It is hard to beleive that only 10% people speak seraiki in Pakistan. According to 1998 census population of Pakistan was about 130 milion. If 10% people speak seraiki then populaton of seraiki speaking people should have been 13 million in 1998. But the facts show that population of seraiki speaking people was lot more than 13 million in 1998. FOllowing is given population in some seraiki speaking districts in 1998.(1998 Census was latest census available to me)
Multan 3.2 million
Bahawalpur 2.1 million
Khanewal 2.0 million
Muzzafer Gerh 2.7 million
DGKHAN 1.7 million
RajanPur 1.2 million
Layyah 1.2 million
Bhakar 1.0 million
Mianwali 1.0 million
Sub Total 16.1 million
(1 million = 10 Lakh)
Seraiki is defenitely not limited to these districts,that is why I have used word "Sub Total" instead of "Total".
Hundreds of thousands people use it as their first language in Rahim Yarn Khan,Sahiwal, Bahawal Nagar, Vehari, Jhang, Khushab and Sargodha.
Seraiki is widely spoken and understood in some parts of NWFP province (i.e Dera Ismail Khan) and is the third biggest language of Balochistan.
Seraiki is also spoken in Sindh and many Sindhi People can understand and speak Seraiki.The Best example of that is Asif Ali Zardari.It is surprising fact that Asif Ali Zardari can fully speak seraiki and he has a great respect for seraiki people.Following are few lines from Jang Article written by Rauf Klasra.
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