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Khowar
Khowar () or Chitrali, is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken in Chitral and surrounding areas in 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'' or ''Arniya'', derived from the Shina language name for the part of the Yasin (a valley in Gilgit-Baltistan) where Khowar is ...
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Khowar In Nastaliq
Khowar () or Chitrali, is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken in Chitral District, Chitral and surrounding areas in Pakistan. Khowar is the lingua franca of Chitral, and it is also spoken in the Gupis-Yasin District, Gupis-Yasin and Ghizer District (2019–), Ghizer districts of Gilgit-Baltistan, as well in the Upper Swat District, 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'' or ''Arniya'', derived f ...
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Khowar Alphabet
The Khowar alphabet is the right-to-left alphabet used for the Khowar language. It is a modification of the Urdu alphabet, which is itself a derivative of the Persian alphabet and Arabic alphabet and uses the calligraphic Nastaʿlīq script. History The Khowar language developed during the rule of Mehtar of Chitral State. Since the early twentieth century Khowar has been written in the Khowar alphabet, which is based on the Urdu alphabet and uses the Nasta'liq script. Prior to that, the language was carried on through oral tradition. Today Urdu and English are the official languages and the only major literary usage of Khowar is in both poetry and prose composition. Khowar has also been occasionally written in a version of the Roman script called Roman Khowar since the 1960s. Despite the invention of the Khowar typewriter in 1996, Khowar newsletters and newspapers continued to be published from handwritten scripts by the Khowar authors until the late 1990s. The Monthly Zha ...
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Kho People
The Kho (, khw, ) or Chitrali people, are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group native to the Chitral and Ghizer Districts of Gilgit-Baltistan. They speak an Indo-Aryan language called Khowar. History The Kho people are likely descendants of those who migrated to their present location in Chitral from the south. In ancient times the Kho people practiced a faith akin to that observed by the Kalash today. In the 14th century, many of the Kho converted to Islam though some previous customs continue to persist. With respect to Islam, the Kho are primarily Hanafi Sunni Muslims although there exists a substantial population of Ismaili Muslims in the Upper Chitral region. Language The Kho people speak the Khowar language, which is an Indo-Aryan language of the Dardic subgroup. The ethnologists Karl Jettmar and Lennart Edelberg noted, with respect to the Khowar language, that: "Khowar, in many respects sthe most archaic of all modern Indian languages, retaining a great part of ...
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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. The term "Dardic" is stated to be only a geographic convention used to denote the northwesternmost group of Indo-Aryan languages rather than any ethnic or linguistic basis. There is no ethnic unity among the speakers of these languages nor the languages can be traced to a single linguistic tree model, being mostly very distinct from each another, with each language varying considerably among themselves. The languages and peoples are often referred to as Kohistani, mostly by the Pashtuns and also by themselves. History Early British efforts placed almost all the peoples and languages of the upper Indus River between Kashmir and Kabul into one unitary group, coining the distinct identities of all other peoples in the region, resulting in the formation of terms such as ...
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Kalasha-mun
Kalasha (locally: ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Kalash people, in the Chitral District in Pakistan. There are an estimated 5,000 speakers of Kalasha. It is an endangered language and there is an ongoing language shift to Khowar. Kalasha should not be confused with the nearby Nuristani language Waigali (Kalasha-ala). 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 la ...
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Kalash People
The Kalasha (Kalasha: کالؕاشؕا, romanised: ''Kaḷaṣa)'', or Kalash, are an Indo-Aryan indigenous people residing in the Chitral District of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. The Kalash population in Pakistan numbers only in a few thousands, making them one of the smallest ethnic minorities in Pakistan. They are considered unique among the people of Pakistan.The kalaṣa of kalaṣüm
Richard Strand
They are also considered to be Pakistan's smallest , and traditionally practice a religion ...
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Chitral District
Chitral District ( ur, ) was the largest district in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, covering an area of 14,850 km², before splitting into Upper Chitral District and Lower Chitral District in 2018. Part of the Malakand Division, it is the northernmost district of Pakistan. It shares a border with Gilgit-Baltistan to the east, with Kunar, Badakshan and Nuristan provinces of Afghanistan to the north and west, and with the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa districts of Swat and Dir to the south. A narrow strip of Wakhan Corridor separates Chitral from Tajikistan in the north. History Chitral shares much of its history and culture with the neighboring Hindu Kush territories of Gilgit-Baltistan, a region sometimes called "Peristan" because of the common belief in fairies (''peri'') inhabiting the high mountains. The entire region that now forms the Chitral District was an independent monarchical state until 1895, when the British negotiated a treaty with its here ...
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Chitral Region
Chitral District ( ur, ) was the largest district in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, covering an area of 14,850 km², before splitting into Upper Chitral District and Lower Chitral District in 2018. Part of the Malakand Division, it is the northernmost district of Pakistan. It shares a border with Gilgit-Baltistan to the east, with Kunar, Badakshan and Nuristan provinces of Afghanistan to the north and west, and with the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa districts of Swat and Dir to the south. A narrow strip of Wakhan Corridor separates Chitral from Tajikistan in the north. History Chitral shares much of its history and culture with the neighboring Hindu Kush territories of Gilgit-Baltistan, a region sometimes called "Peristan" because of the common belief in fairies (''peri'') inhabiting the high mountains. The entire region that now forms the Chitral District was an independent monarchical state until 1895, when the British negotiated a treaty with its heredi ...
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Indo-Aryan Languages
The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Maldives. Moreover, apart from the Indian subcontinent, large immigrant and expatriate Indo-Aryan–speaking communities live in Northwestern Europe, Western Asia, North America, the Caribbean, Southeast Africa, Polynesia and Australia, along with several million speakers of Romani languages primarily concentrated in Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. There are over 200 known Indo-Aryan languages. Modern Indo-Aryan languages descend from Old Indo-Aryan languages such as early Vedic Sanskrit, through Middle Indo-Aryan languages (or Prakrits). The largest such languages in terms of First language, first-speakers are Hindustani language, Hindi–Urdu (),Standard Hindi firs ...
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Yasin Valley
Yasin ( ur, ''Yāsīn''), also known as Babaye-i-Yasen () or Worshigum ( khw, ''Worśigūm''), is a high mountain valley in the Hindu Kush mountains, in the northern part of Gupis-Yasin District in the territory of Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. The valley is about from city of Gilgit (the capital of Gilgit Baltistan). The Yasin Tehsil is situated on its territory. History Although sparsely populated, Yasin was of strategic importance because it leads to a high mountain pass to Yarkhun Valley and then to Broghil Pass in Chitral, connecting with the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Early period Yasin valley was administrative centre of Worshigum which remained under the suzerainty of Mehtars who emerged from Chitral. The Mehtars of Yasin were great warriors and fought against the Sikhs and the Dogras of Kashmir in Gilt agency. But more often, they fought with each other, intrigued and murdered each other. Eventually the British got tired of them and took ...
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Nastaliq
''Nastaliq'' (; fa, , ), also romanized as ''Nastaʿlīq'', is one of the main calligraphic hands used to write the Perso-Arabic script in the Persian and Urdu languages, often used also for Ottoman Turkish poetry, rarely for Arabic. ''Nastaliq'' developed in Iran from '' naskh'' beginning in the 13th century and remains very widely used in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and as a minority script in India and other countries for written poetry and as a form of art. History The name ''nastaliq'' "is a contraction of the Persian , meaning a hanging or suspended '' naskh''". Virtually all Safavid authors (like Dust Muhammad or Qadi Ahmad) attributed the invention of to Mir Ali Tabrizi, who lived at the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century. That tradition was questioned by Elaine Wright, who traced evolution of ''nastaliq'' in 14th century Iran and showed how it developed gradually among scribes in Shiraz. Moreover, according to her studies ''nastaliq'' has it ...
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Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-largest Muslim population just behind Indonesia. Pakistan is the 33rd-largest country in the world by area and 2nd largest in South Asia, spanning . It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west, Iran to the southwest, and China to the northeast. It is separated narrowly from Tajikistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor in the north, and also shares a maritime border with Oman. Islamabad is the nation's capital, while Karachi is its largest city and financial centre. Pakistan is the site of several ancient cultures, including the 8,500-year-old Neolithic site of Mehrgarh in Balochistan, the Indus Valley civilisation of the Bronze Age, the most extens ...
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