Punjabi - Kenyan Sikh Community

Punjabi is spoken in Kenya primarily by the Sikh community, descendants of artisans and soldiers brought to construct the Uganda Railway in the 1890s — mostly Ramgarhia (artisan-caste) Sikhs who worked as carpenters, blacksmiths, and masons. Kenyan Punjabi is maintained institutionally in Sikh gurdwaras in Nairobi, Nakuru, Eldoret, and other towns, where the gurdwara setting has sustained a formal, liturgically grounded register of Punjabi. A distinct Kenyan-Punjabi variety has emerged, influenced by Swahili; whether it preserves archaic features lost in Punjab due to urbanisation is a hypothesis that awaits systematic linguistic study.

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