Punjabi Retail & E-Commerce Translation

About the Punjabi Language

Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language and the native language of about 130 million people, and is the 10th most spoken language in the world. Most of the people who speak this language live in the Punjab region of Pakistan and India. It is also widely spoken in Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Delhi. Punjabi is natively spoken by the majority of the population of Pakistan.

Punjabi developed from the ancient language of Sanskrit just like many other modern Indo-Aryan languages.

In India technical words in Standard Punjabi are loaned from Sanskrit similarly to other major Indian languages, but it generously uses Arabic, Persian, and English words also in the official language. In India, Punjabi is written in the Gurmukhī script in offices, schools, and media. Gurmukhi is the official standard script for Punjabi, though it is often unofficially written in the Devanagari or Latin scripts due to influence from Hindi and English, India's two primary official languages at the Union-level.

In Pakistan, Punjabi is generally written using the Shahmukhī script, created from a modification of the Persian Nastaʿlīq script. In Pakistan, Punjabi loans technical words from Persian and Arabic languages, just like Urdu does. Punjabi is the most widely spoken language in Pakistan, the eleventh-most widely spoken in India and spoken Punjabi diaspora in various countries.

Punjabi Translation Expertise

Punjabi is a tonal language — one of the few Indo-Aryan languages with lexical tone — where the same word spoken with different pitch patterns can carry different meanings, though this primarily affects spoken interpretation rather than written translation. The language uses postpositions and has two genders with complex verb agreement patterns. A significant challenge is that Punjabi from India (East Punjab) is written in Gurmukhi script, while Punjabi from Pakistan (West Punjab) uses Shahmukhi (modified Arabic script), and the translator must be proficient in the correct variant.

Gurmukhi, the script used for East Punjabi, has 35 consonant characters and runs left to right, with vowels indicated by diacritical marks attached to consonant letters. Shahmukhi, used for West Punjabi, is a modified Arabic script running right to left. Translators must identify the script to determine the document's likely country of origin and applicable conventions.

Common Punjabi Documents

Punjabi documents commonly requiring translation include the janam saratifikat (birth certificate, often issued in Hindi or Punjabi by Punjab state), vidyak saratifikat (educational certificate), viah da saratifikat (marriage certificate), and parivarak kirdan da record (family record documentation).

NAATI offers certification for Punjabi, and there is strong demand driven by significant Punjabi migration to Australia, particularly from India. The number of NAATI-certified Punjabi translators has grown in recent years to meet increasing demand from the student and skilled migration visa streams.

About the Punjabi Language

Punjabi is the only living Indo-Aryan language that is tonal — the same combination of consonants and vowels can mean completely different things depending on the pitch pattern used, a feature that developed from the loss of certain ancient aspirated consonants. It is the most spoken language in Pakistan by number of native speakers, yet Urdu — not Punjabi — is Pakistan's national language, creating an unusual situation where the majority language has minority status. Punjabi is the language of Sikh scripture (the Guru Granth Sahib), and Gurmukhi script was specifically created by the second Sikh Guru, Angad Dev, in the 16th century to write it down.