Gurumukhi vs. Punjabi
Most people believe that Guru Granth Sahib is written in both Punjabi and Gurumukhi, two different languages. But that’s not how it works at all.
If someone has a message for the public, they will use the most widely spoken language to get it through. He won’t risk confusing his audience by speaking in an unproven tongue just to get his point through.
The same is true in this case. Guru Granth Sahib is written in Gurumukhi, but the language utilized is Punjabi. Punjabi is a language, and Gurmukhi is a script used to record the teachings of the gurus; perhaps knowing this would help clear up any misunderstandings.
Gurumukhi is a script used to write the Punjabi language. Punjabi is a language. Punjabi is one of the many languages in the Indo-Aryan family. The state of Punjab in both Pakistan and India is home to many native speakers of this language. Comparable to Urdu and Hindi in many ways.
Punjabi may be written in two primary scripts. As a right-to-left language, Muslims who speak Punjabi write it using the Perso-Arabic script. Shahmukhi is another name for this writing system.
Punjabi can also be written in the Hindi and Urdu scripts. The Gurumukhi script, developed by Angad Dev Ji, is the primary writing system used by Sikhs who speak Punjabi. One of the ten Sikh Gurus, Angad Dev Ji is revered by the Sikh faith. Guru Ji did not create the script from scratch; rather, he refined the preexisting Lando script to create what is now known as Gurumukhi.
Like other languages, Punjabi changed with time. The modern Punjabi language has undergone significant changes from its inception in the 16th century. There are several variations of Punjabi, including Majhi, Malwi, Potohari, Doabi, Jhangvi, and Multani.
In Pakistan, 44% of the population speaks Punjabi, but just 3% of Indians do. There are several nations where it is spoken by a small but significant minority. Punjabi is spoken by many emigrants who have settled in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and other nations. Because of this, the number of people who speak Punjabi has increased dramatically, and the language is now the fourth most spoken in the world.
In India, most Punjabi is written using the Gurumukhi script. The second Sikh guru standardized the Brahmi script, which led to the creation of this abugida. Current Gurmukhi uses 35 letters, including 9 vowels. There are two signs for nasal sounds and one sign for every consonant.
Punjabi, or a spelling variant, is the name of one of the Indo-Aryan languages. The academically correct “Panjabi” spelling is rarely used outside of academic circles, but the older British spelling “Punjabi” persists in common usage.
Punjabi is an Indian language that is a member of the Indo-European language family, along with the more closely related English and a small group of other languages.
It is a highly developed Indo-Aryan language that is mostly spoken in the state of Punjab in India and Pakistan. Similarities to Hindi and Urdu are striking. There are over 70 million native speakers of Punjabi, most of whom are concentrated in Pakistan’s Punjab province.
Punjabi speakers have formed sizable communities outside of the United States, particularly in Canada and the United Kingdom, where they were the third and fourth biggest phonetic assembly among the general public by the middle of the 21st century.
Despite the vast number of people who speak Punjabi and its rich traditions of mainstream verse, the language’s standardization has been clearly hampered by a lack of real recognition and the different social leanings of the three major close-knit, strict networks of Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs.
Read More: Punjabi Counting 1 to 100 | Punjabi Gurmukhi Counting
So, tell me, what is Gurumukhi?
The Gurmukhi script, commonly associated with the Sikh religion, is used to write the Punjabi language in India. This text is written from left to right like many other Indian scripts, but it fundamentally differs from the Devanagari script used to write Hindi.
In Pakistan, where the Urdu script (written from right to left) is the standard due to the imitation of the name Shahmukhi, Punjabi is written in this fashion.
Punjabi also incorporates elements of Urdu and Hindi. Guru Ji did not spontaneously alter Lando’s writing into Gurmukhi, as is often believed. He tidied up the area so that it would accurately depict the articulation and believable seeming articulations of the language that has come to be known as Gurmukhi.
Landa before Guru Ji by many years. In the section of the Guru Granth Sahib referred to as Patti, the main Guru Ji describes the Gurmukhi letters with names comparable to those we use today.
It’s unclear how Guru Nanak Dev Ji could have remembered the Gurmukhi script being acceptable a few years before its creation by Guru Angad Dev Ji. Gurmukhi refers to this material, or more accurately, Gurmukhi makes use of material that has been around for a while.
Differences between Gurumukhi and Punjabi that are most important to note
- Gurumukhi is not a language in and of itself, but rather serves as the basis for Punjabi, much like Devnagri does for Hindi.
- Gurumukhi, the alphabet from which Punjabi was adapted, is an abugida of the Brahmi script, which was standardized repeatedly over the course of centuries by the Sikh Gurus.
- Punjabi is written in a variety of scripts, including Hindi and Urdu, although the Gurumukhi script is the preferred writing system among Sikhs.
- Gurmukhi is the most extensively used form of Punjabi composing material in India, where it is spoken by 3% of the whole population.
- Gurumukh is the script used for the Punjabi language, although all of the languages spoken by the master (Punjabi, Persian, Pashto, etc.) are Gurmukh.
