Victory has many fathers, defeat is orphen
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What's that supposed to mean?
Let me understand Ist and I shall let you know soon.
I've decided i can't be bothered, i don't wanna argue. I'm sorry for arguing with you double 0
Hindko (هندکو /Hindkoŭ/), Hindku, or Peshawari (پشاوری) is an ancient Indo-Aryan language spoken by Hindkowans (Punjabi Pathans) in Pakistan.[1] The word "Hindko" literally translates to "Indian Mountains", or more appropriately as "Mountains of the Indus country". The word "Hind" is the Persianised reference to the regions associated with the Indus River immediately to the east of Persia and "Ko" means mountains[2]. The word Hindko has also been interpreted to mean the language of India.[3] The term is also found in Greek references to the mountainous region in eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan as Καύκασος Ινδικός (Caucasus Indicus). The language is spoken in the areas of the North West Frontier Province (including Hazara), Punjab and Kashmir by an estimated 7 million people.
There is no generic name for these people because they belong to diverse ethnicities and tend to identify themselves by the larger families or castes. However the people of the largest group in the districts of Haripur, Abbottabad and Mansehra are sometimes recognised collectively as Hazarawal, named after the defunct Hazara Division that comprised of these districts. In Peshawar city they are referred to as "Kharay" meaning City-dwellers or Hindkowans.
History and Origin
During the pre-Buddhist era in present day Pakistan, the language of the masses was refined by the ancient grammarian Pāṇini, who set the rules of a structurally rigorous language called Sanskrit which was used principally for scriptures (analogous to Latin in the Western world). Meanwhile, the vernacular language of the masses, Prakrit developed into many tongues and dialects which spread over the northern parts of South Asia. Hindko is believed to be closely related to Prakrit. Due to the geographic isolation of the regions, it has undergone very little grammatical corruption, but has borrowed considerable vocabulary from its neighbours, in particular Pashto. It shows close affinity to Punjabi and the Lahnda sub-group of Indo-Aryan tongues and can be sub-divided into a northern and southern dialect (the southern dialect spoken in Pakistani Punjab shows some similarity with Siraiki as opposed to Punjabi). This language is very similar to the Mirpuri dialect of Potohari and Hindko and Mirpuri speakers can understand each other very well.
Speakers
The largest geographically contiguous group of Hindko speakers is concentrated in the districts of state {{amb]] Abbottabad, Haripur, Mansehra, Attock and Kaghan valley of Pakistan, while there are a substantial number of geographically isolated speakers of Hindko in cities like Peshawar, Mardan and Kohat.
People here tend to associate themselves with the larger families instead of a language (or caste as it used to be called). The Qureshi(Arabians), for example, have a great history of bravery and are known as lords of the Hazara Division. Other tribes are Awan, Tanoli, Tareen, Jadoon, Abbasi, Karlal, Tahirkheli etc. People who speak Hindko are referred to by some academics as Punjabi Pathans probably because of the many Pashtun tribes, for example Jadoons,Tanolis and Tahirkhelis, who settled in places like Hazara, adopted Hindko as their first language and gained political power in these areas during the British rule, and also because of many ethnic Pushtun people who speak Hinkdo as their first language in Peshawar and Kohat. The Hindko speaking people living in major cities Peshawar, Kohat, Mardan are bilingual in Pashto and Hindko. Similarly many Pashto speaking people in districts like Abbottabad and Mansehra (especially in Agror Valley and northern Tanawal) have become bilingual in Pashto and Hindko.
The NWFP Imperial Gazetteer (1905) refers to the language as Hindko. More than one interpretation has been offered for the term Hindko. Some associate it with Hindustan (as the word may have been used during the medieval Muslim period in the Indian subcontinent), others with the Indus River which is of course the etymological source of all these terms. Farigh Bukhari and South Asian language expert and historian Christopher Shackle believe that Hindko was a generic term applied to the Indo-Aryan dialect continuum in the northwest frontier territories and adjacent district of Attock in the Punjab province to differentiate it from Pashto.
Linguists classify the language into the Indic subgroup of Indo-European languages and consider it to be one of the Indo-Iranian languages of the area. An estimated 2.4 per cent of the total population of Pakistan speak Hindko as their mother tongue, with more rural than urban households reporting Hindko as their household language.
In Mumbai there is a neighbour called GTB nagar ( formerly called Punjabi Refugee camp)where hindko speaking biradris such Pishori, Hazarewaals & as well as "Chhachi" were settled after partition. Hindko is mostly spoken by people of partition generation & Baby boomers , mellinials & genZ mainly prefer to be in English & Hindi , love to all my dear Hindko brothers & sisters from India!
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