Languagle #10: Punjabi
ਅੰਨ੍ਹੇ ਕੁੱਤੇ, ਹਿਰਨਾਂ ਦੇ ਸ਼ਿਕਾਰੀ
Annhe kutte, hirnan de shikari
"Blind dogs, hunters of deer."
What it means
Said of people who take on a job they are plainly not equipped for, and are proud of it. A blind dog calling itself a deer hunter is all confidence and no ability.
How to say it
UN-nay KUT-tay, HIR-naan day shi-KAA-ree
Punjabi is tonal. The small ੍ਹ under ਅੰਨ੍ਹੇ isn't said as an h: it changes the pitch of the syllable instead. The aan in hirnaan is said through the nose.
Word by word
- ਅੰਨ੍ਹੇ UN-nay: blind
- ਕੁੱਤੇ KUT-tay: dogs
- ਹਿਰਨਾਂ HIR-naan: deer (plural)
- ਦੇ day: of
- ਸ਼ਿਕਾਰੀ shi-KAA-ree: hunters
The crescent in ਕੁੱਤੇ is the ੱ that doubles the t.
Where it was found
Punjabi calls a proverb an akhaan (ਅਖਾਣ). This one is from Wikiquote's list of Punjabi proverbs.
How to recognise Punjabi
Punjabi in India is written in Gurmukhi. Like Devanagari, its letters hang from a line along the top, but the shapes are simpler and the line often breaks between letters. Look for ੳ and ੲ, which carry vowels at the start of words, and the little crescent ੱ, which doubles the next consonant. Devanagari has neither. In Pakistan, Punjabi is written in an Arabic-based script called Shahmukhi.
About the Punjabi language
Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language with over 100 million speakers, split between Pakistan and India by the border drawn through the Punjab region in 1947. In India it is written in Gurmukhi, the script associated with the Sikh gurus, and in Pakistan it is written in Shahmukhi, a form of the Perso-Arabic script. Punjabi is unusual among Indo-Aryan languages in being tonal: the pitch of a syllable can change a word's meaning.
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