Editing Saraiki language (section)

==Geographical distribution==
[[File:Saraiki Poet and intellectual.JPG|thumb|Ashu Lal, A Saraiki poet and intellectual]]

===Pakistan===
Saraiki is primarily spoken in the south-western part of the province of [[Punjab, Pakistan|Punjab]], in an area that broadly coincides with the extent of the proposed [[South Punjab Province]]. To the west, it is set off from the [[Pashto]]- and [[Balochi language|Balochi]]-speaking areas by the [[Suleiman Range]], while to the south-east the [[Thar desert]] divides it from the [[Marwari language]]. Its other boundaries are less well-defined: [[Panjabi language|Punjabi]] is spoken to the east; [[Sindhi language|Sindhi]] is found to the south, after the border with [[Sindh province]]; to the north, the southern edge of the [[Salt Range]] is the rough divide with the northern varieties of Lahnda, such as [[Pahari-Pothwari|Pothwari]].{{sfn|Shackle|1976|pp=1–2}}

Saraiki is the first language of approximately 29 million people in Pakistan according to the 2023 census.<ref name="pbs.gov.pk"/> The first national census of Pakistan to gather data on the prevalence of Saraiki was the census of 1981.{{sfn|Javaid|2004}} In that year, the percentage of respondents nationwide reporting Saraiki as their native language was 9.83. In the census of 1998, it was 10.53% out of a national population of 132 million, for a figure of 13.9 million Saraiki speakers resident in Pakistan. Also according to the 1998 census, 12.8 million of those, or 92%, lived in the province of Punjab.<ref>Pakistan census 1998</ref>

===India===
After [[Partition of India|Partition]] in 1947, Hindu and Sikh speakers of Saraiki migrated to India, where they are currently widely dispersed, though with more significant pockets in the states of [[Punjab, India|Punjab]], [[Haryana]], [[Rajasthan]], [[Uttar Pradesh]], [[Delhi]] and [[Jammu and Kashmir (state)|Jammu and Kashmir]].{{sfn|Goswami|1994|p=30}} There is also a smaller group of Muslim [[Pastoralist nomads|pastoralists]] who migrated to India, specifically [[Andhra Pradesh]], prior to Partition.<ref>{{cite web|title=Kahan se aa gai ({{Nastaliq|کہاں سے کہاں آ گئے}})|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/india/2009/05/090505_wusat_multan_pkg.shtml|access-date=8 April 2012|archive-date=22 September 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130922000201/http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/india/2009/05/090505_wusat_multan_pkg.shtml|url-status=dead}}</ref>

There are census figures available – for example, in the 2011 census, {{sigfig|29253|2}} people reported their language as "[[Bahawalpuri dialect|Bahawal Puri]]", and {{sigfig|61722|2}} as "Hindi Multani".<ref>{{cite web|title = 2011 Census tables: C-16, population by Native languages|website = Census of India Website|url = http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/C-16.html| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20191210063438/http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011census/C-16.html| archive-date = 10 December 2019}}</ref> However, these are not representative of the actual numbers, as the speakers will often refer to their language using narrower dialect or regional labels, or alternatively identify with the bigger language communities, like those of Punjabi, Hindi or Urdu. Therefore, the number of speakers in India remains unknown.<ref>{{harvnb|Goswami|1994|pp=30–31}}; {{harvnb|Bhatia|2016|pp=134–35}}.</ref> There have been observations of Lahnda varieties "merging" into Punjabi (especially in Punjab and Delhi), as well as of outright [[language shift|shift]] to the dominant languages of Punjabi or Hindi.{{sfn|Goswami|1994|pp=31, 33}} One pattern reported in the 1990s was for members of the younger generation to speak the respective "Lahnda" variety with their grandparents, while communicating within the peer group in Punjabi and speaking to their children in Hindi.{{sfn|Goswami|1994|pp=32–33}}