Saraiki Language - Etymology

Etymology

The word "Sarāiki" originated from the word "Sauvira", a kingdom name of ancient India, also mentioned in the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata. By adding adjectival suffix "-ki" to the word "Sauvirā" it became "Sauvirāki". The consonant 'v' with its neighboring vowels was dropped for simplification and hence the name became "Sarāiki". Although George Abraham Grierson reported that "Sirāiki" (that was the spelling he used) is from a Sindhi word sirō, meaning 'of the north, northern', Christopher Shackle asserts that this etymology is unverified. Another view is that Saraiki word originates from the word Sarai.

The standard Romanization of the Saraiki language name (at least de facto) is "Saraiki". However, "Seraiki", and "Siraiki" have also been used in academia until recently. The language name (in whichever of these spellings) was adopted in the 1960s by regional social and political leaders. An organization namely Saraiki Academy was founded in Multan on 6 April 1962, under the Presidentship of Mir Hassaan-ul-Haidri who was replaced by Makhdoom Sajjad Hussain Qureshi, which gave the name of universal application to the language. Presently, "Saraiki" is the spelling used in universities of Pakistan (the Islamia University of Bahawalpur, department of Saraiki established in 1989, Bahauddin Zakariya University, in Multan, department of Saraiki established in 2006, and Allama Iqbal Open University, in Islamabad, department of Pakistani languages established in 1998), and by the district governments of Bahawalpur and Multan, as well as by the federal institutions of the Government of Pakistan like Population Census Organization and Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation.

Two of the native scripts, Gurmukhi and Devanagari, use the 'a' spelling (or rather, its native equivalent), which indicates that the vowel of the first syllable is a short /a/. In the Gurmukhi and Devanagari spellings given above, this is manifested by the lack of any vowel diacritic. As is standard for native Indo-Aryan orthographies, the absence of any diacritic over a consonant indicates that a short /a/ is spoken after that consonant.