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Kalasha-mun
Kalasha (, locally: ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Kalash people, in the Chitral District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. There are an estimated 7,466 speakers of Kalasha according to the 2023 Census of Pakistan. It is an endangered language and there is an ongoing language shift to Khowar. Kalasha should not be confused with the nearby Nuristani Kalasha (known as "Kalasha-ala" or "Waigali"), which is a Nuristani language. According to Badshah Munir Bukhari, a researcher on the Kalash, "Kalasha" is also the ethnic name for the Nuristani inhabitants of a region southwest of the Kalasha Valleys, in the Waygal and middle Pech Valleys of Afghanistan's Nuristan Province. The name "Kalasha" seems to have been adopted for the Kalash people by the Kalasha speakers of Chitral from the Nuristanis of Waygal, who for a time expanded up to southern Chitral several centuries ago. However, there is no close connection between the Indo-Aryan language Kalasha-mu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Urtsuniwar
Urtsuniwar or Urchuniwar () is a dialect of the Kalasha-mun spoken in the Urtsun Valley of Chitral, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The total number of speakers is estimated to be around 2,900–5,700 peoples. Similarity It has been debated whether Urtsuniwar is a distinct language or a dialect of Kalasha-mun. Urtsuniwar and Kalasha-mun exhibit 70% mutual intelligibility. Urtsuniwar also shares some similarities with the Ushojo. History The ''Kafirs'' of Urtsun were among the last pagans in Afghanistan and Pakistan to convert to Islam in the mid-1900s. The last Urtsun Kafir was Mranzi, who had married a Kalasha from the Biriu valley and moved out of the valley in 1940, just as the conversion to Islam was completed.the Kalasha of Urtsun - A Cacopardo 1991 east & west magazine They renamed their language from Kalasha-mun to Urtsuniwar and later borrowed heavily from the Khowar Khowar (, ''Khōwār'', ), also known by its common exonym Chitrali, is an Indo-Aryan language o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taj Khan Kalash
Tach Sharakat Kalash (born Taj Kalas) belongs to an endangered Indigenous culture and language community Kalasha (an Indigenous people group) living in the wilderness of Hindu Kush Mountains in the Chitral district of Pakistan. Kalasha are the last remaining pagan tribe numbering 4000 people speaking the ancient Indo-Aryan language Kalasha-mondr. They practice a polytheistic ancestral belief system and Pre-Islamic culture dating back to 3000 B.C. Tach is one of the first literates among Kalasha People to have received a BA in Political science and Law at Edwardes College Peshawar Pakistan, a 2nd BA in English Literature and Linguistics at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and MA Human Rights from Central European University Budapest, Hungary. Tach has made first Kalasha indigenous documentary film Kalasha about his people as part of anthropological documentation and advocacy for Kalasha people's linguistic rights in education and cultural autonomy. He is also writer of fir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuristani Language
The Nuristani languages are one of the three groups within the Indo-Iranian language family, alongside the Indo-Aryan and Iranian languages. They have approximately 214,000 speakers primarily in Nuristan and Kunar provinces in northeastern 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. More broadly, the Nuristan region is located at the northern intersection of the Indian subcontinent and the Iranian plateau. The Nuristani languages were not described in literature until the 19th century. The older name for the region was Kafiristan due to the pre-Islamic religious practices of its residents, but this term has been abandoned in favor of Nuristan ("land of light") after the region's people were converted to Islam. La ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kalash People
The Kalash (), or Kalasha, are a small Indo-Aryan indigenous people residing in the Chitral District of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. The term is also used to refer to several distinct Nuristani speaking people, including the Väi, the Čima-nišei, the Vântä, plus the Ashkun- and Tregami-speakers. According one Kalash-tradition, their ancestors migrated "some centuries ago" to Chitral Valley from the Waigal Valley, of Nuristan Province, Afghanistan, or a location further south, called "Tsiyam" in their folk songs and epics, and possibly located near Jalalabad and Lughman in Afghanistan. Another tradition claims descent from the armies of Alexander who were left behind from his armed campaign, though no evidence exists for him to have passed the area. During the Muslim rule in Chitral in the 14th century most of the Kalash gradually converted to Islam, except a small number of them who upheld their religion and customs, but they were restricted to t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 2024, there are more than 1.5 billion speakers, primarily concentrated east of the Indus river in Bangladesh, Northern India, Eastern Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Nepal. Moreover, apart from the Indian subcontinent, large immigrant and expatriate Indo-Aryan–speaking communities live in Northwestern Europe, Western Asia, North America, the Caribbean, Southeast Africa, Polynesia and Australia, along with several million speakers of Romani languages primarily concentrated in Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. There are over 200 known Indo-Aryan languages. Modern Indo-Aryan languages descend from Old Indo-Aryan languages such as early Vedic Sanskrit, through Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Prakrits). The largest such languages in terms of First language, first-speakers are Hindustani language, Hindi–Urdu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dardic Languages
The Dardic languages (also Dardu or Pisaca), or Hindu-Kush Indo-Aryan languages, are a group of several Indo-Aryan languages spoken in northern Pakistan, northwestern India and parts of northeastern Afghanistan. This region has sometimes been referred to as Dardistan. Rather than close linguistic or ethnic relationships, the original term Dardic was a geographical concept, denoting the northwesternmost group of Indo-Aryan languages. There is no ethnic unity among the speakers of these languages nor can the languages be traced to a single ancestor. After further research, the term "Eastern Dardic" is now a legitimate grouping of languages that excludes some languages in the Dardistan region that are now considered to be part of different language families. The extinct Gandhari language, used by the Gandhara civilization, from circa 1500 BCE, was Dardic in nature. Linguistic evidence has linked Gandhari with some living Dardic languages, particularly Torwali and other Kohistani ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kalasha Valleys
The Kalasha Valleys ( Kalasha-mondr: '; ) are valleys in Chitral District in northern Pakistan. The valleys are surrounded by the Hindu Kush mountain range. The inhabitants of the valley are the Kalash people, who have a unique culture, language and follow a religion similar to the Historical Vedic religion. There are three main valleys. The largest and most populous valley is Bumburet (Mumuret), reached by a road from Ayun in the Kunar Valley. Rumbur is a side valley north of Bumburet. The third valley, Biriu (Birir), is a side valley of the Kunar Valley south of Bumburet. Geography and Natural Environment Kalasha Valley is located at an elevation of over 6,500 feet above sea level, and is characterized by steep slopes, narrow gorges, and rocky terrain. The area is home to a diverse range of flora and fauna, including rare species such as the snow leopard and the Himalayan black bear. The Three Valleys The inhabitants of the valleys are the Kalash people, who have a unique cult ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elena Bashir
Elena Bashir is an American linguist and senior lecturer in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations of the Humanities Division of the University of Chicago. She studies languages of Pakistan and the broader northwestern part of South Asia, and has published extensive linguistic work on the Dardic languages, Hindko, Saraiki, Balochi, Brahui, Wakhi and Hindustani, among other languages of the region. Bashir also teaches Urdu. Bashir received her Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1988. Her dissertation was titled "Topics in Kalasha Syntax: An areal and typological perspective". Bashir is on the board of trustees of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies and has been on the advisory board of the '' Journal of Urdu Studies''. Research Much of the focus of Bashir's work has been on the Dardic languages. She wrote her thesis and a number of related articles on the Kalasha language. Her analyses of Kalasha grammar, base ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khowar Language
Khowar (, ''Khōwār'', ), also known by its common exonym Chitrali, is an Indo-Aryan language of the Dardic group, primarily spoken by the Kho (Chitrali) people, native to the Chitral region and surrounding areas of Pakistan. Khowar is the lingua franca of Chitral, and it is also spoken in the Gupis-Yasin and Ghizer districts of Gilgit-Baltistan, as well in the Upper Swat district. Speakers of Khowar have also migrated heavily to Pakistan's major urban centres, with Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi having significant populations. It is also spoken as a second language by the Kalash people. Names The native name of the language is ''Khō-wār'', meaning "language" (''wār'') of the Kho people. During the British Raj it was known to the English as ''Chitrālī'' (a derived adjective from the name of the Chitral region) or ''Qāshqārī''. Among the Pashtuns and Badakhshanis it is known as ''Kashkār''. Another name, used by Leitner in 1880, is ''Arnyiá'' or '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nuristani Kalasha Language
Nuristani Kalasha ('), also known as ''Waigali'', is a Nuristani language spoken by about 10,000 people in the Nuristan Province of Afghanistan. The native name is ''Kalaṣa-alâ'' 'Kalasha-language'. "Waigali" refers to the dialect of the Väi people of the upper part of the Waigal Valley, centered on the town of Waigal, which is distinct from the dialect of the Čima-Nišei people who inhabit the lower valley. The word 'Kalasha' is the native ethnonym for all the speakers of the southern Nuristani languages. Nuristani Kalasha belongs to the Indo-European language family, and is in the southern Nuristani group of the Indo-Iranian branch. It is closely related to Zemiaki and to Tregami, the lexical similarity with the latter being approximately 76% to 80%. It shares its name with the Indo-Aryan Kalasha language (''Kalaṣa-mun''), spoken in Pakistan's southern Chitral District Chitral District (; ) was a district in the Malakand Division of the Pakistani pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khowar
Khowar (, ''Khōwār'', ), also known by its common exonym Chitrali, is an Indo-Aryan language of the Dardic group, primarily spoken by the Kho (Chitrali) people, native to the Chitral region and surrounding areas of Pakistan. Khowar is the lingua franca of Chitral, and it is also spoken in the Gupis-Yasin and Ghizer districts of Gilgit-Baltistan, as well in the Upper Swat district. Speakers of Khowar have also migrated heavily to Pakistan's major urban centres, with Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi having significant populations. It is also spoken as a second language by the Kalash people. Names The native name of the language is ''Khō-wār'', meaning "language" (''wār'') of the Kho people. During the British Raj it was known to the English as ''Chitrālī'' (a derived adjective from the name of the Chitral region) or ''Qāshqārī''. Among the Pashtuns and Badakhshanis it is known as ''Kashkār''. Another name, used by Leitner in 1880, is ''Arnyiá'' o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Front Vowel
A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned approximately as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would otherwise make it a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also called bright vowels because they are perceived as sounding brighter than the back vowels. Near-front vowels are essentially a type of front vowel; no language is known to contrast front and near-front vowels based on backness alone. Rounded front vowels are typically centralized, that is, near-front in their articulation. This is one reason they are written to the right of unrounded front vowels in the IPA vowel chart. Partial list The front vowels that have dedicated symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet are: * close front unrounded vowel * close front compressed vowel * near-close front unrounded vowel * near-close front compressed vowel * clos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
