Pakistan's census does not include the 1.4 million citizens of Afghanistan who are temporarily residing in Pakistan.[8][9][10] The majority of them were born in Pakistan within the last four decades and mostly belong to the Pashtun ethnic group. They also include Tajiks, Uzbeks and others.[11]
Traditionally, Punjabi identity is primarily linguistic, geographical and cultural. Its identity is independent of historical origin or religion and refers to those who reside in the Punjab region or associate with its population and those who consider the Punjabi language and its dialects as their mother tongue.[15][16]Integration and assimilation are important parts of Punjabi culture, since Punjabi identity is not based solely on tribal connections.[17]
Pashtuns are an Iranic ethnolinguistic group and are Pakistan's second largest ethnicity. They speak Pashto as their first language and are divided into multiple tribes such as Afridi, Durrani, Yousafzai and Khattak, which are notably the main Pashtun tribes in Pakistan. They make up an estimated 38 million of Pakistan's total population[18] and are mostly adherent to Sunni Islam.
The Baloch are an Iranian ethnolinguistic group, and are principally found in the south of Balochistan province of Pakistan.[31] Despite living in the southeastern side towards the Indian subcontinent for centuries, they are classified as a northwestern Iranian people in accordance to their language which belongs to the northwestern subgroup of Iranian languages.[32]
According to Dr. Akhtar Baloch, Professor at University of Karachi, the Balochis migrated from Balochistan during the Little Ice Age and settled in Sindh and Punjab. The Little Ice Age is conventionally defined as a period extending from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries[33][34][35] or alternatively, from 1300[36] to 1850,[37][38][39] although climatologists and historians working with local records no longer expect to agree on either the start or end dates of this period, which varied according to local conditions. According to Professor Baloch, the climate of Balochistan was very cold and the region was uninhabitable during the winter so the Baloch people migrated in waves and settled in Sindh and Punjab.[40]
They are a small minority group in Afghanistan, where they are native, but they are also found in their diaspora in West Asian states.[48] They mainly occupy the area in Balochistan from Bolan Pass through the Bolan Hills to Ras Muari (Cape Monze) on the sea, separating the Baloch people living to the east and west.[49][50] The Brahuis are almost entirely SunniMuslims.[51]
^Gandhi, Rajmohan (2013). Punjab: A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten. New Delhi, India; Urbana, Illinois: Aleph Book Company. p. 2. ISBN978-93-83064-41-0.
^"About Punjab: Geography". Tourism Development Corporation, Government of the Punjab. Archived from the original on 2 December 2007. Retrieved 14 December 2007.
^"People & Culture". Government of the North-West Frontier Province. Archived from the original on 17 November 2007. Retrieved 14 December 2007.
^Qadeer, Mohammad (22 November 2006). Pakistan - Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation. Routledge. p. 40. ISBN978-1-134-18617-4. Punjab's diversity of dialects, Saraiki and Pothohari contrasting with the heartland Punjabi, was striking at the time of independence. Since then, the increased mobility of the population and the absorption of refugees from India have stimulated homogenizing tendencies both linguistically and ethnically. NWFP, although symbolically a Pashtoon is also a province of many ethnicities and languages, for example, Hindku-speaking people inhabit the Peshawar Valley and Hazara district, and Saraiki speakers are found in the Derajats.
^Lamb, HH (1972). "The cold Little Ice Age climate of about 1550 to 1800". Climate: present, past and future. London: Methuen. p. 107. ISBN0-416-11530-6. (noted in Grove 2004:4).
^Miller et al. 2012. "Abrupt onset of the Little Ice Age triggered by volcanism and sustained by sea-ice/ocean feedbacks" Geophysical Research Letters39, 31 January: abstract (formerly on AGU website) (accessed via wayback machine 11 July 2015); see press release on AGU website (accessed 11 July 2015).
^Grove, J.M., Little Ice Ages: Ancient and Modern, Routledge, London (2 volumes) 2004.
^Rensch, Calvin Ross; O'Leary, Clare F.; Hallberg, Calinda E. (1992). Hindko and Gujari. National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University. p. 4. The term Hindki is often used to refer to a speaker of the Hindko language (Shackle 1980: 482), but in popular usage it may refer to the language as well. In older literature it was frequently used for the language--for example, in the Imperial Gazetteer of NWFP, which regularly calls it Hindki (1905: 130, 172, 186 ff.).
^Rensch, Calvin Ross (1992). Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan: Hindko and Gujari. National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University. p. 4. The term Hindki is often used to refer to a speaker of the Hindko language (Shackle 1980: 482), but in popular usage it may refer to the language as well.
^ abWest, Barbara A. (2010). Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania. Infobase Publishing. p. 285. ISBN9781438119137. The term Hindko as used in Pakistan refers to speakers of Indo-Aryan languages who live among the primarily Iranian Pashtuns of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). The origins of the term refer merely to "Indian speaking" rather than to any particular ethnic group.
^The rise and development of Urdu and the importance of regional languages in Pakistan. Christian Study Centre. p. 38. Shackle suggests Hindko simply means "Indian language' and describes it as a "collective label for the variety of Indo-Aryan dialects either alongside or in vicinity of Pushto in the northwest of the country'. Hindko is the most significant linguistic minority in the NWFP, represented in nearly one-fifth (18.7%) of the province's total households. ... The Influence of Pushto on Hazara appears to have become more pronounced, due in part to an Influx of Pashtuns replacing the Hindko-speaking Sikhs and Hindus who formerly held key trading positions and who departed at independence.
^Elfenbein, Josef (2019). Seever, Sanford B. (ed.). The Dravidian Languages (2 ed.). Routledge. p. 495. ISBN978-1138853768. The main habitat of Brahui tribesmen, as well as the main area where the Brahui language is spoken, extends continuously over a narrow north-south belt in Pakistan from north of Quetta southwards through Mastung and Kalat (including Nushki to the west) as far south as Las Bela, just inland from the sea coast.
^Elfenbein, Josef (1989). "BRAHUI". Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. IV, Fasc. 4. pp. 433–443. BRAHUI (Brāhūī, Brāhōī), the name of a tribal group living principally in Pakistani Baluchistan and of a Dravidian language spoken mainly by Brahui tribesmen.
^James B. Minahan (30 August 2012). "Brahuis". Ethnic Groups of South Asia and the Pacific: An Encyclopedia. ISBN9781598846607. Retrieved 21 November 2015.
^Minahan, James B. (31 August 2016), "Brahui", Encyclopedia of Stateless Nations: Ethnic and National Groups around the World, 2nd Edition: Ethnic and National Groups around the World, ABC-CLIO, pp. 79–80, ISBN978-1-61069-954-9
