With over 100 million speakers around the world, Punjabi is the 10th most spoken language in the world, the 4th most spoken language in the United Kingdom and the 3rd most spoken language in Canada.
In India, Punjabi is predominantly spoken by Sikhs and written left-to-right with Gurmukhi (“mouth of Guru”) script whereas in Pakistan, Punjabi is written in the opposite direction (right-to-left) with the Shahmukhi (“mouth of Shah”) script, which is based on the Persian Nastaleeq script. The Indian and Pakistani Punjabi languages are mutually intelligible in spoken, but not in written, format.