Kalasha Language
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Kalasha Language
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-mun ...
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Pakistan
Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country#Countries, second-largest Muslim population as of 2023. Islamabad is the nation's capital, while Karachi is List of cities in Pakistan by population, its largest city and financial centre. Pakistan is the List of countries and dependencies by area, 33rd-largest country by area. Bounded by the Arabian Sea on the south, the Gulf of Oman on the southwest, and the Sir Creek on the southeast, it shares land borders with India to the east; Afghanistan to the west; Iran to the southwest; and China to the northeast. It shares a maritime border with Oman in the Gulf of Oman, and is separated from Tajikistan in the northwest by Afghanistan's narrow Wakhan Corridor. Pakistan is the site of History of Pakistan, several ancient cultures, including the ...
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Nuristanis
The Nuristanis are an Indo-Iranian ethnic group native to the Nuristan Province (formerly Kafiristan) of northeastern Afghanistan and Chitral District of northwestern Pakistan. Their languages comprise the Nuristani branch of Indo-Iranian languages. In the mid-1890s, after the establishment of the Durand Line when Afghanistan and the British Indian Empire reached an agreement regarding the Indo-Afghan border as the region of Kafiristan became part of the Great Game and for a period of time, Emir Abdur Rahman Khan conducted a military campaign to secure the eastern regions and followed up his conquest by imposition of Islam; the region thenceforth being known as ''Nuristan'', the "Land of Light". Before their conversion, the Nuristanis practised an Indo-Iranian (Vedic- or Hindu-like) religion. Non-Muslim religious practices endure in Nuristan today to some degree as folk customs. In their native rural areas, they are often farmers, herders, and dairymen. The Nuristan regio ...
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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 ...
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R-colored Vowel
An r-colored or rhotic vowel (also called a retroflex vowel, vocalic r, or a rhotacized vowel) is a vowel that is modified in a way that results in a lowering in frequency of the third formant. R-colored vowels can be articulated in various ways: the tip or blade of the tongue may be turned up during at least part of the articulation of the vowel (a retroflex articulation) or the back of the tongue may be bunched. In addition, the vocal tract may often be constricted in the region of the epiglottis. R-colored vowels are exceedingly rare, occurring in less than one percent of all languages. However, they occur in two of the most widely spoken languages: North American English and Mandarin Chinese. In North American English, they are found in words such as ''dollar'', ''butter'', ''third'', ''color'', and ''nurse''. They also occur in Canadian French, some varieties of Portuguese, some Jutlandic dialects of Danish, and in a few indigenous languages of the Americas and of Asi ...
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Nasal Vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel /ɑ̃/ () or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced without nasalization. Nasalized vowels are vowels under the influence of neighbouring sounds. For instance, the [] of the word ''hand'' is affected by the following nasal consonant. In most languages, vowels adjacent to nasal consonants are produced partially or fully with a lowered velum in a natural process of assimilation and are therefore technically nasal, but few speakers would notice. That is the case in English: vowels preceding nasal consonants are nasalized, but there is no phonemic distinction between nasal and oral vowels, and all vowels are considered phonemically oral. Some languages contrast oral vowels and nasalized vowels phonemically. Linguists make use of minimal pairs to decide whether or not the nasality ...
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Vowel Length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived or actual length (phonetics), duration of a vowel sound when pronounced. Vowels perceived as shorter are often called short vowels and those perceived as longer called long vowels. On one hand, many languages do not distinguish vowel length phoneme, phonemically, meaning that vowel length alone does not change the meanings of words. However, the amount of time a vowel is uttered can change based on factors such as the phonetic characteristics of the sounds around it: the phonetic environment. An example is that vowels tend to be pronounced longer before a voiced consonant and shorter before a voiceless consonant in the standard accents of General American English, American and Received Pronunciation, British English. On the other hand, vowel length is indeed an important phonemic factor in certain languages, meaning vowel length can change word-meanings, for example in Arabic phonology#Vowels, Arabic, Czech phonology, Czech, Dravidia ...
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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 ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ... on 14 May 2022, at the age of 81. Partial list of publications * "Die Felsbildstation Shatial" Gérard Fussman & Ditte König ''Journal of Near Eastern Studies'' Vol. LIX, NO. 2 April 2000 * "Une étape décisive dans l’étude des monnaies kouchanes" ''Revue Numismatique'', 6e série, XXVIII, pages 145 à 173 (sur la numismatique et la chronologie des Kouchans). Paris * "Upâya-kauśalya. L’implantation du bouddhisme au Gandhâra" ''Études thématiques'' n °2 : Bouddhisme et cultures locales. Quelques cas de réciproques adaptati ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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, Morgenstierne carried out fieldwork in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Iran. In 1924, he undertook the first of his two major linguistic expeditions. He arrived in Kabul with a personal letter of introduction to the King of Afghanistan, from the King of Norway. Together with studying the languages, Morgenstierne collected remarkable scientific materials from the culture of the regional people, like images, movies from pre-Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...ic ceremonial dances and sound recordings from nearly extinct languag ...
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Gottlieb Wilhelm 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 family. His mother was Marie Henriette Herzberg. His father, Leopold Saphir, died when Gottlieb was young and his mother then married Johann Moritz Leitner. Gottlieb and his sister Elisabeth (the mother of British politician Leopold Amery) were thereafter known as Leitner. As a child, Leitner showed an extraordinary ability in languages. At the age of eight he went to Constantinople to learn Arabic and Turkish, and by the age of ten he was fluent in Turkish, Arabic and most European languages. At fifteen, he was appointed Interpreter (First Class) to the British Commissariat in the Crimea, with the rank of colonel. When the Crimean War ended, he wanted to become a priest and went to study at King's College London. It is also reported that ...
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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 ...
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