The Source Book On Sikhism

(A) PUNJABI AND EUROPEAN LANGUAGES

The structural peculiarities of a language cannot be surveyed in a short note. Comparative philology is a science almost as exact as mathematics and its laws are very similar to those of statistics. In the limited space available to us, we can only touch the outer-most fringes of this vast subject, so as to arouse popular interest in it.

Punjabi is not a dialect

There has been a good deal of discussion, of late, whether Punjabi is a full-fledged language or a mere dialect.

The question has been discussed more often by political propagandists than by scholars and the objectivity of the problem has been completely masked by the heaps of vile propaganda, indulged in by the supporters as well as opponents of Punjabi.