page_title: Saraiki language
section_title: Arts and literature
hierarchical_section_title: Saraiki language / Language use / Arts and literature
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of Khawaja Ghulam Farid tomb at Kot Mithan
context_page_description: Saraiki is an Indo-Aryan language of the Lahnda group, spoken in the south-western half of the province of Punjab in Pakistan. It was previously known as Multani, after its main dialect.
  Saraiki is to a high degree mutually intelligible with Standard Punjabi and shares with it a large portion of its vocabulary and morphology. At the same time in its phonology it is radically different, and has important grammatical features in common with the Sindhi language spoken to the south.
  Saraiki is the language of 25.9 million people in Pakistan, ranging across southern Punjab, southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and border regions of northern Sindh and eastern Balochistan.
  The Saraiki language identity arose in the 1960s, encompassing more narrow local earlier identities, and distinguishing itself from broader ones like that of Punjabi.
context_section_description: Khawaja Ghulam Farid (1845–1901; his famous collection is Deewan-e-Farid) and Sachal Sar Mast (1739–1829) are the most celebrated Sufi poets in Saraiki and their poems known as Kafi are still famous.
  The beloved's intense glances call for blood
  
  The dark hair wildly flows The Kohl of the eyes is fiercely black
  
  And slays the lovers with no excuse
  
  My appearance in ruins, I sit and wait
  
  While the beloved has settled in Malheer I feel the sting of the cruel dart
  
  My heart the, abode of pain and grief A life of tears, I have led Farid
  —one of Khwaja Ghulam Farid's poems (translated)
  Shakir Shujabadi (Kalam-e-Shakir, Khuda Janey, Shakir Diyan Ghazlan, Peelay Patr, Munafqan Tu Khuda Bachaway, and Shakir De Dohray are his famous books) is a very well recognized modern poet.
  Famous singers who have performed in Saraiki include Attaullah Khan Essa Khailwi, Pathanay Khan, Abida Parveen, Ustad Muhammad Juman, Mansoor Malangi, Talib Hussain Dard, Kamal Mahsud, and The Sketches. Many modern Pakistan singers such as Hadiqa Kiyani and Ali Zafar have also sung Saraiki folk songs.
caption: Tomb of Sufi poet Khwaja Ghulam Farid
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