Did you know Punjabi is the 10th most widely spoken language in the world? The term Punjabi is Persian and it means ‘Five Waters’, referring to the Indus river tributaries that defined ancient Punjab (now split between India and Pakistan). This Indo-Aryan language is also one of the official languages of India.

Interesting Punjabi Language Facts

• Punjabi is spoken by more than 100 million native speakers worldwide.
• It is the 4th most spoken language in England, 3rd most spoken native language in Canada and has a significant presence in Pakistan, UAE, USA and Australia.
• It is a descendant of Sauraseni Prakrit, the chief language of northern India during the mediaeval period. It is also believed that it developed from Shauraseni Apabhramsha language around 11th century.
• Punjabi is a tonal language and various tones are used for differentiating words in Punjabi that otherwise appear similar.
• There are various scripts used for writing Punjabi, such as Perso-Arabic script, Devanagari script and a script based on Gurmukhi alphabet.
• This language has various dialects like, Majhi, Malwi, Doabi and Pwadhi.

Tips to Learn Punjabi

If you wish to learn Punjabi, here are few tips that can help you acquire Punjabi speaking skills:

• Immersing yourself in the target language through songs, movies, TV shows or news is the best way to learn a new language. This will help you learn Punjabi pronunciation and mimic the sounds.
• Make a list of 1000 commonly used words and practice them on a daily basis.
• If you want to learn conversational Punjabi, you can use the Learn Punjabi Quickly language learning app by AlterGyan. The app contains more than 1200 commonly used phrases in Punjabi voiced out by a native speaker. Since it is an offline app, there is no compulsion to learn a language online. You can learn the phrases on the go.
• Lastly, don’t fret over mistakes. Try having fun with language learning so that you don’t get overwhelmed.