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 language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, P ...

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 List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

, northwestern

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

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 borde ...

. The term "Dardic" is stated to be only a geographic convention used to denote the northwesternmost group of

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 The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayan river of South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in Western Tibet, flows northwest through the disputed region of Kashmi ...

between

Kashmir Kashmir () is the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" denoted only the Kashmir Valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal Range. Today, the term encompas ...

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 ...

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 via

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' 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 from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known fo ...

(4th century B.C.), in one of his stories, mentioned a war-like people by the name of ''Dadikai'' on the frontier of

. Much later,

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called " Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could s ...

and Pliny 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'' 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

, and as frequently attempting to invade and loot Kashmir. The term later became accepted through repeated usage. G.W. Leitner 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 Gilgit (; Shina: ; ur, ) is the capital city of Gilgit–Baltistan, Pakistan. The city is located in a broad valley near the confluence of the Gilgit River and the Hunza River. It is a major tourist destination in Pakistan, serving as a ...

, 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 The Karakoram is a mountain range in Kashmir region spanning the borders of Pakistan, China, and India, with the northwest extremity of the range extending to Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Most of the Karakoram mountain range falls under the ...

between

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'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

, northern

, and

George Abraham Grierson Sir George Abraham Grierson (7 January 1851 – 9 March 1941) was an Irish administrator and linguist in British India. He worked in the Indian Civil Service but an interest in philology and linguistics led him to pursue studies in the langua ...

, 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 subr ...

. 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. These features include three

sibilant Sibilants are fricative consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, made by directing a stream of air with the tongue towards the teeth. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words ''sip'', ''zip'', ''ship'', and ...

s, 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

, retaining a great part of Sanskrit case inflexion, and retaining many words in a nearly Sanskritic form. For example ''at’hi'' "bone" in

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'') i ...

Gérard Fussman Gérard Fussman (17 May 1940 – 14 May 2022) was a French indologist who was a professor at the Collège de France. Fussman was born in Lens, Pas-de-Calais on 17 May 1940. He died in Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, ...

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. 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 Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to: * Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pakistan * Punjabi language * Punjabi people * Punjabi dialects and languages Punjabi may also refer to: * Punjabi (horse), a British Th ...

and

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' 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, 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

,: ... 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 ...

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 Sindh (; ; ur, , ; historically romanized as Sind) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the southeastern region of the country, Sindh is the third-largest province of Pakistan by land area and the second-largest province ...

) 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:

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 historica ...

; ** Shina languages: Shina,

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, ...

Kalkoti Kalkoti, also known as Goedijaa, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Kalkot Tehsil, in the Upper Dir district in Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asi ...

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 the ...

, 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 factori ...

, Ushoji; ** Kohistani languages: Maiya (Indus Kohistani),

Bateri Bateri (, बटेरी) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Kohistan District, Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir may refer to: * Kashmir, the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent * Jammu and Kashmir (unio ...

, Chilisso, Gowro, Kalami, Tirahi, Torwali, Wotapuri-Katarqalai, Mankiyali *Chitrali languages:

( Urtsuniwar),

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 Nangalami, or Grangali, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of C ...

(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 c ...

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 Gandhāra is the name of an ancient region located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, more precisely in present-day north-west Pakistan and parts of south-east Afghanistan. The region centered around the Peshawar Val ...

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 Sindhi may refer to: *something from, or related to Sindh, a province of Pakistan * Sindhi people, an ethnic group from the Sindh region * Sindhi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them People with the name * Sarkash Sindhi (1940–2012 ...

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 ''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 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 thes ...

, however, follow the usual Indo-Iranian subject-object-verb (SOV) pattern, similar to Japanese.

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 In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...

, (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 The acute accent (), , is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts. For the most commonly encountered uses of the accent in the Latin and Greek alphabets, precomposed ...

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

References

Bibliography

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dardic Languages