defining ‘The
Ancestry of Sindhi’ (Bhartya Vidya, Vol. XVII),
he considers it as an Indo-Aryan Language.
“The new Indo-Aryan languages
prevalent in different regions of undivided
India to the North of the Deccan have,
generally speaking, been as its
predecessor, the Middle Indo-Aryan
(through its last phase, the Apabhramsa)
and the old Indo-Aryan in this ascending
line.” By 'Old Indo-Aryan' he means the
Primary Parkrits, the spoken dialects of the
Vedic period. He then demonstrates,
through evidence quoted from various
Sanskrit and Arabic sources, that what they
called Sindhudesa was situated
somewhere to the north of present-day
Sindh (Jairamdas: 1957).
Allana, G.A. believes that there is no
structural relationship, whatsoever, between
Sindhi and Sanskrit. One can find only ‘word
stock’ borrowed by Sindhi from Prakrit, Pali
and Sanskrit, more so due to the co-existence
of these languages in the Indus Valley for a
very long time. However, after taking into
account the viewpoint of other scholars of
different schools of thought, he concludes that:
1. Sindhi has not sprung from Sanskrit.
2. No vernacular of the sub -continent has
been derived from Sanskrit.
3. Sindhi is an original language spoken by
indigenous people of the Indus Valley. (Allana:
1957)
Another Sindhi scholar Siraj claims that
Sindhi in itself is the oldest language, prevalent
right from the time of the Indus Valley
Civilization, and it is the basic or original
source of Sanskrit as well as other allied
languages. He believes that the Indus
Civilization was one of the earliest; and it was
the language of the Indus people, who later on
spread northwards and eastwards to develop
the Vedic Aryan civilization, and (westwards to
evolve) the Sumerian civilization, the
Phoenician alphabet, etc. Their reason for
leaving the homeland was the development of
deplorable and discriminatory practice of
religious and social customs of caste, plight of
untouchables, etc. The erstwhile theory that
the Vedic tradition was established in India by
a European or allied race coming to India from
outside is based on racial and national
fanaticism. It is very much evident in the
varying claims of scholars suggesting their own
native land as the original habitat of the Indo-
European people. According to him, Sindhi
language preserves a wealth of kinship terms
unparalleled elsewhere; and many of its other
words also cannot be traced to any outside
language. Siraj also claims that Sindhi
preserves the oldest forms of numerals, even
older than those in Sanskrit. Siraj believes that
certain sounds also are peculiar to Sindhi
alone among all Indo-Aryan languages of
South Asia. He differs with both Dr. Ernest
Trumpp and Dr. N.A. Baloch saying that Sindhi
is not derived from Sanskrit, but on the
contrary, Sanskrit is the genuine daughter of
Sindhi. (Siraj: 1964)
1.2 Boundaries
The isoglottic line on the world map,
where Sindhi is spoken as the first or second
language, crosses the territorial boundaries of
Pakistan and India in South Asia. The Sindhispeaking
people can be found in a number of
states in Asia, Africa, Middle East, North
America, Europe, Canada and Australia etc.,
where they are living as immigrants or
permanent settlers after moving from Sindh,
Hind or any third country of their origin. The
speakers of Sindhi can also be seen in Saudi
Arabia, Dubai and Muscat etc, in the Middle
East; Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand,
Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Fiji and
Hawai Islands in the Far East; Tanzania,
Kenya, Zimbabwe, Congo, South Africa and
Madagaskar in Africa, besides many other
parts of the globe. The Sindhi diaspora is
spread all over the world where they use
Sindhi as their first language and serve their
mother tongue through linguistic, literary and
cultural activities.
With its base in Sindh, the influence of
Sindhi language extends to almost all regions
of the Indus Valley including Punjab, former
state of Bahawalpur, Balochistan and North-
Western Frontier Province (NWFP) besides the
adjoining regions of Iranian Balochistan, and
India (Rajistan, Kutchh, Gujrat, Kathiawar,
Marwar, Jaisalmir and Jodhpur).
1.3 Population
Sindhi is said to be spoken by about 35
million people all over the world at present, but
in the absence of any data based on census
report, we can safely put it at 24 million as
mentioned on various websites
(http://www.outreach.uiuc.edu), with its base in
Sindh, the southern-most province of Pakistan.
The speakers of Sindhi language in Pakistan
were estimated at 16.992 million in the nineties
(Johnstone, 1993), and in India their number
being 2.812 million (1997 IMA). The population
of Sindhis in India was caused by their mass
migration as a result of the partition of the
Subcontinent and birth of Pakistan in 1947.
With the population of Sindhi Diaspora
scattered all around the world, the figure could
match the one cited above.
Sindhi is spoken as mother tongue by a
vast majority of the people of Sibi in
Balochsitan. About 80% of the people of
Lasbela district of Balochistan speak Sindhi as
their mother tongue. A considerable population
of Qalat, Balochi Kohistan, Makran, Guwadar,
Ormara, Pasni and Jadgal use Sindhi as
second language. Most of the people of Rahim
Yar Khan in the Punjab speak Sindhi. Up to the
13th century AD, Sindhi was spoken up to
Multan. In the southeast of Sindh, across the
Rann of Kutchh. Sindhi is spoken as mother
tongue by a minority of people in Kutchh,
Gujrat and Kathiawar regions of India. There is
a considerable population of Sindhi-speaking
people in Iranian Balochistan adjacent to the
northwestern border of Pakistan with Iran.
1.4 Dialects
Sindhi has in all six dialects - Siroli
(northern), Vicholi (centeral), Lari (southern),
Kohistani (in the hilly region) Thareli (prevalent
in Thar), Kuchhi (in vogue in lower Sindh and
Kuchh). Lasi (of Lasbela) may also be counted
as a dialect but mostly it is spoken outside the
boundaries of Sindh.
In Sindhi the word “Siro” means ‘Head’
(the upper part of body) and thus “Siroli’ means
the language of Upper Sindh. From ‘Siro’ also
is derived ‘Siraiki’. The Seraiki as a language is
not a dialect of Sindhi; however, the form of
Siraiki spoken in Sindh is called ‘Sindhi-Siraiki’.
“The ‘Sindhi-Siraiki’ is different from
standard Sindhi dialect ‘Vicholi’ only in
having a more clearly articulated
pronunciation, and a slightly different
vocabulary”. (Grierson: 1919: 9)
The dialect namely ‘Vicholi’ (the Sindhi
word ‘Vich-u’ means ‘middle’ or center) is
spoken in Central Sindh. It is recognized as the
standard dialect, and is employed in education,
media and literature.
‘Lari’ is the language of Lar. The word
‘Lar’ means ‘sloping (ground),’ just as ‘Siro’
means ‘upper’, and ‘Vicholo’, ‘central.’ Thus it
is applied to the Lower Sindh, which includes
area around Hyderabad, Thatta, Badin and the
Indus Delta. The Lari dialect retains many old
forms, including certain prominent Dardic
peculiarities that have been lost by Vicholi.
‘Thareli’ and ‘Kucchi’ are both mixed
dialects. The former is spoken in the Thar
(desert) of Sindh. It is a transition form of
speech representing Sindhi shading off into
Rajasthani, Marwari. Kucchi, on the other
hand, is a mixture of Sindhi and Gujarati,
spoken in lower Sindh and Kutcch. Kohistani is
spoken in the mountainous region lying
between Karachi and Dadu districts, Thano
bola Khan being its centre.
And, the dialect of ‘Lasi’ is spoken in Las
Belo area of present Balochistan adjoining
Sindh in the West.