Bhalesi 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 the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, Pa ...

spoken in the

Bhalessa Bhalessa is a geographical area within Doda district in the Jammu region of India-administered Kashmir. It consists of the Bunjwah and Bhalessa Valleys, and comprises the three Tehsils of Kahara, Chilly Pingal and Gandoh. Name The name is writ ...

region of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It is a member of the

Bhadarwahi Bhadarwahi is an Indo-Aryan language of the Western Pahari group spoken in the Bhaderwah region of Jammu and Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir may refer to: * Kashmir, the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent * Jammu and Kashmir ...

group of dialects under the

Western Pahari 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 cla ...

subgroup. The region is locally known as ''Bhalessa'' (with variants like ''Bhalesh''), or as ''Bhal'', and from these terms derive the local names for the dialect: and (with variants , ). The region mostly takes up two adjacent mountain valleys, with the main settlements being Kahra, Gandoh, Kilhotran, Jakyas, Bhatyas, and Juggasar. The neighbouring languages are Chinali,

Pangwali Pangwali ( Takri: ) is a Western Pahari language of Himachal Pradesh, India. It is spoken in the Pangi Tehsil of Chamba district, and is threatened to go extinct. Pangwali is natively written in the Takri script, but Devanagari is used as well. ...

and Chambeali to the south-east, Padri to the north-east, Kishtwari to the north-west, Sarazi to the west, and

to the south. Features that distinguish Bhalesi from the other Bhadarwahi dialects include the preponderence of

diphthongs A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...

, and the dropping of between vowels (e.g. Bhalesi vs. Bhadarwahi 'black'). An unusual feature is found in one of the patterns for the formation of the

plural The plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the ...

of feminine nouns, adjectives and participles. While some forms add a suffix ( 'a small bee' -> 'small bees'), others will undergo

apophony In linguistics, apophony (also known as ablaut, (vowel) gradation, (vowel) mutation, alternation, internal modification, stem modification, stem alternation, replacive morphology, stem mutation, internal inflection etc.) is any Alternation (lin ...

: the final and initial vowels are raised, for example: * 'a small jug' -> 'small jugs' * 'a white ant' -> 'white ants' * 'she went' -> 'they(f) went'

References

Bibliography

* *{{cite book, last = Varma, first = Siddheshwar, year = 1948, title = The Bhalesī dialect, series = Monograph series (Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal), volume = 4, place = Calcutta Indo-Aryan languages Northern Indo-Aryan languages Languages of Jammu and Kashmir