Mankiyali is an endangered

Indo-Aryan language The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, Pa ...

of the Dardic sub branch spoken in

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (; ps, خېبر پښتونخوا; Urdu, Hindko: خیبر پختونخوا) commonly abbreviated as KP or KPK, is one of the Administrative units of Pakistan, four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the Geography of Pakistan, ...

, northern Pakistan. It is spoken by a small community sometimes referred to as the Trawara in the secluded village of Danna (or Dana) located in the Bandi Shungli union council of

Mansehra District Mansehra District is a district in Hazara Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. It was established as a district in 1976, prior to which it was a tehsil within the former Hazara District. Two former subdivisions of Mansehra were ...

. There are also some speakers scattered in the neighbouring villages of Damaka, Guldar, Arghaniya, Chamrasi and Shoshni. The whole community has been reported to be bilingual in

Hindko Hindko (, romanized: , ) is a cover term for a diverse group of Lahnda dialects spoken by several million people of various ethnic backgrounds in several areas in northwestern Pakistan, primarily in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Pun ...

, the

language of wider communication A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...

in the area. The language is still being passed on to the next generation, but overall it is losing ground to Hindko. The first study documenting the existence of the language was published only in 2015. The name ''Mankiyali'' is of recent origin, having been coined by members of the community to replace the older terms ''Tarawara'' and ''Tarawari'', which are now seen as stigmatising. Mankiyali is not

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...

with any of the surrounding languages. Lexical similarity tests have revealed that it shares a little over a third of its core vocabulary with the local varieties of

and

Gojri Gojri (, ), also known as Gujari, Gujri, Gojari, or Gojri, is a variety of Rajasthani spoken by the Gurjars and other tribes of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. In India, the language is mainly spoken in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, ...

, and a slightly higher percentage (41–42%) with Gowro and

Bateri Bateri (, बटेरी) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Kohistan District, Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir, India. Status As of now, there is little research done on the language and is currently being studied and surveyed by organization ...

– two languages of the Kohistani group of Dardic.. The lexical similarity percentages are as follows: 34% with

Ushojo Ushoji (natively known as Ushojo) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Kohistan and Swat districts of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Status Ushoji may be incredibly endangered due to the dominance of the Pashto language in the r ...

, 41% with Gowro, 42% with Bateri, 39% with Hazara Gojri and 36% with Sherpur Hindko. The somewhat higher similarity with Bateri could indicate a common origin, which would be consistent with the oral traditions of the community. Mankiyali has been influenced by Hindko and Gojri, particularly in the development of

phonemic tone Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning – that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information and to convey emph ...

: a preliminary analysis indicated that its tonal system is of the Punjabi type, shared with Hindko and Gojri and contrasting with the systems found in northern Dardic languages. The

voiced aspirate Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like ...

s have been lost, conditioning a low rising tone on the following vowel. There are contrasting dental () and palatal ()

affricates An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. ...

References

Bibliography

* * * * {{Languages of Pakistan Dardic languages Languages of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa