Putting the 'Pun' in Punjab

Let me clear up any confusion about how to pronounce ‘Punjab’.

We’ll begin with how to transliterate Indo-European languages. Consonants represent the actual sound produced in the mother language. For example, ‘ch’ in the English ‘chair’ is the same as in the Punjabi ‘cha’ (tea) or Hindi ‘chai’ (tea). Vowels, however, can be tricky. The indigenous scripts used in Indo-European languages use vowel markers for 9 of 10 sounds. The missing vowel marker is the one that throws everyone off. Thus, we are here learning how to properly pronounce ‘Punjab’. The vowels, in transliteration, are represented as: ‘a’ [but], ‘aa’ [balm], ‘i’ [bit], ‘ee’, [beet], ‘u’ [bull], ‘oo’ [boot], ‘ay’ [bake], ‘ai’ [back], ‘o’ [bore], ‘au’ [bough; The Golden Bough]. The last sound, ‘au’, is the trickiest because its counterpart just doesn’t exist in English.

With the basics of transliteration laid out above, we can move on to the pronunciation of ‘Punjab’. Don’t worry; when the British first came to Punjab, they were convinced that the local people couldn’t properly speak the language either.

Transliterated from the Gurmukhi script of the Punjabi language, ‘Punjab’ becomes PANJAAB. It is not POONJAAB, nor is it PANJAB. In early British texts, it was spelled PANJAUB.