Pashayi or Pashai (زبان پشهای) is a group of
Indo-Aryan languages
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, P ...
spoken by the
Pashai people in parts of
Kapisa,
Laghman,
Nangarhar,
Nuristan
Nuristan, also spelled as Nurestan or Nooristan (Dari: ; Kamkata-vari: ), is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the eastern part of the country. It is divided into seven districts and is Afghanistan's least populous province, wi ...
,
Kunar and
Kabul
Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into #Districts, 22 municipal dist ...
(
Surobi District) provinces in Northeastern
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is borde ...
.
The Pashayi languages had no written form prior to 2003.
There are four mutually unintelligible varieties, with only about a 30% lexical similarity:
* Northeastern: Aret, Chalas (Chilas), Kandak,
Korangal, Kurdar dialects
* Northwestern: Alasai, Bolaghain, Gulbahar, Kohnadeh, Laurowan, Najil, Nangarach, Pachagan, Pandau, Parazhghan, Pashagar, Sanjan, Shamakot, Shutul, Uzbin, Wadau dialects
* Southeastern: Damench, Laghmani, Sum, Upper and Lower
Darai Nur, Wegali dialects
* Southwestern: Ishpi, Isken, Tagau dialects
A grammar of the language was written as a doctoral dissertation in 2014.
Phonology
Consonants
*
is only phonemic in the Amla dialect.
* Sounds
and
can also occur, but only in loanwords and among Dari speakers.
*
�is more commonly heard among older speakers, but is lost among younger speakers, and is heard as a postalveolar
�
*
�is more commonly heard among older speakers, but is lost among younger speakers, and is heard as a postalveolar
�
* /ʋ/ is heard before front vowels /i e/. When occurring before or after central or back vowels /a u o/, it is heard as
* According to Masica (1991) some dialects have a //.
Vowels
* Only mid or low vowels have lengthened equivalents.
* /e/ can be heard as
�and /a/ can be heard as
�or
� in certain environments.
*
References
Dardic languages
Languages of Afghanistan
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