# Punjabi: sigmatic future



## panjabigator

I'm very interested in learning more about the sigmatic future, a variant form of the future tense limited to Pakistani Panjabi and Seraiki dialects.  Are there any uses of this tense that distinguish it from the Majhi Panjabi future, i.e. <aa.ngaa, e.ngaa, oge>, etc.?  Which Panjabi dialect use it and in which other ones would it be understood?

To the best of my knowledge, the only Panjabi speakers who would recognize this tense are partition migrants and their descendents.  My father doesn't but his father does (though not a migrant).  While staying in Lucknow, I frequented a tailor whose family migrated from Pakistani Panjab.  He spoke to me a very marked Pakistani Panjabi dialect, with sigmatic future constructions mixed librally with the standard future tense.  When I asked him where his family was from, he said South of Lahore, and so I presumed Multan, but he didn't recognize the label Seraiki.  Neither did my Panjabi teacher who was unaware that she was a Seraiki speaker.  Perhaps this nomenclature is new.


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## Illuminatus

Could you give a few examples which use this tense?


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## Cilquiestsuens

If you mean things like *tusi jaaso* (= aap jaaenge) - *mai.N karsaa.N* (= main karoonga), etc...

I don't know to which dialect it belongs, to more than one I'm sure, I'm pretty much sure it is commonly used in Potohari and I hear it quite often in Lahore (you know, the city with Punjabi migrants from everywhere)


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## panjabigator

Yep, <mai.n karsaa.N>, etc.  I think it's used in Seraiki and some Lahnda dialects, but I'm interested in learning more about it.


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## huhmzah

Ahh! I've definitely heard this form among Potoharis, in fact I remember a potohari saying [I'm guessing about greed] which goes something like this: <aaso, kii liyaaso? jaasaaN, kii khavaaso?>
(When you'll come [over], what will you bring [for me], When I'll go [over], what will you feed me? / Ur: [Aap] aaenge to kya laenge, [hum]  jaenge to [aap] kya khilaenge?)
That's my two cents


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## panjabigator

Huhmzah, this is very interesting.

Would Pakistani Panjabi speakers understand this construction even if their dialect doesn't use it?  I'd venture to say that Indian Panjabi speakers might not.


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## bakshink

Punjabi migrants do understand this dialect- My grand mother would often use it. My father would say that we are from Bhera in Pakistan and I don't know in which part of West Punjab that existed or still does. I have one aunt (chachi) in whose family- it is still spoken too. I will see if I can find from her their roots. But I believe the Punjabi language being spoken in Indian Punjab has done away with it- maybe because the percentage of those speaking this dialect was very less and they settled scattered all over India/Punjab.


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## panjabigator

Does anyone know the first person plural form? Is it the same as the first person singular?


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## Qureshpor

panjabigator said:


> Does anyone know the first person plural form? Is it the same as the first person singular?



maiN jaasaaN   asiiN jaasaaN

tuuN jaaseN     tusiiN jaaso

o jaasii            o jaasaNR


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## panjabigator

Thanks Qureshpor. Are these common in your dialect of Punjabi? Do speakers use this form in addition to the Majhi Punjabi forms interchangeably?


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## Qureshpor

panjabigator said:


> Thanks Qureshpor. Are these common in your dialect of Punjabi? Do speakers use this form in addition to the Majhi Punjabi forms interchangeably?



*For some strange reason totally unbeknown to me, my (personal) Punjabi differs from the rest of my immediate family. I must have been kidnapped by aliens and taken to another time and then returned to my original place of birth!

For example, I say...tusiiN aa'iyo, tusiiN jaa'iyo whereas everyone else says..tusiiN jaaNRaa etc.

Regarding the tense, I come from district Gujrat, but from its most northerly boundry bordering on the south bank of the river Jhelum. We did n't know we spoke poThwarii or Saraikii. I have always been told we spoke ("normal") Punjabi.*


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## panjabigator

Is it common to interchange between the two different future tense, though? In other words, in your idiolect is it common to hear "javega/jaega/jaasii" articulated by the same person?


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## Qureshpor

panjabigator said:


> Is it common to interchange between the two different future tense, though? In other words, in your idiolect is it common to hear "javega/jaega/jaasii" articulated by the same person?



*I had to think a little about this. Yes, we do use both varieties. "maiN jaavaaN gaa/maiN jaasaaN". It's all done subconsciously!*


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## panjabigator

Thank you. What are the subjunctive forms of these words?


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## Qureshpor

panjabigator said:


> Thank you. What are the subjunctive forms of these words?


 

*For both:* 

*jaavaaN         jaa'iye*

*jaaveN           jaavo*


*jaave            jaavaNR*


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## panjabigator

I see. Good to know.


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## panjabigator

bakshink said:


> Punjabi migrants do understand this dialect- My grand mother would often use it. My father would say that we are from Bhera in Pakistan and I don't know in which part of West Punjab that existed or still does. I have one aunt (chachi) in whose family- it is still spoken too. I will see if I can find from her their roots. But I believe the Punjabi language being spoken in Indian Punjab has done away with it- maybe because the percentage of those speaking this dialect was very less and they settled scattered all over India/Punjab.



Bakshink Sahib,

Interestingly, while this "sigmatic future" is not often heard in Indian Punjab (though maybe Delhi might provide a different story), we do find it in Gurbani. We need not look further than the Muul Mantar:

ਹੈ ਭੀ ਸਚੁ, ਨਾਨਕ ਹੋਸੀ ਭੀ ਸਚੁ।

Fun!

-PG


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## marrish

Good catch, PG SaaHib. I don't use these forms but I hear them from my Pothwaari friends and also from people from Jhelum and Pindi.

I like the title you gave to this thread!


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## panjabigator

Thanks, Marrish Sahib.

The title is not my own, I must admit. About ten years ago, when I was just a neophyte Panjabi student (and could barely speak the language), I emailed a Panjabi scholar at Chicago to ask about this form. Basically everything I learned then was an innovative structure (as I was mainly raised with Hindi as our dominant Indic language, with Panjabi reserved for relatives and religion). It wasn't till I moved to India for graduate research that I realized I had an arsenal to understand Gurbani. I attribute much of that success to this forum!


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## Saimdusan

panjabigator said:


> When I asked him where his family was from, he said South of Lahore, and so I presumed Multan, but he didn't recognize the label Seraiki.  Neither did my Panjabi teacher who was unaware that she was a Seraiki speaker.  Perhaps this nomenclature is new.



Historically there was no common name for this dialect cluster - people would just say Multani, Derawali or whatever other local name. As far as I know, use of the name _Saraiki _as well as the consolidation of a common ethnolinguistic identity dates back to after Partition, so it's no surprise that Indian Saraikis are unaware of the term.


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## mundiya

I've heard of Saraiki and agree that it's a new term.  But what about Hindko?  Is that the same as Saraiki too?


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## Dib

Quoting Christopher Shackle from Chapter 16 Panjabi of "The Indo-Aryan Languages" edited by Cardona & Jain (Routledge language family series), section 4.5.3:
"The sigmatic future without gender distinctions is characteristic of all western dialects, most of which have personal endings identical with those of the present subjunctive, but 3 sg. -sii. The future of many Siraiki transitive verbs is formed from the present-future stem in -'e-, e.g. ka'resii 'he will do', su'NResii 'he will tell' versus suNRsii 'he will hear'."

I have changed Shackle's transcription to match with this forum's usual norms for Hindi-Urdu. He gives the Siraiki paradigm as:
1st. sg. likhsaaN
2nd sg. likhseN
3rd sg. likhsii
1st pl. *likhsuuN*
2nd pl. likhso
3rd pl. likhsin

-------

Incidentally, he talks about a third "short" future in Dogri and Kangri - 3rd sg. likhag and likhgaa respectively, and connects them - if I understand correctly - to the Adi Granth form "likhagu". The sigmatic one is connected to Adi Granth "likhasii", and the normal Majhi form to AG likhaigaa.


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## Dib

Note: The Siraiki endings are different from Qureshpor's dialect's, but the general idea is the same.


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## Saimdusan

mundiya said:


> I've heard of Saraiki and agree that it's a new term.  But what about Hindko?  Is that the same as Saraiki too?



Hindko just means "Indian". Historically then it would've just been a generic term for Indo-Aryans (an _exonym_ used by Pashtuns) but it become consolidated as a name only for Hindkowans because they were the Indo-Aryan people they had most contact with (similar to how we refer to Netherlandic people as "Dutch" in English because they were the continental West Germanic population with which England had closest contact - originally "Dutch" referred to all West Germanic people). I'm not sure when "Hindko" and "Hindkowan" lost its more general sense, though - I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the last century, because I remember reading that ethnographers historically called them _Punjabi Pathans_. Note that in Afghanistan there is also a population of Indian origin that they still call _Hindki_.


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## mundiya

Saimdusan said:


> Hindko just means "Indian". Historically then it would've just been a generic term for Indo-Aryans (an _exonym_ used by Pashtuns) but it become consolidated as a name only for Hindkowans because they were the Indo-Aryan people they had most contact with (similar to how we refer to Netherlandic people as "Dutch" in English because they were the continental West Germanic population with which England had closest contact - originally "Dutch" referred to all West Germanic people). I'm not sure when "Hindko" and "Hindkowan" lost its more general sense, though - I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the last century, because I remember reading that ethnographers historically called them _Punjabi Pathans_. Note that in Afghanistan there is also a population of Indian origin that they still call _Hindki_.



Thank you.  But is the language or dialect that's currently called Hindko the same as Saraiki?


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## Qureshpor

mundiya said:


> Thank you. But is the language or dialect that's currently called Hindko the same as Saraiki?


No, Hindko and Saraiki are spoken in different areas of the Western Punjab and they are not the same.


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## panjabigator

Wow, it's been nearly 5 years since I originally asked this question. Thank you to everyone for your contributions! 



> Incidentally, he talks about a third "short" future in Dogri and Kangri - 3rd sg. likhag and likhgaa respectively, and connects them - if I understand correctly - to the Adi Granth form "likhagu". The sigmatic one is connected to Adi Granth "likhasii", and the normal Majhi form to AG likhaigaa.



Dib Sahib, I have a Kangri grammar at home somewhere. I think I remember reading about this "likhag" and "likhgaa." Doabi and Malwai include alternative forms in the first and third persons: "likkhūNgā" and "likkhugā," respectfully.* I suspect that these forms are also said in Majhi too, but I also think that Indian Punjabi is homogenizing more and more. So what good are these dialect terms anyway?

*The Adi Granth includes short vowels sounds which are not pronounced. For example, in the verse ਥਿਤਿ ਵਾਰੁ ਨਾ ਜੋਗੀ ਜਾਣੈ, ਰੁਤਿ ਮਾਹਿ ਨਾ ਕੋਈ || ਜਾ ਕਰਤਾ ਸਿਰਠੀ ਕਉ ਸਾਜੇ ਆਪੇ ਜਾਣੈ ਸੋਈ ||, the short "u" in ਵਾਰੁ and the short "i" and ਰੁਤਿ would not be pronounced. I haven't been able to ascertain a reason as to why this is. I suspect that since Gurbani is meant to be sung rather than recited, the short vowels allow for some sort of connectivity. Don't hold me to that. Wonder if there is a connection between the pronunciation of short vowels in Gurbani and the dialectical differences I've discussed above. Just a thought.


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## Qureshpor

^ PG SaaHib, as you are well aware, in spoken Punjabi we don't have final short vowels. What you see in the Adi Granth is a preservation of the way things were or might have been. I am assuming this scripture is at least 400 years old. The written language does not always keep pace with the spoken word. Just take a look at xvaab in Urdu, which almost invariably is pronounced as xaab in Urdu, Persian AND Punjabi. In Shahmukhi, you will always see it written as xvaab too. Just a thought.

Whilst listening to Nizam Deen diyaaN gallaaN, I became aware of the variety of Punjabi tense forms used by him and in his poetry quotes. Here is a quote from MiyaaN Muhammad SaaHib, the author of Saifu_lmuluuk (Sword of the Kings). Apart from the verb form which you will notice is not quite what you and I would use, don't you think it is a wonderful piece of poetry?

3ishq aapNRe vich ve maiNDaa maahii te suT *ga'oN* DuuNge fikraaN
te paaTii liir puraaNRii vaaNgoN, mainuuN TaNg *ga'oN* vich kikraaN! 
................

ik prograam asiiN karde hunde sii (I would expect saNR here)

dove chaNge p_halvaan te gabruu sii (ditto)

tuuN itthe kitthe baithaa aaN (I would expect -eN here)

Allah Hayaatii devii je zindagii ho'ii te vall maaN-puttar milsuuN (Here I would have said..milsaaN or milaaN ge)...nah ho'ii te maiNDii qabar te faatiHag jaa aakhiiN.

miyaaN kyaa kujh vekhiyaa ii (For -ii, I would say -e)

tuhaaDaa saaraa bistaraa guvaach giyaa aahii, kidhre vekhiyaa saa ii (A mixture of tenses...at least that's how it seems to me)

o kise bajaar te maruu (I would say "marsii" or "mare gaa!" here)

Just some food for thought.


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## Saimdusan

mundiya said:


> Thank you.  But is the language or dialect that's currently called Hindko the same as Saraiki?



Grierson classified them both as dialects of "Lahnda", but I think that category has been disputed by other experts, and Hindkowans and Saraikis don't have a common ethnolinguistic conscience.


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## marrish

Saimdusan said:


> Grierson classified them both as dialects of "Lahnda", but I think that category has been disputed by other experts, and Hindkowans and Saraikis don't have a common ethnolinguistic conscience.


It's an old thing and outdated, this ''Lahnda''.


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## Qureshpor

marrish said:


> It's an old thing and outdated, this ''Lahnda''.


In TheTh Punjabi, as spoken by my maternal family, it means "West" (Where the sun sets) as opposed to "chaRhdaa", "East" (Where the sun rises). Other points of the compaas, as used by them are "parbat" (North..due to mountains in the north, I don't know) and dakkhaNr (South)


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## marrish

You are thanked for this. I am as you know a fake Punjabi and even in my wild dreams I could not have figured this out. Besides, I was pointing to a linguistic term which is outdated and wrong. You'll agree that there is not such an animal like ''Western Punjabi''. It's a whole class of those beasts which I cherish as pets.


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