Sir,
A few months ago l saw a Punjabi book (Kaida) in this little book I Saw Changes in the alphabet of Punjabi. One of those 35 letters had another companion. It was that Lala with a bindi (spot) at the bottom I wondered why anybody should mess up our languages alphabet. As I can see there is no language in the world which has all the sounds in alphabet. It has always been combination of letters which give rise to different sounds. English language has had26 letters for centuries The researchers in English language know that Some sounds are needed but they have been unable to add any more letters and they always combine join or eliminate one or the other fetter to do so in their alphabet due to public remittance The real principle which guides the spread of language is “keep it ‘simple so that beginners can feel it easy to learn at basic level”. If we or others add more and more spots at the bottom of letters we will be ruining our language because we already have too many letters in alphabet. It is not that we should follow English German French or any other language we must know our selves what is best for Punjabi. The best way in that we should follow Punjabi alphabet as written in Guru Granth or at the most what we developed it to Guru Gobind Singh’s time so far as alphabet is concerned. Any other change can be done by combination of organized alphabet letters. No other new letter or Hindi should be added in the alphabet. The scholars in Punjabi or the people in Universities or the Sikhs in Control should not allow any boly to mess up the alphabet.
People having such books should eliminate them or should not buy a book having unnecessary ambiguity.
In addition the novelist or story writers should not use English words to influence the reader they should all the time find Punjabi words or make new words and put English word in brackets next to it. Somebody may pick up that word he may accept it or coin a new one. Punjabi language will develop faster by following this procedure.
I must mention that these are just suggestions and hope you can probably find better ways to expand develop and improve.
Punjabi.
Sajjan’S. Bajwa Ph.D
Porterville, California
Article extracted from this publication >> May 31, 1991
