Punjabi

Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language of the Punjab, the land of the five eastern tributaries of the Indus, whose name comes from the Persian Panj-ab, or five waters. It grew out of the Prakrits and their Apabhramsha descendants, emerging around the 7th century and stabilizing by the 10th; its earliest surviving writings are compositions of Nath yogis from the 9th century onward.

Muslim rule brought Persian and Arabic vocabulary, and medieval written Punjabi was carried by Sufi poets such as Baba Farid and Bulleh Shah, while Sikh gurus used the related Sant Bhasha in the Guru Granth Sahib; Waris Shah continued the vernacular tradition in the 18th century.

Punjabi was written chiefly in Shahmukhi and Gurmukhi, though Persian remained the language of administration under the Mughals and the Sikh Empire until the East India Company dropped it in 1837.