Guru Nanak

To revive Punjabi as a literary language, efforts had to be made at a level of world-historical importance. There was the urgent need to enrich its diction that Guru Nanak did by borrowing words from all possible sources i. e. classical languages; not only Sanskrit and Pali of the Indian origin but also Arabic and Persian of what was then regarded as vilayat. In this context, the dialects of the areas to the west of Punjab were also not ignored. Thereby, Braj, Rajputani and even Sindhi were tapped for this purpose. Guru Nanak also saw to it that derivation from multiple sources was not of the haphazard sort. Two techniques were at hand i. e. tatsam and tadvabh which, in a masterly way, he employed to form words of his own. He did so by altering the spellings, tones, intonations and even the meanings of words for use in his diction.


From my study of the Western literature of the medieval times, I can think only of Dante who employed such subtle and suitable means to develop the Italian language.


Prof. Tejwant Singh Gill