THE NORTHERN SINDHI STYLE AND LINGUISTIC DICTION OF SHAIKH AYAZ’S POETRY
Keywords:
Shaikh Ayaz, Sindhi Poetry, Poetics, Linguistic styles, Utradi Sindhi, Language variation, Idiolect, Dialect, Sociolect, etc.Abstract
Shaikh Ayaz (1923-1997) was a polyglot, a bilingual poet, and a prose writer of Sindhi and Urdu languages. His selected Sindhi poetry has been translated into Urdu, English, Pashtu and Punjabi. Apart from his first language, Sindhi, he was proficient in Persian, Urdu-Hindi, and English, and also knew Punjabi.
This paper examines Shaik Ayaz's Poetic Utradi (Northern) Sindhi style across his different written styles. It raises the question that: Is Shaikh Ayaz's Sindhi poetry linguistically uniform and only in the pure Sindhi style? Or are there any differences in it from different contexts? And which linguistic features of the northern Sindhi dialect, or Shikarpuri Sindhi sociolect, are present in Shaik Ayaz's Sindhi poetry?
For this purpose, a qualitative analysis of data collected from his published poetry collections has been conducted.
The analysis of the results shows that the Sindhi linguistic style consciously adopted by Shaikh Ayaz is highly diverse, with linguistic variation based on dialects, Sociolects, genre, and period or sociopolitical conditions. In his poetry, Utaradi's Shikarpuri style is prominently present with specific characteristics. These features are mostly limited to the native repertoire.
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