Hindko

Hindko (ہنَدٌّکوَ, pronounced [Hindkoŭ]; also spelled as Hindku or Hinko) is a Northwestern Indo-Aryan language of the Lahnda group, spoken by about 5 million people in Pakistan. Most of them live in Hazara (now a region of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), but there are also speakers in other parts of the province (such as Kohat and Peshawar). There are also speakers in Azad Kashmir (Muzaffarabad District) and in north-western Punjab (Attock District). Hindko is generally classified by linguists as being within the Lahnda group which also includes Saraiki and Pahari-Pothwari. The Hazarvi variety is the most widely spoken dialect of Hindko followed by the dialect spoken in the Attock District of Punjab.

There is no proper, formal generic name for these people because they belong to diverse ethnicities and tend to identify themselves by the larger families, castes and tribes. However the people of the largest group in the districts of Haripur, Abbottabad and Mansehra are sometimes recognised collectively as Hazarawal, named after the Hazara Division that comprises these districts. In Peshawar city they are referred to as "Kharay" meaning City-dwellers or Hindkowans.

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