Pendjabi occidental

Western Punjabi (Lahnda Punjabi, written in Shahmukhi script) is one of the largest languages in the world that is rarely covered in international media. With around 64 million speakers, it is the dominant native language of Pakistan, where it is spoken by about 38% of the population in the Punjab province (Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan, Rawalpindi). Linguistically, ISO 639-3 separates Western Punjabi (pnb) from Eastern Punjabi (pa) of India due to script and dialect differences — Pakistani Punjabi is written in Shahmukhi (Perso-Arabic) script while Indian Punjabi is written in Gurmukhi (Sikh sacred script). Despite its enormous speaker base, Western Punjabi has limited official recognition in Pakistan, where Urdu and English are the prestigious state lingua francas. Movements to elevate Punjabi to provincial official status have been ongoing since the 1980s.