Punjab University Indological Series, No. 18 presents a linguistic analysis of three important languages of the North-western Group of the Indo-Aryan family, viz., Sindhi, Lahnda and Panjabı. A detailed survey of these languages had been made by Sir G. A. Grierson in Vol. VIII-i and IX-i of his monumental 11-volume Linguistic Survey of India (1903-28), which was effectively summarised, subsequently, by Dr. Siddheshwar Varma and issued in three volumes by the Vishveshvaranand Institute (1972-76). While the said Summary was in press, it was decided to issue some of the more important sections, also, separately, for the benefit of scholars interested in individual language families. The present publication stems out of this decision.

The Panjab region of pre-pratition India, comprising the present West Panjab of Pakistan, and Panjab and the adjoining parts of Hariyana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu in India has had the distinction of being the meeting ground of Dardic, the parent of Lahnda which spread eastwards from the Indus Valley, and of old Midland language, the parent of Western Hindi which spread westwards from the Yamuna Valley, their respective influence being proportional to their distance from the two said parent languages. For this reason, Lahnda may be described as a Dardic language infected by Western Hindi, while Panjabı is a form of Western Hindi infected by Dardic. The third language, Sindhi, spoken in Sind (Pakistan) and the adjoining areas in Baluchistan, Rajasthan and Saurashtra, preserves intact its relationship to the Dardic languages.

The present publication aims at describing the said three languages and their several dialects from the linguistic point of view. Care has been taken to set down analytically the provenance, grammatical categories and syntax of these languages and their dialects. Several tables of select words and model sentences in the dialects of the different languages have also been provided towards enabling a comparative study of the actual grammatical formations.