Tregami is a
Nuristani language spoken in the villages of Gambir, Kaṭâr, and Devoz in the Tregâm Valley off the lower
Pech River
The Pech River () is located in eastern Afghanistan.
Course
The Pech River system is fed from glaciers and snow from the Hindu Kush range to its north. The river rises in central Nuristan Province and flows south and southeasterly through the ...
[Iranica Online](_blank)
/ref> in the Watapur District of Kunar Province in Afghanistan. The area is in the Hindu Kush
The Hindu Kush is an mountain range in Central Asia, Central and South Asia to the west of the Himalayas. It stretches from central and eastern Afghanistan into northwestern Pakistan and far southeastern Tajikistan. The range forms the wester ...
along the border with Pakistan. Tregami belongs to the Nuristani group of the Indo-Iranian language family. It is spoken by approximately 3,500 people (2011). Most individuals speak Pashto
Pashto ( , ; , ) is an eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyb ...
in addition to Tregami.[
Tregami is a close relative of Nuristani Kalasha, spoken in ]Ghaziabad District
Ghaziabad district () is a largely suburban district of Uttar Pradesh state in northern India. It is also a core part of the National Capital Region. The city of Ghaziabad is the administrative headquarters of the district. This district is ...
to the east, with which it has a lexical similarity of 75% to 80%.[ Although Tregami villages are close in proximity, there is a slight difference between the dialects of Katar and Gambir.][ ]
Name
The native name is unknown. The exonym
An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...
''Tregâm'', from Wotapuri-Katarqalai, literally means "three villages", referencing Gambir, Kaṭâr, and Devoz.
Sociolinguistic situation
Tregami is an unwrittenmoribund
Moribund refers to a literal or figurative state near death.
Moribund may refer to:
* ''Moribund'' (album), a 2006 album by the Norwegian black metal band Koldbrann
* " Le Moribond", a song by Jacques Brel known in English as "Seasons in the Sun ...
language in the process of being replaced by Pashto
Pashto ( , ; , ) is an eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family, natively spoken in northwestern Pakistan and southern and eastern Afghanistan. It has official status in Afghanistan and the Pakistani province of Khyb ...
, the predominant language of the region. Most Tregami are bilingual in Pashto, and the Tregami people don't have the resources to revive their language.
Vocabulary
Pronouns
Numbers
# ''yo''
# ''du''
# ''tre''
# ''čâtâ''
# ''põč''
# ''ṣu''
# ''sut''
# ''voṣṭ''
# ''nũ''
# ''dåš''
References
Further reading
*
Nuristani languages of Afghanistan
Nuristani languages
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