Punjab, Pakistan
The major and native language spoken in the Punjab is Punjabi (which is written in a Shahmukhi script in Pakistan) and Punjabis comprise the largest ethnic group in country. Punjabi is the provincial language of Punjab, but is not given any official recognition in the Constitution of Pakistan at the national level.
Punjab, Pakistan
The region was originally called Sapta Sindhu, the Vedic land of the seven rivers flowing into the ocean. The Sanskrit name for the region, as mentioned in the Ramayana and Mahabharata for example, was "Panchanada" which means "Land of the Five Rivers", and was translated to Persian as "Punjab" after the Muslim conquests. The region was known to the Greeks as "Pentapotamia", meaning the region of five rivers. The word "Punjab" was formally introduced in the early 17th century CE as an elision of the Persian words "panj" ("five") and "āb" ("water"), thus meaning the (land of) "five rivers", similar in meaning to the Sanskrit and Greek name for the region. The five rivers, namely Chenab, Jhelum, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej, flow via the Panjnad River into the Indus River and eventually into the Arabian Sea. Of the five great rivers of Punjab, four course through Pakistan's Punjab province.