Puadhi dialect

Puadhi
Puadhi
Powadhi
ਪੁਆਧੀ پوادھی
Pronunciation	Powadhi
Native to	Punjab; Haryana; Chandigarh; Himachal Pradesh;
Region	Puadh
Ethnicity	Punjabi (Puadhi)
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Northwestern Punjabi Eastern Punjabi Puadhi; ; ; ; ; ;
Writing system	Gurmukhī
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	powa1244

Puadhi (Gurmukhi: ਪੁਆਧੀ, Shahmukhi: پوادھی, Puādhī, sometimes spelled as Poadhi, Powadhi, Puwadhi, Pawadhi, or Pwadhi) is an eastern dialect of the Punjabi language primarily spoken in the Puadh region of northern India.^[1] It is spoken between the Sutlej and Ghaggar river basins in the present-day states of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and the union territory of Chandigarh.

Speaker of Puadhi dialect.

Puadh extends from Rupnagar near Satluj up to the Ghaggar-Hakra river and its tributaries, Markanda and Som in the east, which lie in northern Haryana up to Kala Amb in Sirmaur district of Himachal Pradesh.

To the west it extends into the Puadh tract of Ludhiana district where the westernmost spoken varieties of the Puadhi dialect form a continuum with Malwai and in north it blend with Doabi.^[2] Puadhi's western boundary also extends into Fatehgarh Sahib and Patiala districts and its influence is observed in the southwest in the adjacent areas of Kaithal and Kurukshetra districts up to northern areas of Jind district such as Ujhana and Dhamtan Sahib.

The language is spoken over an area in present Indian Punjab, Himachal Pradesh. Chandigarh and Haryana. Puadhi spoken areas are: Kharar, Kurali, Mohali, Zirakpur, Dera Bassi, Lalru, Rupnagar, Morinda, Payal, Rajpura, Samrala, etc. in Punjab, in Chandigarh, and Ambala, Naraingarh, Panchkula, Raipur Rani, Barwala, Shahabad Markanda, Barara, Thana Chappar, Pehowa, north of Kaithal and Tohana, etc. in Haryana.

Grammar

Genitive postposition: The genitive case particles of ਕਾ kā, ਕੀ kī, ਕੇ kē and ਕੀਆਂ kīā̃ are found in Puadhi, as compared to most other dialects which use ਦਾ dā, ਦੀ dī, ਦੇ dē and ਦੀਆਂ dīā̃. Puadhi shares this grammatical trait with neighbouring Bagri and Haryanvi languages. In Punjabi, this form of second case is also observed intermittently in villages that speak Malwai.
Ablative postposition: ਤੇ tē is the Puadhi equivalent of Majhi ਤੋਂ tō̃, similarly ਗੇਲੇ gēlē is used instead of ਨਾਲ਼ੋਂ nāḷō̃.
Topic marker: In addition to ਤੇ tē and ਤਾ tā, ਤੋ tō and ਤੌ tau are also commonly used. The latter ਤੌ is pronounced as a diphthong when emphasized. All four nominative particles are the same in Puadhi as in Haryanvi, which is spoken to its immediate south.^{[citation needed]}

The Puadhi dialect has many words that differ from other dialects of Punjabi.

Puadhi folk song sung by Punjabi women

↑ "Online Punjabi Teaching". www.learnpunjabi.org. Retrieved 2026-08-09.
↑ Punjab (India) (1992). Punjab District Gazetteers. Controller of Print. and Stationery.