________________
376
THE ALPHABET Kashtawari Character
The Kashtawari writing, another Takri variety, is considered by Grierson as a connecting link between the Takri and the Sarada characters. It is used for Kashtawari, which is a dialect of Kashmiri (see p. 362), but is much influenced by the Pahari and Lahnda languages, spoken by its southern and south-eastern neighbours. Kashtawari is spoken in the valley of Kashtawar, lying to the south-east of the valley of Kashmir.
Landa Scripts The Landa or "clipped" character (Fig. 170), is current all over Punjab and Sind as a national alphabet for Punjabi, although it is used mainly by shopkeepers.
Punjabi belongs to the central group of Indo-Aryan languages, and is spoken by about 17 million people in the central Punjab. It is also spoken by the British Sikh soldiers. As Sir George A. Grierson pointed out, Punjabi "is the one which is most free from borrowed words, whether Persian or Sanskrit."
The Landa character is also used for two other groups of the northwestern Indo-Aryan languages. These are: (1) Lahnda-meaning "(sun-) setting," or "west," has nothing to do with Landa, or Western Punjabi, spoken by about seven million people; and (2) Sindhi, spoken by three and a half million people in Sind, on both banks of the lower Indus, the terms Sind and Indus being etymologically identical.
The Landa, like the Takri and the Mahajani characters, is difficult to read, and varies locally. It is closely allied to the Takri, both in development and present form, and, thus, has most of its disadvantages, being imperfectly supplied with vowel-signs. The Landa character frequently omits the representation of the vowels; it has no signs for internal vowels and only two or three symbols for initial forms. The consonants are also represented in an inconsistent and obscure manner.
Multani Character
Several varieties of the Landa character may be mentioned; different localities and various classes of people favour distinct styles. Among them is the Multani character (Fig. 153, col. 18, and 171, 1), employed for Multani, the most important of the twenty-two Lahnda dialects, which is spoken by about two and a half million people.
Sindhi Varieties
George Stack, in his Sindhi Grammar, published a hundred years ago, mentioned a dozen varieties of the Landa character used for Sindhi: Khudawadi, Shikarpuri, Sakkar, Thattai (Luhanas, Bhatias), Larai, Wangai, Rajai, Khwajas, Maimons (Thatta, Hyderabad), Sewhani
