Punjab
The major language spoken in the Punjab is Punjabi. In the Indian Punjab this is written in the Gurmukhi script. Pakistan uses the Shahmukhi script, that is closer to Urdu script. Hindi, written in the Devanagri script, is used widely in the Indian states of Himanchal Pradesh and Haryana. Several dialects of Punjabi are spoken in the different regions. The Majhi dialect is considered to be textbook Punjabi and is shared by both countries.
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.