SINDHI (properly Sindhi, the language of Sindh, i.e., Sind) and LAHNDA (properly Lahnda or Lahindd, or Lahnde-di boll, the language of the west), two closely connected forms of speech belonging, together with Kashmiri (q.v.), to the north western group of the outer band of Indo-Aryan languages.
The parent Prakrit, from which Lahnda is sprung, must once have extended over the greater part of the Punjab, but Lahnda and Sindhi, the western outposts of Indo-Aryan speech, have for centuries occupied a peculiarly isolated position, and have in many respects struck out common lines of independent growth.
This process was aided by the presence of Dardic languages (see INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES). In early times there were Dardic colonies along the Indus, right down to its delta, and both Sindhi and Lahnda have borrowed many peculiarities from their dialects.
Sindhi is directly derived from the Vracada Apabhrarilga Prak rit (see PRAKRIT). The name of the Apabhrarkiga from which Lahnda is derived is not known, but it must have been closely al lied to Vracada. Sindhi has one important dialect, Kachchhi, spoken in Cutch. Here the language has come into contact with Gujarati and is somewhat mixed with that form of speech. (See GUJARATI AND RAJASTHANI LANGUAGES.) Owing to their geographical position both Sind and the western Punjab were early subject to Mohammedan inroads. The bulk of the population is Muslim, and their languages make free use of words borrowed from Persian and (through Persian) from Arabic. The written character employed for Lahnda is usually that modifi cation of the Persian alphabet which has been adopted for Hindu stani. For Sindhi, further modifications have been introduced to represent special sounds. In both languages, Hindus also employ a script akin to the well-known Nagari alphabet (see SANSKRIT). It is the same as the "Laricla" (a word distinct from "Lahnda") or "clipped" character current all over the Punjab and is very im perfect, being seldom legible to any one except its original writer, and not always so to him.
other Indo-Aryan languages a final short vowel is generally elided. This rule is also followed in Lahnda, but the genius of Sindhi re quires every word to end in a vowel, and hence these short vowels are still retained. In Sindhi these final short vowels are very lightly pronounced, so that they are hardly audible. Lahnda, espe cially when dropping the final short vowel, has epenthetic changes, which have not been noted in Sindhi. In that language and in Lahnda the short vowel i, when preceded or followed by h, or at the end of a word, is pronounced as a short e.
In Lahnda the double consonant is generally retained, but in Sindhi, while the double consonant is simplified, the vowel re mains short. An original long vowel coming before a conjunct consonant is shortened when the conjunct is simplified.
In Sindhi, a sibilant is liable to be changed into h. In Lahnda the s is generally, but not always, preserved. A medial d becomes the hard r; there is great confusion between cerebrals and dentals, more common in Sindhi than in Lahnda. In Sindhi, t and d become regularly cerebralized before r. The cerebral 1 does not appear in Sindhi, but it has survived from Prakrit in Lahnda. When 1 represents a Prakrit single 1, it becomes !, but if it repre sents a Prakrit 11, it remains a simple dental 1.
Sindhi has a series of "recursive" consonants g, j, (I, and b. In sounding them the breath is drawn in instead of being expelled, i.e., the larynx being lowered and the glottis closed. They often, but not always, represent an original double letter.