# Punjabi: is it jind or zind?



## lcfatima

I was having a conversation in another forum about jeem/z switching in Pakistan. The main consensus was that it is only recent immigrants from India and also some speakers from Gujarati "castes" or ethnic groups who make this switch. Anyhow, the conversation led to someone posing the question of whether the word jind/zind should really be jeem or /z/. Since it starts with "ze" (at least I think it does, meaning "life"?) I am guessing it should prescriptively be zind. Do Punjabi speakers in Pakistan usually say this word as jind? I have only heard the word in Indian/UK Punjabi bhangra-pop songs, and in these songs it is predictably pronounce as jind. It would be interesting of Pakistani Punjabis also say this as jind and feel it _should_ be jind.


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## lcfatima

Someone also pointed out to me that there are some Punjabi Pakistani pop songs containing the word jind, and also said:



> punjab's biggest sufi poet baba farid's "meda ishq wi tu" made famous my pathane khan goes "meda qalb wi tu, *jind* jaan wi tu".
> 
> jawad ahmed has a song titled "jind jaan sohniye".


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## panjabigator

I believe the word is <ji.nd>, regardless of etymology or nation state.  I do recall seeing the word in within Bulleh Shah poetry before.


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## lcfatima

Irregardless PG bhai?!? But it is from Farsi, zind? That is interesting.


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## arsham

Just a side note, zend(e) is from zistan to live (Middle Persian zi(wi)stan) which comes from Old Persian _jiv-_ , I think the Sanskrit root is also very similar to this one. So it's probable that in those Indian dialects/languages (or perhaps all of them), the original j- is conserved. the change of j and ch to z is a typically Iranian one as far as I know, it's perhaps not very evident at first glance in urdu due to loanwords!

From online dictionaries, I found jinaa for to live which does not show the historical Iranian shift!


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## panjabigator

lcfatima said:


> Irregardless PG bhai?!? But it is from Farsi, zind? That is interesting.



Yikes, I just reread my post.  Let me clarify; I think <ji.nd> is correct in standard Panjabi.


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## panjabigator

arsham said:


> Just a side note, zend(e) is from zistan to live (Middle Persian zi(wi)stan) which comes from Old Persian _jiv-_ , I think the Sanskrit root is also very similar to this one. So it's probable that in those Indian dialects/languages (or perhaps all of them), the original j- is conserved. the change of j and ch to z is a typically Iranian one as far as I know, it's perhaps not very evident at first glance in urdu due to loanwords!
> 
> From online dictionaries, I found jinaa for to live which does not show the historical Iranian shift!



After reading your post and IcFatima's, I see that <ji.nd> is a calque from Urdu via Persian.  I previously thought it to be related to the Panjabi <jiuNaa> (Urdu: <jiinaa>), but this doesn't seem to be the case.

Arsham, Urdu has the word <ziist> as well.  There is some Ghalib (I think!) couplet coming to mind right now, but I can't recall it in entirety.


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## lcfatima

Ah, so it must be a word of the language that developed into Punjabi dialects long before the N. Indian languages became Persianized, and retained the j, or possibly is from Sanskrit. It is just a coincident that it looks like its later adopted zinda, zindagi, zindagaani.


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## Faylasoof

I’ve heard Baba Farid’s Punjabi poetry and his <jind>. In Urdu, however, there is no word such as <zind> though <zindah> /<zindagii> <zindidaanii> are employed. We also use <zhand> / <zhandah> / <zhandagii >. 

      Arsham,


arsham said:


> From online dictionaries, I found jinaa for to live which does not show the historical Iranian shift!


 
  An historical Iranian shift here would be amusing turning <jiinaa> into <ziinaa> - phonetically very close to our <ziinah> = staircase!

      PG,


panjabigator said:


> After reading your post and IcFatima's, I see that <ji.nd> is a calque from Urdu via Persian. I previously thought it to be related to the Panjabi <jiuNaa> (Urdu: <jiinaa>), but this doesn't seem to be the case.
> 
> Arsham, Urdu has the word <ziist> as well. There is some Ghalib (I think!) couplet coming to mind right now, but I can't recall it in entirety.


     As you correctly recall, we do use <ziist> , but only in poetry. I think you had this couplet of Ghalib in mind:

عشق سے طبیعت نے زیست كا مزا پایا
درد  كی  دوا پائی ،  درد  بے دوا  پایا
(غالب)

3ishq se Tabee3at ne ziist kaa mazaa paayaa
dard kii dawaa paai, dard be dawaa paayaa
(Ghalib)


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## panjabigator

Faylasoof!  That is it!  I had thought about this couplet earlier when BG and yourself discussed the usage of the prefixes "be" and "la" with Persian and Arabic origin words  (<laaparwah> versus <beparwah>).  Thank you.


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## arsham

Faylasoof said:


> I’ve heard Baba Farid’s Punjabi poetry and his <jind>. In Urdu, however, there is no word such as <zind> though <zindah> /<zindagii> <zindidaanii> are employed. We also use <zhand> / <zhandah> / <zhandagii >.
> 
> Arsham,
> 
> 
> An historical Iranian shift here would be amusing turning <jiinaa> into <ziinaa> - phonetically very close to our <ziinah> = staircase!
> 
> PG,
> 
> As you correctly recall, we do use <ziist> , but only in poetry. I think you had this couplet of Ghalib in mind:
> 
> عشق سے طبیعت نے زیست كا مزا پایا
> درد كی دوا پائی ، درد بے دوا پایا
> (غالب)
> 
> 3ishq se Tabee3at ne ziist kaa mazaa paayaa
> dard kii dawaa paai, dard be dawaa paayaa
> (Ghalib)


 
By historical I meant related to the evolution of the language in question. Old Iranian and Indan languages are very similar to each other, but the way the later forms of these languages have evolved largel differs. So the historical period of interest is when the transition from Old Persian to Mddle Persian occured, which is about the 1st century BC. Usually initial j- becomes z- in Middle Persian (and hence in New Persian from which Urdu has borowed loanwords) ex. jiv- to live ziwistan, jan- to strike zadan,zan- or zan wife,woman from zaadan, jaa- in Old Iranian and Old Indian cf. Sanskrit janii- with the same meaning. So Indian languages have conserved the original j- sound while n Persian a shift to z took place around 1st centur BC, which obviousl excludes such changes as jinaa (which is the infinitive so the root is jii- which is indeed ver close to the Sanskrit form) to ziina in Urdu!!!!
as for zhinde and is derivatives, the're Persian words attested in Middle Persian as zind (zende was zendag or ziiwendag in Middle Persian, and of course this not to be confused with z_a_nd, from the avestan root zaan- corresponding to Old Persian dan- hence daanestan in Middle/New Persian)!


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## Qureshpor

lcfatima said:


> I was having a conversation in another forum about jeem/z switching in Pakistan. The main consensus was that it is only recent immigrants from India and also some speakers from Gujarati "castes" or ethnic groups who make this switch. Anyhow, the conversation led to someone posing the question of whether the word jind/zind should really be jeem or /z/. Since it starts with "ze" (at least I think it does, meaning "life"?) I am guessing it should prescriptively be zind. Do Punjabi speakers in Pakistan usually say this word as jind? I have only heard the word in Indian/UK Punjabi bhangra-pop songs, and in these songs it is predictably pronounce as jind. It would be interesting of Pakistani Punjabis also say this as jind and feel it _should_ be jind.



*In Pakistani Punjabi, it is always "jind" but "zindagii" (not jindagii). 'zind" on its own is never used.

A filmii song has the line..

jind aakhaaN kih jaan sajaNRaa..
*


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## eskandar

arsham said:


> So Indian languages have conserved the original j- sound while n Persian a shift to z took place around 1st centur BC, which obviousl excludes such changes as jinaa (which is the infinitive so the root is jii- which is indeed ver close to the Sanskrit form) to ziina in Urdu!!!!



I find this theory extremely unlikely, since the timing is off. The Hindustani words in question like zindagi, sabzi, etc. that have 'z' which is sometimes pronounced as 'j' (as in sabzi > sabji in some places) are not inherited from older Sanskrit/Prakrit vocabulary; if they had been, they wouldn't resemble the New Persian words so much as they would have undergone separate transformations. (For example, Hindustani likely inherited its word for eggplant, baingan, from its Indian ancestral languages, so it's related to the Persian badenjan, but not a borrowing; thus the divergent forms).

By the time that Hindustani began borrowing vocabulary from Persian, the consonant shifts you're describing had long since taken place in Persian, which is why the borrowed forms are written with 'z' even if sometimes pronounced with 'j'. Therefore, the shift from 'z' to 'j' in some dialects of Hindustani is not conserving an older (MP) pronunciation; quite the opposite, it is changing the NP pronunciation to fit Hindustani phonology, and it's just a coincidence that it mirrors a shift that happened many centuries before during the development of NP out of MP.


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## Sheikh_14

Faylasoof said:


> We also use <zhand> / <zhandah> / <zhandagii >.



I couldn't find any dictionary entries with regards to the usage of the three words mentioned above. Therefore, if anyone has it in their locker could they explicate or if thats too much to ask append a link whereby that would be possible. Examples would be great but not an imposition.

*"In Pakistani Punjabi, it is always "jind" but "zindagii" (not jindagii). 'zind" on its own is never used."* - QP

What about Jindarii, isn't that used in both sides of the border as an alternative to zindagii? Yes Jindagii is unheard of in Pakistani Punjabi though I don't know if the same can be said across the border.


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## Qureshpor

^ "jindRii" is another form for "jind" just like "mukhRaa" (face) is another form of "mukh".


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