| Dhatki | |
|---|---|
| ڍاٽڪي Dhatki ڍاٽي Dhatti ٿَري Thari | |
 The word Dhatki written in the Sindhi alphabet (top) and the Devanagari script (bottom) | |
| Native to | Pakistan (Tharparkar andUmerkot districts ofSindh) India (Jaisalmer andBarmer districts ofRajasthan) |
| Ethnicity | Tharis |
Native speakers | 1,800,000 (2024)[1] |
| Arabic script,Devanagari,[citation needed]Mahajani[citation needed] | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | mki |
| Glottolog | dhat1238 |
 Dhatki language map in blue | |
| This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA. | |
Dhatki (धाटकी; ڍاٽڪي), also known asDhatti (धाटी; ڍاٽي),Thari (थारी; ٿَري), is aIndo-Aryan Language of theIndo-European language family. It is mainly spoken inTharparkar andUmerkot districts ofSindh and inBarmer district ofRajasthan.
Dhatki/Dhatti is considered either related toSindhi, orRajasthani (Marwari).[2] Dhatki dialects are divided into two groups Western Dhatki and Eastern Dhatki. Western Dhatki is spoken in Tharparkar,Pakistan while Eastern Dhatki is spoken along Indo-Pakistan border inJaisalmer andBarmer districts of India. Dhatki dialects and their names are based on the regions in Tharpakar which Include: Muhrano and Samroti etc.[3]
Speakers of the Dhatki language can be ethnically Rajasthani, Thari, Sindhi and Gujarati, the Dhatki language unites these ethnically diverse groups under one mother tongue and under one umbrella. Some Dhatki-speaking communities migrated toIndia in 1947 after the independence and continued to do so in small numbers after that date, but the great majority of Dhatki speakers still reside inPakistan.[2] Dhatki/Dhati is spoken by these communities:
The majority speakers of Dhatki language live inUmerkot District andTharparkar District inSindh,Pakistan. 60% of the language's speakers are Muslims, 35% are Hindu and the remaining 5% practice traditional folk religions.
Dhatki hasimplosive consonants, unlike other closely related Rajasthani languages but like the neighbouring (but more distantly related)Sindhi language. It is likely that these consonants developed in the language from contact with more culturally dominant Sindhi speakers. Aside from this, its phonology is much like other Indo-Aryan languages:
Dhakti has a fairly standard set of vowels for an Indo-Aryan language: [ə aː ɪ iː ʊ (sometimes: u) uː eː oː ɛː ɔː]. The vowelʊ may be realized as a shortu and the vowelɪ may be realized as a shorti. The vowelɛː is often realized as the diphthongəiː based and context or as anæː based on the speaker's accent. The vowelɔː is often realized as the diphthongəuː based and context. Nazalized vowels occur word finally in Dhakti, they are: [ĩː ẽː ɛ̃ː ɑ̃ː ɔ̃ː õː ũː].
A few of the typical sentences in Dhatki are:
{Tu Kun aheen?}-"who are you?"
| English | Dhatki | Sindhi | Marwari |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | Hu(n) | Ma(n)/Aao(n) | Mai(n) |
| You (informal) | Tu(n) | Tu(n) | Tu |
| My | Mahyo/Mahajo | Munjo | Mahro |
| Your | Tahyo/Tahajo | Tunjo | Tharo |
| What | Ki | Chha | Kaain |
| Name | Naam | Nav/Nalo | Naam |
| To look | Jovan/Disan | Disan | Jovan |
| Go | Ja | Wanj | Jawo |
To sum up, we have in Southwest Marwar-Mallani and in the Thar or Dhat of Thar and Parkar and of Jaisalmer a number of forms of speech, all mixtures of Marwari and Sindhi in varying proportions. They may be considered either as dialects of Sindhi, or as dialects of Marwari.
