Kundal Shahi (, Kunḍal Šāhī) is an

Indo-Aryan language The Indo-Aryan languages, or sometimes Indic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of 2024, there are more than 1.5 billion speakers, primarily concentrated east of the Indus river in Ba ...

spoken by about 700 people in the Kundal Shahi village of

Neelam Valley Neelum (spelt also ''Neelam''; ) is a district of Pakistan-administered territory of Azad Kashmir, in the disputed Kashmir region.The application of the term "administered" to the various regions of Kashmir and a mention of the Kashmir disput ...

Azad Kashmir Azad Jammu and Kashmir (), abbreviated as AJK and colloquially referred to as simply Azad Kashmir ( ), is a region administered by Pakistan as a nominally self-governing entitySee: * * * and constituting the western portion of the larger ...

, Pakistan. It is an endangered language and its speakers are shifting to

Hindko Hindko (, , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken by several million people of various ethnic backgrounds in northwestern Pakistan, primarily in the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and northern Pun ...

Phonology

The following tables set out the phonology of Kundal Shahi.

Vowels

Kundal Shahi is unusual amongst

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 re ...

in that it has

front rounded vowel A front rounded vowel is a particular type of vowel that is both front and rounded. The front rounded vowels defined by the IPA include: * , a close front-rounded vowel (or "high front rounded vowel") * , a near-close front rounded vowel (or ...

Consonants

Like Kashmiri, Kundal Shahi is unusual amongst

in that it lacks

retroflex A retroflex () or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consona ...

fricatives and affricates.

Tone

Kundal Shahi, like many

, has either phonemic tone or, as in Kundal Shahi,

pitch accent A pitch-accent language is a type of language that, when spoken, has certain syllables in words or morphemes that are prominent, as indicated by a distinct contrasting pitch (music), pitch (tone (linguistics), linguistic tone) rather than by vol ...

. Words may have only one accented mora, which is associated with high pitch; the remaining mora have a default or low pitch.

Endangered

Kundal Shahi is severely endangered with less than 500 speakers, most of whom are over the age of 40.

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

ELAR archive of Documentation of the Kundal Shahi Language, Kundal Shahi, Pakistan
{{Dardic languages Dardic languages Languages of Azad Kashmir