Panjabi

Panjabi (properly PANJaBY), the language of the Central Punjab (properly Panjab). It is spoken by over 71,000,000 people between (approximately speaking) the 77th and 74th degrees of east longitude. The vernacular of this tract was originally an old form of the modern Lahnda, a member of the outer group of Indo-Aryan languages, but it has been overlaid by the expansion of the midland Sauraseni Prakrit (see Prakrit) to its east, and now belongs to the intermediate group, possessing most of the characteristics of the midland language, with occasional traces of the old outer basis which become more and more prominent as we go westwards. At the 74th degree of east longitude we find it merging into the modern Lahnda. The language is fully described in the article Hindostani.