DIASPORA OF PUNJABI LANGUAGE BY THE PUNJABI THEATRE

Abstract

This paper attempts to investigate that the province of Central Punjab carries the country’s major part of the population, which mother tongue is Punjabi. A majority of this population serves at different prominent public and private positions in Pakistan. Despite such a strong position of Punjabi speakers, their language is in a rapid state of Diaspora, even from its native land and by its own speakers. Among the other many reasons, the present Punjabi theatre has become a dominant cause of language exile from the urban life of Punjab. After the unrestricted spread of cable network in Pakistan, the so-called Punjabi theatre has reached in every house of the province. This type of drama or theatre causes a banishment of Punjabi language by its very speakers. The participants for the present study are 100 educated people belonging to different walks of life. They have witnessed the distortion of Punjabi language by Punjabi theatre. To gauge the diasporification of Punjabi language, a questionnaire has been devised in connection with language likening and disliking, causes, and effects in the day to day life of urban Punjabi speakers. The gathered data shows that Punjabi people are averting from their mother tongue and pretend themselves as Urdu speakers. They are also breeding a kind of hatred against the Punjabi language that ultimately becomes the root cause of Diaspora of Punjabi language. The findings authenticate that the situation is worrisome in central Punjab.