The Dardic languages (also Dardu or Pisaca) or Hindu-Kush Indo-Aryan languages, are a group of several
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily ...
spoken in northern
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...
, northwestern
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
and parts of 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 bordere ...
.
The term "Dardic" is stated to be only a geographic convention used to denote the northwesternmost 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 languages, Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily ...
rather than any ethnic or linguistic basis.
There is no ethnic unity among the speakers of these languages nor the languages can be traced to a single
linguistic tree model, being mostly very distinct from each another, with each language varying considerably among themselves.
The languages and peoples are often referred to as Kohistani, mostly by the
Pashtuns
Pashtuns (, , ; ps, پښتانه, ), also known as Pakhtuns or Pathans, are an Iranian ethnic group who are native to the geographic region of Pashtunistan in the present-day countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were historically r ...
and also by themselves.
History
Early British efforts placed almost all the peoples and languages of the upper
Indus River between
Kashmir 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 22 municipal districts. Acco ...
into one unitary group, coining the distinct identities of all other peoples in the region, resulting in the formation of terms such as ''Dard'', ''Dardistan'', and ''Dardic''.
No people in the region refer to themselves as ''Dards'', their country as ''Dardistan'', or their language as ''Dardic''. The word ''Dard'' itself is unknown in any languages of the area, except as a loan word from
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
via
, in which it means "pain".
The broad application of this term have been criticised by many scholars.
In a historic context,
Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer
A geographer is a physical scientist, social scientist or humanist whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society ...
(4th century B.C.), in one of his stories, mentioned a war-like people by the name of ''Dadikai'' on the frontier of
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. Much later,
Strabo and
Pliny
Pliny may refer to:
People
* Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE), ancient Roman nobleman, scientist, historian, and author of ''Naturalis Historia'' (''Pliny's Natural History'')
* Pliny the Younger (died 113), ancient Roman statesman, orator, w ...
mentioned the war-like people ''Dardae''.
Alexander
Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history.
Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...
, whose travels provide much of the data for classical geography of the subcontinent, did not meet any Dard people, but he did go to a place called ''Daedala,'' where he was reported to have fought against people called ''
Assakenoi''. Herodotus ''Dadikai'' appears to be the Persian name derived from the ''
Daradas
Daradas were a people who lived north and north-west to the Kashmir valley. This kingdom is identified to be the Gilgit region, in the Gilgit-Baltistan region (part of ancient Baloristan) along the river Sindhu or Indus. They are often spoken alo ...
'' given in the
Puranic
Purana (; sa, , '; literally meaning "ancient, old"Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature (1995 Edition), Article on Puranas, , page 915) is a vast genre of Indian literature about a wide range of topics, particularly about legends an ...
sources. Rather than a specific people, they were referred to characterize a fierce people, residing in the northwest, outside the boundaries of civilization.
Kalhana
Kalhana ( sa, कल्हण, translit=kalhaṇa) was the author of ''Rajatarangini'' (''River of Kings''), an account of the history of Kashmir. He wrote the work in Sanskrit between 1148 and 1149. All information regarding his life has to be ...
, in ''
Rajatarangini
''Rajatarangini'' ("The River of Kings") is a metrical legendary and historical chronicle of the north-western part of India, particularly the kings of Kashmir. It was written in Sanskrit by Kashmiri historian Kalhana in the 12th century CE. Th ...
'', mentions the Darads as residing to the north of
Kashmir, and as frequently attempting to invade and loot Kashmir.
The term later became accepted through repeated usage.
G.W. Leitner
Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner (14 October 1840 – 22 March 1899), also known as Gottlieb William Leitner, was a British orientalist.
Early life and education
Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner was born in Pest, Hungary, on 14 October 1840 to a Jewish fam ...
coined the terms Dard and Dardistan, even though the name 'Dard' was not claimed by any people in the region.
John Biddulph
Colonel John Biddulph (25 July 1840 – 24 December 1921) was a British soldier, author and naturalist who served in the government of British India.
Biddulph was born in 1840, and was the third son of Robert Biddulph. He was educated at Wes ...
, who spent many years in
Gilgit, also stated the name Dard was not acknowledged by any section of the tribes to whom it was commonly applied. Biddulph recognized Leitner's term Dardistan as founded on a misconception, but accepted the term as a convenient way of designating the difficult, diverse, and largely unknown
Karakoram between
Kashmir and the
Hindukush Range. This usage of the term is curiously parallel to the Sanskrit usage, where it connoted nonspecific ferocious outsiders living in the mountains beyond the borders of the region.
Leitner Leitner is an Austrian-German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
*Alan Leitner (born 1947), American artist
* Aloysius Leitner, United States Marine Corps
*Anton G. Leitner (born 1961), German writer and publisher
*Dummy Leitner (18 ...
's Dardistan, in its broadest sense, became the basis for the classification of the languages in the north-west of the
Indo-Aryan linguistic area (which includes present-day eastern
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 bordere ...
, northern
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...
, and
Kashmir).
George Abraham Grierson, with scant data, borrowed the term and proposed an independent Dardic family within the
Indo-Iranian languages
The Indo-Iranian languages (also Indo-Iranic languages or Aryan languages) constitute the largest and southeasternmost extant branch of the Indo-European language family (with over 400 languages), predominantly spoken in the geographical subre ...
. However, Grierson's formulation of Dardic is now considered to be incorrect in its details, and has therefore been rendered obsolete by modern scholarship.
Georg Morgenstierne
Georg Valentin von Munthe af Morgenstierne (2 January 1892 – 3 March 1978) was a Norwegian professor of linguistics with the University of Oslo (UiO). He specialized in Indo-Iranian languages.
Studies
During the years 1923 to 1971, Morgens ...
, who conducted an extensive fieldwork in the region during the early 20th century, revised Grierson's classification and came to the view that only the "Kafiri" (
Nuristani) languages formed an independent branch of the
Indo-Iranian languages separate from
Indo-Aryan and
Iranian
Iranian may refer to:
* Iran, a sovereign state
* Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran
* Iranian lan ...
families, and determined that the Dardic languages were unmistakably Indo-Aryan in character.
Due to their geographic isolation, many Dardic languages have preserved archaisms and other features of
Old Indo-Aryan
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 ...
. These features include three
sibilants, several types of clusters of consonants, and archaic or antiquated vocabulary lost in other modern Indo-Aryan languages.
Kalasha
A kalasha, also spelled kalash or kalasa, also called ghat or ghot ( sa, कलश , Telugu: కలశము Kannada: ಕಳಶ literally "pitcher, pot"), is a metal (brass, copper, silver or gold) pot with a large base and small mouth, large eno ...
and
Khowar
Khowar () or Chitrali, is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken in Chitral and surrounding areas in Pakistan.
Khowar is the lingua franca of Chitral, and it is also spoken in the Gupis-Yasin and Ghizer districts of Gilgit-Baltistan, as we ...
are the most archaic of all modern
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily ...
, retaining a great part of Sanskrit case inflexion, and retaining many words in a nearly Sanskritic form.
For example ''at’hi'' "bone" in
Kalasha
A kalasha, also spelled kalash or kalasa, also called ghat or ghot ( sa, कलश , Telugu: కలశము Kannada: ಕಳಶ literally "pitcher, pot"), is a metal (brass, copper, silver or gold) pot with a large base and small mouth, large eno ...
is nearly identical to ''asthi'' in Sanskrit
and ''ašrú'' "tear" in Khowar is identical to the Sanskrit word.
French
Indologist
Indology, also known as South Asian studies, is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent, and as such is a subset of Asian studies.
The term ''Indology'' (in German, ''Indologie'') is ...
Gérard Fussman
Gérard Fussman (17 May 1940 – 14 May 2022) was a French indologist who was a professor at the Collège de France
The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by Franço ...
points out that the term Dardic is geographic, not a linguistic expression.
Taken literally, it allows one to believe that all the languages spoken in Dardistan are ''Dardic''.
It also allows one to believe that all the people speaking Dardic languages are ''Dards'' and the area they live in is ''Dardistan''.
A term used by classical geographers to identify the area inhabited by an indefinite people, and used in ''Rajatarangini'' in reference to people outside Kashmir, has came to have ethnographic, geographic, and even political significance today.
Classification
George Morgenstierne's scheme corresponds to recent scholarly consensus. As such, Dardic's position as a legitimate genetic subfamily has been repeatedly called into question; it is widely acknowledged that the grouping is more geographical in nature, as opposed to linguistic.
Indeed, Buddruss rejected the Dardic grouping entirely, and placed the languages within
Central Indo-Aryan
The Central Indo-Aryan languages or Hindi languages are a group of related language varieties Spoken across North India and Central India. These language varieties form the central part of the Indo-Aryan language family, itself a part of the I ...
. Other scholars, such as Strand and Mock, have similarly voiced doubts in this regard.
However, Kachru contrasts "Midland languages" spoken in the plains, such as
Punjabi and
, with "Mountain languages", such as Dardic.
Kogan has also suggested an 'East-Dardic' sub-family; comprising the 'Kashmiri', 'Kohistani' and 'Shina' groups.
[Kogan, Anton (2013), "https://jolr.ru/index.php?article=130"]
The case of
Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to:
* People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir
* Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley
* Kashmiri language, their language
People with the name
* Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...
is peculiar. Its Dardic features are close to
Shina
Shina may refer to:
* Shina language, an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan
* Shina people, a Dardic ethnic group in Gilgit Baltistan, Pakistan
People named Shina
* Shina Matsudo (born 1973), Japanese freestyle swimmer
* ...
, often said to belong to an eastern Dardic language subfamily. Kachru notes that "the Kashmiri language used by Kashmiri Hindu Pandits has been powerfully influenced by Indian culture and literature, and the greater part of its vocabulary is now of Indian origin, and is allied to that of Sanskritic Indo-Aryan languages of northern India".
[
While it is true that many Dardic languages have been influenced by non-Dardic languages, Dardic may have also influenced neighbouring Indo-Aryan lects in turn, such as Punjabi,][: ... haterjiagreed with Grierson in seeing Rajasthani influence on Pahari and 'Dardic' influence on (or under) the whole Northwestern group + Pahari. : Throughout the northwest, beginning with Sindhi and including 'Lahnda', Dardic, Romany and West Pahari, there has been a tendency to hetransfer of 'r' from medial clusters to a position after the initial consonant.] the Pahari languages
The Northern Indo-Aryan languages, also known as Pahāṛi languages, are a proposed group of Indo-Aryan languages spoken in the lower ranges of the Himalayas, from Nepal in the east, through the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhan ...
, including the Central Pahari languages
The Northern Indo-Aryan languages, also known as Pahāṛi languages, are a proposed group of Indo-Aryan languages spoken in the lower ranges of the Himalayas, from Nepal in the east, through the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhan ...
of Uttarakhand
Uttarakhand ( , or ; , ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; the official name until 2007), is a state in the northern part of India. It is often referred to as the "Devbhumi" (literally 'Land of the Gods') due to its religious significance and ...
, and purportedly even further afield. Some linguists have posited that Dardic lects may have originally been spoken throughout a much larger region, stretching from the mouth of the Indus (in Sindh) northwards in an arc, and then eastwards through modern day Himachal Pradesh to Kumaon. However, this has not been conclusively established.
Subdivisions
Dardic languages have been organized into the following subfamilies:
* Eastern Dardic languages:
** Kashmiri languages: Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to:
* People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir
* Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley
* Kashmiri language, their language
People with the name
* Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...
, Poguli
Pogali or Pugali, more recently known, together with neighboring languages, as Panchali or Khah, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in parts of the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir, India. Its area encompasses the Pogal and Paristan valleys, and c ...
, Kishtwari
Kishtwari or Kashtwari is a northern Indo-Aryan language closely related to the Kashmiri language, with strong influences from neighboring Western Pahari varieties, spoken in Kishtwar district in Jammu and Kashmir, India. Kishtwari has historic ...
;
** Shina languages: Shina
Shina may refer to:
* Shina language, an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan
* Shina people, a Dardic ethnic group in Gilgit Baltistan, Pakistan
People named Shina
* Shina Matsudo (born 1973), Japanese freestyle swimmer
* ...
, Brokskat
Brokskat (), or Minaro is an Indo-Aryan language mainly spoken in the Aryan valley of Ladakh, India and its surrounding areas. It is an endangered language spoken by only 2858 people in Ladakh, India and 400 people in Ganokh, Baltistan, Pak ...
, Kalkoti, Kohistani Shina
Kohistani Shina is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the former Kohistan District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, northern Pakistan. According to '' Ethnologue'', Kohistani Shina is mutually intelligible with the Shina variety of Chilas, but not with th ...
, Kundal Shahi, Palula, Savi
Savi is a town in Benin that was the capital of the Kingdom of Whydah prior to its capture by the forces of Dahomey in 1727.
An account of the city was given by Robert Norris in 1789:
There were British, French, Dutch and Portuguese factor ...
, Ushoji;
** Kohistani languages: Maiya (Indus Kohistani), Bateri, Chilisso, Gowro, Kalami, Tirahi
Tirahi ( ps, تيراهي) were the speakers of the Tirahi language, a nearly extinct if not already extinct Indo-Aryan language which may still be spoken by older adults, who are likewise fluent in Pashto, in a few villages in the southeast of Jal ...
, Torwali, Wotapuri-Katarqalai, Mankiyali
*Chitrali languages: Kalasha
A kalasha, also spelled kalash or kalasa, also called ghat or ghot ( sa, कलश , Telugu: కలశము Kannada: ಕಳಶ literally "pitcher, pot"), is a metal (brass, copper, silver or gold) pot with a large base and small mouth, large eno ...
(Urtsuniwar
Urtsuniwar or Urchuniwar () is a dialect of Kalasha-mun spoken in the Urtsun Valley in Chitral, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The total number of speakers of this dialect are estimated to be around 2,900 - 5,700 individuals.
Similarity
It h ...
), Khowar
Khowar () or Chitrali, is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken in Chitral and surrounding areas in Pakistan.
Khowar is the lingua franca of Chitral, and it is also spoken in the Gupis-Yasin and Ghizer districts of Gilgit-Baltistan, as we ...
*Pashayi languages
Pashayi or Pashai (زبان پشهای) is a group of Indo-Aryan languages spoken by the Pashai people in parts of Kapisa, Laghman, Nangarhar, Nuristan, Kunar and Kabul ( Surobi District) provinces in Northeastern Afghanistan
Afg ...
*Kunar languages: Dameli, Gawar-Bati
Gawar-Bati or Narsati is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Chitral region of northern Pakistan, and across the border in Afghanistan. It is also known as Aranduyiwar in Chitral because it is spoken in Arandu, which is the last village in lo ...
, Nangalami (Grangali), Shumashti
Characteristics
Loss of voiced aspiration
Virtually all Dardic languages have experienced a partial or complete loss of voiced aspirated consonants. Khowar uses the word ''buum'' for 'earth' (Sanskrit: ''bhumi''), Pashai uses the word ''duum'' for 'smoke' (Hindi: ''dhuan'', Sanskrit: ''dhum'') and Kashmiri uses the word ''dod'' for 'milk' (Sanskrit: ''dugdha'', Hindi: ''dūdh''). Tonality
Tonality is the arrangement of pitches and/or chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, attractions and directionality. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or triadic chord with the greatest stability is ca ...
has developed in most (but not all) Dardic languages, such as Khowar and Pashai, as a compensation. Punjabi and Western Pahari languages
The Western Pahari languages are a group of Northern Indo-Aryan languages that are spoken in the state of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir and parts of Uttarakhand and Punjab
Languages
The following lists the languages cla ...
similarly lost aspiration but have virtually all developed tonality to partially compensate (e.g. Punjabi ''kar'' for 'house', compare with Hindi ''ghar'').
Dardic metathesis and other changes
Both ancient and modern Dardic languages demonstrate a marked tendency towards metathesis where a "pre- or postconsonantal 'r' is shifted forward to a preceding syllable". This was seen in Ashokan rock edicts (erected 269 BCE to 231 BCE) in the Gandhara region, where Dardic dialects were and still are widespread. Examples include a tendency to spell the Classical Sanskrit words ''priyadarshi'' (one of the titles of Emperor Ashoka
Ashoka (, ; also ''Asoka''; 304 – 232 BCE), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was the third emperor of the Maurya Empire of Indian subcontinent during to 232 BCE. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, s ...
) as instead ''priyadrashi'' and ''dharma'' as ''dhrama''. Modern-day Kalasha uses the word ''driga'' 'long' (Sanskrit: ''dirgha''). Palula uses ''drubalu'' 'weak' (Sanskrit: ''durbala'') and ''brhuj'' 'birch tree' (Sanskrit: ''bhurja''). Kashmiri uses ''drolid'' 'impoverished' (Sanskrit: ''daridra'') and ''krama'' 'work' or 'action' (Sanskrit: ''karma''). Western Pahari languages (such as Dogri
Dogri ( Name Dogra Akkhar: ; Devanagari: डोगरी; Nastaliq: ; ) is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken in the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir, India, with smaller groups of speakers in adjoining regions of western Himachal Prad ...
), Sindhi and Lahnda (Western Punjabi) also share this Dardic tendency to metathesis, though they are considered non-Dardic, for example cf. the Punjabi word ''drakhat'' 'tree' (from Persian ''darakht'').
Dardic languages also show other consonantal changes. Kashmiri, for instance, has a marked tendency to shift ''k'' to ''ch'' and ''j'' to ''z'' (e.g. ''zon'' 'person' is cognate to Sanskrit ''jan'' 'person or living being' and Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
''jān'' 'life').
Verb position in Dardic
Unlike most other Indo-Aryan (or Iranian) languages, several Dardic languages present "verb second" as the normal grammatical form. This is similar to many Germanic languages, such as German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
and Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
, as well as Uto-Aztecan O'odham
The O'odham peoples, including the Tohono O'odham, the Pima or Akimel O'odham, and the Hia C-ed O'odham, are indigenous Uto-Aztecan peoples of the Sonoran desert in southern and central Arizona and northern Sonora, united by a common herita ...
and Northeast Caucasian Ingush. Most Dardic languages, such as Indus Kohistani
Indus Kohistani (, Kōstaiñ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the former Kohistan District of Pakistan. The language was referred to as Maiyã (Mayon) or Shuthun by early researchers, but subsequent observations have not verified that these ...
, however, follow the usual Indo-Iranian subject-object-verb (SOV) pattern, similar to Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
.
See also
*Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily ...
*Nuristani languages
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 ea ...
Notes
:1.The Khowar word for 'earth' is more accurately represented, with tonality, as ''buúm'' rather than ''buum'', where ''ú'' indicates a rising tone.
:2.The word ''drolid'' actually includes a Kashmiri half-vowel, which is difficult to render in the Urdu, Devnagri and Roman scripts alike. Sometimes, an umlaut is used when it occurs in conjunction with a vowel, so the word might be more accurately rendered as ''drölid''.
:3.Sandhi
Sandhi ( sa, सन्धि ' , "joining") is a cover term for a wide variety of sound changes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries. Examples include fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of one sound depending on near ...
rules in Sanskrit allow the combination of multiple neighboring words together into a single word: for instance, word-final 'ah' plus word-initial 'a' merge into 'o'. In actual Sanskrit literature, with the effects of sandhi, this sentence would be expected to appear as ''Eṣá ékóśvósti''. Also, word-final 'a' is Sanskrit is a schwa, (similar to the ending 'e' in the German name, Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his car ...
), so e.g. the second word is pronounced . Pitch accent is indicated with an acute accent in the case of the older Vedic language
Vedic Sanskrit was an ancient language of the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European language family. It is attested in the Vedas and related literature compiled over the period of the mid-2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE. It was orally preserv ...
, which was inherited from Proto-Indo-European.
:4.Hindi-Urdu, and other non-Dardic Indo-Aryan languages, also sometimes utilize a "verb second" order (similar to Kashmiri and English) for dramatic effect. ''Yeh ek ghoṛā hai'' is the normal conversational form in Hindi-Urdu. ''Yeh hai ek ghoṛā'' is also grammatically correct but indicates a dramatic revelation or other surprise. This dramatic form is often used in news headlines in Hindi-Urdu, Punjabi and other Indo-Aryan languages.
Sources
Academic literature from outside South Asia
* Morgenstierne, G. Irano-Dardica. Wiesbaden 1973;
* Morgenstierne, G. Die Stellung der Kafirsprachen. In Irano-Dardica, 327-343. Wiesbaden, Reichert 1975
* Decker, Kendall D. Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan, Volume 5. Languages of Chitral.
Academic literature from South Asia
* The Comparative study of Urdu and Khowar. Badshah Munir Bukhari National Language Authority Pakistan 2003. o Reference
O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), pl ...
* National Institute of Pakistani Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University & Summer Institute of Linguistics
Further reading
*Khan, Sawar, et al. "Ethnogenetic analysis reveals that Kohistanis of Pakistan were genetically linked to west Eurasians by a probable ancestral genepool from Eurasian steppe in the bronze age." Mitochondrion 47 (2019): 82-93.
References
Bibliography
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dardic Languages