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Doabi is a Punjabi dialect spoken in the Doaba. It is spoken in the Indian Punjab and parts of Pakistani Punjab owing to post-1947 migration of Muslim populace from East Punjab. The word "Do Aabi" means "the land between two rivers" and this dialect was historically spoken between the rivers of the Beas and the Sutlej in the region called Doaba. The region it is now spoken include the Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Nawanshahr districts in Indian Punjab, including the areas known as the Dona and Manjki, and the Toba Tek Singh and Faisalabad districts in Pakistan Punjab where the dialect is known as Faisalabadi Punjabi.
Contents
- Analysis
- Consonants
- Vowels
- Other suprasegmental phonemes
- Tone
- Stress
- Substituting letters
- Sentence structure
- References
The sub dialects of Doabi include Dona and Manjki.
Analysis
The Doabi dialect in its eastern part blends with the Malwai dialect of Ludhiana district, and in its Northern side, it shares the linguistic features of the Pahari. Some of the linguistic features of the Doabi dialect that separate it from rest of the Punjabi dialects are as below:
Consonants
Vowels
Doabi has ten vowels. These are /ə, ɪ, ʊ, aː, ɛː, eː, iː, ɔː, oː, uː/
For example:
Other suprasegmental phonemes
Tone, stress and nasalization in Doabi are phonemic.
Tone
Three tones are used in Doabi; low, mid and high. For example;
Stress
Stress in Doabi is realized in two ways. Syntagmatically and paradigmatically.
Syntagmatically, stress-shift results in change of meaning.
For example:
Paradigmatically, Doabi has stressed and unstressed syllables;
Substituting letters
Doabi's drop the letter "v" at the start of a word and use the letter "b" as in "Vada" (big) to "Bada". They also use the letter "o" elsewhere in a word instead of a "v" as in "Khvab" (dream) to "Khoaab". A distinctive feature of Doabi is the use of the "w" sound. Where "v" appears in the middle of a word in standard Punjabi, Doabis use "w" so that "hava" (wind) becomes "hawa". Also, the vowel "u" is pronounced with an "o". Accordingly, "khush" (happy) becomes "khosh" or "kuht" (to beat) becomes "koht". In Doabi, any word beginning with "i" is pronounced with "e". For example, the word "khich" (to pull) is pronounced as "khech" or the word "vich" (inside) is pronounced as "bech".
Doabis do not use "z" and therefore substitute "j". This is common in the Punjabi language as "z" is not indigenous to the area.
Sentence structure
Doabi's end sentences with "aa" (present tense) and "sigey" (past —tense), instead of "han" (present tense) and "san" or "si" (past tense). "Aiddan", "Jiddan", "Kiddan" are all commonly used adverbs in Doabi as opposed to the ”Inj / Aistaran", "Jistaran", Kistaran" used in Punjabi's prestige dialect, Majhi.