There are at least three major dialects: Pothwari, Mirpuri and Pahari. The dialects are mutually intelligible, but the difference between the northernmost and the southernmost dialects (from
Muzaffarabad and
Mirpur respectively) is enough to cause difficulties in understanding.
Pothohar Plateau Pothwari (), also spelt
Potwari,
Potohari and
Pothohari, is spoken in the north-eastern portion of
Pothohar Plateau of northern Punjab, an area administratively within
Rawalpindi division. Pothwari is its most common name, and some call it
Pindiwal Punjabi to differentiate it from the Punjabi spoken elsewhere in Punjab. Pothwari extends southwards up to the
Salt Range, with the city of
Jhelum marking the border with
Majha dialect. To the north, Pothwari transitions into the Pahari-speaking area, with
Bharakao, near Islamabad, generally regarded as the point where Pothwari ends and Pahari begins. In
Attock and
Talagang districts of Pothohar, it comes in contact with other Lahnda varieties, namely
Chacchi,
Awankari and
Ghebi. In
Chakwal, yet another dialect is spoken,
Dhani. Pothwari has been represented as a dialect of Punjabi by the Punjabi language movement, and in census reports the Pothwari areas of Punjab have been shown as Punjabi-majority.
Mirpur East of the Pothwari areas, across the
Jhelum River into
Mirpur District in Azad Kashmir, the language is more similar to Pothwari than to the Pahari spoken in the rest of Azad Kashmir. Locally it is known by a variety of names:
Pahari,
Mirpur Pahari,
Mirpuri, and
Pothwari, while some of its speakers call it
Punjabi. Mirpuris possess a strong sense of Kashmiri identity that overrides linguistic identification with closely related groups outside Azad Kashmir, such as the Pothwari Punjabis. The Mirpur region has been the source of the greater part of Pakistani immigration to the UK, a process that started when thousands were displaced by the construction of the
Mangla Dam in the 1960s and emigrated to fill labour shortages in England. The
British Mirpuri diaspora now numbers several hundred thousand, and Pahari has been claimed to be the second most common mother tongue in the UK till replaced by Polish, yet the language is little known in the wider society there and its status has remained surrounded by confusion.
Kashmir, Murree and the Galyat Pahari () is spoken to the north of Pothwari. The central cluster of Pahari dialects is found around
Murree. This area is in the
Galyat: the hill country of
Murree Tehsil in the northeast of Rawalpindi District (just north of the capital Islamabad) and the adjoining areas in southeastern
Abbottabad District. One name occasionally found in the literature for this language is
Dhundi-Kairali (
Ḍhūṇḍī-Kaiṛālī), a term first used by
Grierson who based it on the names of the two major tribes of the area – the
Kairal and the
Dhund. Its speakers call it
Pahari in Murree tehsil, while in Abbottabad district it is known as either
Hindko or
Ḍhūṇḍī. Nevertheless,
Hindko – properly the language of the rest of Abbottabad District and the neighbouring areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa – is generally regarded as a different language. It forms a
dialect continuum with Pahari, and the transition between the two is in northern Azad Kashmir and in the Galyat region. For example, on the road from Murree northwest towards the city of Abbottabad, Pahari gradually changes into Hindko between
Ayubia and
Nathiagali. A closely related dialect is spoken across the Jhelum River in Azad Kashmir, north of the Mirpuri areas. Names associated in the literature with this dialect are
Pahari (itself the term most commonly used by the speakers themselves),
Chibhālī, named after the
Chibhal region or the Chibh ethnic group, and
Pahari (Poonchi) (, also spelt
Punchhi). The latter name has been variously applied to either the Chibhali variety specific to the
district of Poonch, or to the dialect of the whole northern half of Azad Kashmir. This dialect (or dialects) has been seen either as a separate dialect from the one in Murree, or as belonging to the same central group of Pahari dialects. The dialect of the
district of Bagh, for example, has more shared vocabulary with the core dialects from Murree (86–88%) than with the varieties of either Muzaffarabad (84%) or Mirpur (78%). In
Muzaffarabad the dialect shows lexical similarity of 83–88% with the central group of Pahari dialects, which is high enough for the authors of the sociolinguistic survey to classify it is a central dialect itself, but low enough to warrant noting its borderline status. The speakers however tend to call their language
Hindko and to identify more with the Hindko spoken to the west, despite the lower lexical similarity (73–79%) with the core Hindko dialects of
Abbottabad and
Mansehra. Further north into the
Neelam Valley the dialect, now known locally as
Parmi, becomes closer to Hindko. Pahari is also spoken further east across the
Line of Control into the
Pir Panjal mountains in Indian
Jammu and Kashmir. The population, estimated at 1 million, is found in the region between the
Jhelum and
Chenab rivers: most significantly in the districts of
Poonch and
Rajouri, to a lesser extent in neighbouring
Baramulla and
Kupwara, and also – as a result of the influx of refugees during the
Partition of 1947 – scattered throughout the rest of Jammu and Kashmir. Pahari is among the regional languages listed in the sixth schedule of the
Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir. This Pahari is sometimes conflated with the
Western Pahari languages spoken in the mountainous region in the south-east of Indian Jammu and Kashmir. These languages, which include
Bhadarwahi and its neighbours, are often called "Pahari", although not same they are closely related to Pahari–Pothwari.
Diaspora Pahari Pothwari is also very widely spoken in the
United Kingdom. Labour shortages after
World War II, and the displacement of peoples caused by the construction of the Mangla Dam, facilitated extensive migration of Pahari-Pothwari speakers to the UK during the 1950s and 1960s, especially from the Mirpur District. Academics estimate that between two thirds and 80% of people officially classified as
British Pakistanis originate as part of this diaspora, with some suggesting that it is the second most spoken
language of the United Kingdom, ahead of even Welsh, with hundreds of thousands of speakers. However, since there is little awareness of the identity of the language among speakers, census results do not reflect this. The highest proportions of Pahari-Pothwari speakers are found in urban centres, especially the
West Midlands conurbation and the
West Yorkshire Built-up Area. == Phonology ==