Most Panjaabis call this animal murgaa. Is it?

By Jaspal Singh | OPINION | LANGUAGE |

Most Panjaabi people will call this animal murgaa. Murgaa is not a Panjaabi word. The actual word for this animal in Panjaabi is kukkad (ਕੁੱਕੜ).

The origin of the word murgaa is Persian (morg). It is said that the word morg came into the Panjaab region during the invasion of various Afghan tribal forces.

The word morg later entered into the Urdu language but changed slightly to become murg.

The word murg came to be used by Panjaabi (commonly spelt Punjabi) people as Urdu culinary terms began to spread and used widely. Murg metamorphosised into murgaa.

A point to note is that even in Pakistan part of the Panjaab today, there are efforts to restore usage of existing Panjaabi words instead of using foreign words for the same object.

If one were to listen to Panjaabi folk songs, one can hear the word kukkad in the lyrics of many songs. For example, ‘cittaa kukkad banerei tei’ and ‘kukdi olei ni‘.

Kukkad khaao par kukkad na banio. 

Jaspal Singh, a former journalist, is an Ipoh-based plain English copy-editor, proofreader and webproofer. In his spare time, he loves to study the Panjaabi language.

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