Kalasha Language (Pakistan)
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Kalasha (, locally: ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Kalash people, in the Chitral District of
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (; ; , ; abbr. KP or KPK), formerly known as the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), is a Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Pakistan. Located in the Northern Pakistan, northwestern region of the country, Khyber ...
province of
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# ...
. There are an estimated 7,466 speakers of Kalasha according to the 2023 Census of Pakistan. It is an
endangered language An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a " dead langua ...
and there is an ongoing
language shift Language shift, also known as language transfer, language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceived ...
to
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 th ...
. 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 (Kalasha) and the Nuristani language Kalasha-ala (Waigali), which descend from different branches of the
Indo-Iranian languages The Indo-Iranian languages (also known as Indo-Iranic languages or collectively the Aryan languages) constitute the largest branch of the Indo-European language family. They include over 300 languages, spoken by around 1.7 billion speakers ...
. Kalasha, alongside
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 th ...
, are the most archaic of the Indo-Aryan languages, retaining archaic Vedic Sanskrit vocabulary, sibilants, and several types of consonant clusters long lost in others.


History

Early scholars to have done work on Kalasha include the 19th-century orientalist Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner and the 20th-century linguist Georg Morgenstierne. More recently, studies have been undertaken by Elena Bashir and several others. The development of practical literacy materials has been associated with the Kalasha linguist Taj Khan Kalash. The Southern Kalash or Urtsun Kalash shifted to a Khowar-influenced dialect of Kalasha-mun in the 20th century called Urtsuniwar.


Classification

Of all the languages in
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# ...
, Kalasha is likely the most conservative, along with the nearby language
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 th ...
. In a few cases, Kalasha is even more conservative than Khowar, e.g. in retaining voiced aspirate consonants, which have disappeared from most other Dardic languages. Some of the typical retentions of sounds and clusters (and meanings) are seen in the following list. However, note some common New Indo-Aryan and Dardic features as well.


Phonology

The Kalasha language is phonologically atypical because it contrasts plain, long, nasal and
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 ...
vowels as well as combinations of these (Heegård & Mørch 2004). Set out below is the phonology of Kalasha:


Vowels


Consonants

As with other Dardic languages, the phonemic status of the breathy voiced series is debatable. Some analyses are unsure of whether they are phonemic or allophonic—i.e., the regular pronunciations of clusters of voiced consonants with /h/. The phonemes /x ɣ q/ are found in loanwords.


Vocabulary comparison

The following table compares Kalash words to their cognates in other Indo-Aryan languages.


Conservative traits

Examples of conservative features in Kalasha and Khowar are (note, NIA = New Indo-Aryan, MIA = Middle Indo-Aryan, OIA = Old Indo-Aryan): * Preservation of intervocalic /m/ (reduced to a nasalized /w/ or /v/ in late MIA elsewhere), e.g. Kal. ''grom'', Kho. ''gram'' "village" < OIA ''grāma'' * Non-deletion of intervocalic /t/, preserved as /l/ or /w/ in Kalasha, /r/ in Khowar (deleted in middle MIA elsewhere), e.g. Kho. ''brār'' "brother" < OIA ''bhrātṛ''; Kal. ''ʃau'' < ''*ʃal'', Kho. ''ʃor'' "hundred" < OIA ''śata'' * Preservation of the distinction between all three OIA sibilants (dental /s/, palatal /ś/, retroflex /ṣ/); in most of the subcontinent, these three had already merged before 200 BC (early MIA) * Preservation of sibilant + consonant, stop + /r/ clusters (lost by early MIA in most other places): ** Kal. ''aṣṭ'', Kho. ''oṣṭ'' "eight" < OIA ''aṣṭā''; Kal. ''hast'', Kho. ''host'' "hand" < OIA ''hasta''; Kal. ''istam'' "bunch" < OIA ''stamba''; Kho. ''istōr'' "pack horse" < OIA ''sthōra''; Kho. ''isnār'' "bathed" < OIA ''snāta''; Kal. Kho. ''iskow'' "peg" < OIA ''*'' (< ''skambha''); Kho. ''iśper'' "white" < OIA ''śvēta''; Kal. ''isprɛs'', Kho. ''iśpreṣi'' "mother-in-law" < OIA ''śvaśru''; Kal. ''piṣṭ'' "back" < OIA ''pṛṣṭha''; Kho. ''aśrū'' "tear" < OIA ''aśru''. ** Kho. ''kren-'' "buy" < OIA ''krīṇ-''; Kal. ''grom'', Kho. ''grom'' "village" < OIA ''grāma''; Kal. ''gŕä'' "neck" < OIA ''grīva''; Kho. ''griṣp'' "summer" < OIA ''grīṣma'' * Preservation of /ts/ in Kalasha (reinterpreted as a single phoneme) * Direct preservation of many OIA case endings as so-called "layer 1" case endings (as opposed to newer "layer 2" case endings, typically tacked onto a layer-1 oblique case): ** Nominative ** Oblique (Animate): Pl. Kal. ''-an'', Kho. ''-an'' < OIA ''-ān'' ** Genitive: Kal. ''-as'' (sg.), ''-an'' (pl.); Kho. ''-o'' (sg.), ''-an, -ān'' (pl.) < OIA ''-asya'' (sg.), ''āṇām'' (pl.) ** Dative: Kal. ''-a'', Kho. ''-a'' < OIA dative ''-āya'', elsewhere lost already in late OIA ** Instrumental: Kal. ''-an'', Kho. ''-en'' < OIA ''-ēna'' ** Ablative: Kal. ''-au'', Kho. ''-ār'' < OIA ''-āt'' ** Locative: Kal. ''-ai'', Kho. ''-i'' < OIA ''-ai'' * Preservation of more than one verbal conjugation (e.g. Kho. ''mār-īm'' "I kill" vs. ''bri-um'' "I die") * Preservation of OIA distinction between "primary" (non-past) and "secondary" (past) endings and of a past-tense "augment" in a-, both lost entirely elsewhere: Kal. ''pim'' "I drink", ''apis'' "I drank"; ''kārim'' "I do", ''akāris'' "I did" * Preservation of a verbal preterite tense (see examples above), with normal nominative/accusative marking and normal verbal agreement, as opposed to the ergative-type past tenses with nominal-type agreement elsewhere in NIA (originally based on a participial passive construction)


References


Bibliography

* * * * Maps showing distribution of words among people of Kafiristan. * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

*


External links


Richard Strand's Nuristan Site

Reiko and Jun's Japanese Kalasha Page

Hindi/Urdu-English-Kalasha-Khowar-Nuristani-Pashtu Comparative Word List


The Kalasha Dictionary



Kalasha dictionary {{Dardic languages Dardic languages Kalash people Languages of Lower Chitral District