Urtsuniwar or Urchuniwar () is a dialect of

Kalasha-mun Kalasha (locally: ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Kalash people, in the Chitral District in Pakistan. There are an estimated 5,000 speakers of Kalasha. It is an endangered language and there is an ongoing language shift to Khowar. K ...

spoken in the Urtsun Valley in Chitral,

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, ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

. The total number of speakers of this

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...

are estimated to be around 2,900 - 5,700 individuals.

Similarity

It has been debated whether Urtsuniwar is a different language or a dialect of

. Urtsuniwar and

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 ...

are

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 ...

by 70%. Urtsuniwar also shares some similarity with Ushojo language.

History

The '' Kafirs'' of Urtsun were one of the last pagans of

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 ...

to convert 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 the 1900s. They renamed their language

to Urtsuniwar and later borrowed heavily from

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 ...

and changed their identity. Later, Urtsuniwar started to diverge into a distinct dialect of Kalasha-mun.

References

Dardic languages Languages of Pakistan Languages of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa {{IndoAryan-lang-stub