The Nuristani languages, formerly known as Kafiri languages, are one of the three groups within the Indo-Iranian language family, alongside the much larger Indo-Aryan and Iranian groups. They have approximately 130,000 speakers primarily in eastern Afghanistan and a few adjacent valleys in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Chitral District, Pakistan. The region inhabited by the Nuristanis is located in the southern Hindu Kush mountains, and is drained by the Alingar River in the west, the Pech River in the center, and the Landai Sin and Kunar rivers in the east. The languages were previously often grouped with Indo-Aryan ( Dardic sub-group) or Iranian until they were finally classified as forming a third branch in Indo-Iranian.

Languages

Northern: ** Kamkata-vari (Bashgali, includes the dialects Kata-vari, Kamviri, Shekhani and Mumviri) 40,000 speakers ** Wasi-wari (Prasuni) 8,000 speakers * Southern: ** Askunu (Ashkun) 40,000 speakers ** Waigali (Kalasha-ala) 12,000 speakers ** Tregami (Gambiri) 3,500 speakers ** Zemiaki 500 speakers

History

The Nuristani languages were not described in literature until the 19th century. The older name for the region was Kafiristan and the languages were termed Kafiri or Kafiristani, but the terms have been replaced by the present ones since the conversion of the region to

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

in 1896. The Kalash people are very close to the Nuristani people in terms of culture and historic religion, and are divided between speakers of the Nuristani language, Kalasha-ala, and an Indo-Aryan language, Kalaṣa-mun. There are three different theories about the origins of the Nuristani languages and their place within the Indo-Iranian languages: * following the studies of Georg Morgenstierne, Nuristani has generally been regarded as one of three primary sub-groups of Indo-Iranian (alongside Iranian and Indo-Aryan); * suggestions that Nuristani may instead be a branch of the Indo-Aryan subgroup, due to the evident similarity with Dardic languages, and; * it has also been proposed that Nuristani originated within the Iranian sub-group, and was later influenced by an Indo-Aryan language, such as Dardic. The languages are spoken by tribal peoples in an extremely isolated mountainous region of the Hindu Kush, one that has never been subject to any real central authority in modern times. This area is located along the northeastern border of present-day Afghanistan and adjacent portions of the northwest of present-day Pakistan. These languages have not received the attention linguists would like to give them. Considering the very small number of people estimated to speak them, they must be considered endangered languages. Many Nuristani people now speak other languages, such as Dari and Pashto (two official languages of Afghanistan) and Chitrali in Pakistan.

Proto-Nuristani

The earliest divergence of Nuristani from the other Indo-Iranian languages may be indicated by the fact that the Ruki sound law does not apply after *u: e.g. Kam-viri 'mouse'. Nuristani shares with Iranian the merger of the tenuis and breathy-voiced consonants, and the fronting of the Proto-Indo-Iranian primary palatal consonants. The latter were retained as dental affricates in Proto-Nuristani, in contrast to simplification to sibilants (in most of Iranian) or interdentals (in Persian). Nuristani is distinguished by the lack of debuccalizing to as in Indo-Aryan. Later on *dz did shift to in all Nuristani varieties other than Kam-viri and Tregami. Many Nuristani languages have subject–object–verb (SOV) word order, like most of the other Indo-Iranian languages, and unlike the adjacent Dardic Kashmiri language, which has verb-second word order.

References

Bibliography

* Decker, Kendall D. (1992) ''Languages of Chitral.'' Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan, 5. Islamabad: National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University and Summer Institute of Linguistics. * Grjunberg, A. L. (1971): ''K dialektologii dardskich jazykov (glangali i zemiaki). Indijskaja i iranskaja filologija: Voprosy dialektologii.'' Moscow. * Morgenstierne, Georg (1926) Report on a Linguistic Mission to Afghanistan. Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning, Serie C I-2. Oslo. * Jettmar, Karl (1985) Religions of the Hindu Kush *

J. P. Mallory James Patrick Mallory (born October 25, 1945) is an American archaeologist and Indo-Europeanist. Mallory is an emeritus professor at Queen's University, Belfast; a member of the Royal Irish Academy, and the former editor of the ''Journal of Ind ...

, ''In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth'', Thames and Hudson, 1989. * James P. Mallory & Douglas Q. Adams, "Indo-Iranian Languages", '' Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture'', Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997. * Strand, Richard F.
NURESTÂNI LANGUAGES
in Encyclopædia Iranica

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