ABSTRACT
Sindhi occupies a prominent place among the languages of South Asia. According to the 1991 estimates, Sindhi is spoken by approximately 18 million people in the Indian subcontinent. Over eighty percent of them are in the Sindh and Lasa B’elo (Baluchistan) regions of Pakistan. Nearly three million Sindhi speakers are in India; about one third of them are from the Kutch-Saurashtra region in Gujarat and the Jaisalmer district in Rajasthan. The rest are associated with the post-partition migration from Sindh; they are now spread throughout the urban and semi-urban centres in the country with concentrations in the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and the National Capital Territory of Delhi. Many Sindhi speakers, engaged in overseas trade called ‘Sindhwork’, are also scattered in important trade centres throughout the Southeast Asia region (Singapore, Jakarta, Manila), Hongkong, Japan, the Gulf, the African west coast, Spain and Gibraltar.
