The Effects of Urdu, Punjabi and English on Mewati Lexical Items in Pakistan

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effects of Urdu, Punjabi, and English on Mewati lexical items in Pakistan. Mewati speech community migrated from the current state of Delhi, Haryana, and Alwar, India, and settled across various parts of Pakistan in 1947. After the migration, the Mewati speech community eventually met various dialects and languages spoken across Pakistan. It seems as if Mewati has been depleting ever since. There are striking differences in the speed of change across the various linguistic levels, such as phonology, lexis, syntax, and semantics. The present study investigates intergenerational lexical shifts in the Mewati language. Labov (1963, 1966) argues that language change can be observed in different age groups. Thus, the Apparent Time Hypothesis was considered for studying intergenerational lexical shifts in the Mewati language. The data was collected from 60 participants belonging to three different age groups (10-25 years, 35-50 years, and 70-90 years, respectively). All the participants were residents of the province of Punjab, which is in a way representative of the target population. A list of items of daily use along with their images was administered to elicit their responses. The study shows that there is more likely a significant lexical shift between (10-25) years and old Mewati speakers. The second age group (35-50 years) was quite successful in retaining some words. However, those who were between 70-90 years seem, true representatives of the Mewati language. There is reason to believe that the Mewati language would suffer badly after the death of the last person in this age group. Nevertheless, with these findings, we can safely speculate that Mewati language is endangered.