Burushaski (; ) is a language isolate spoken by

Burusho people The Burusho, or Brusho, also known as the Botraj, are an ethnolinguistic group indigenous to the Yasin, Hunza, Nagar, and other valleys of Gilgit–Baltistan in northern Pakistan, as well as in Jammu and Kashmir, India. Their language, Burus ...

, who reside almost entirely in northern Gilgit-Baltistan,

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-lar ...

, with a few hundred speakers in northern Jammu and Kashmir,

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. In Pakistan, Burushaski is spoken by people in

Hunza District The Hunza District ( ur, ) is one of the 14 districts of the Pakistani province of Gilgit-Baltistan. It was established in 2015 by the division of the Hunza–Nagar District in accordance with a government decision to establish more administrativ ...

, Nagar District, northern

Gilgit District The Gilgit District ( ur, ) is one of the 14 districts of Pakistan-administered territory of Gilgit-Baltistan. The headquarters of the district is the town of Gilgit. According to the 1998 census, the Gilgit District had a population of 243,3 ...

, the Yasin valley in the

Gupis-Yasin District The Gupis-Yasin District ( ur, ) is the westernmost district of the 14 districts of Pakistan-administered territory of Gilgit-Baltistan. The Gupis-Yasin District was created in 2019 from the Gupis Tehsil and the Yasin Tehsil, which were the two w ...

and the

Ishkoman The Ishkoman ( ur, ) valley lies in the north of Ghizer District in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan and the Pamir Wakhan Corridor. Its altitude ranges from 7,000 to 12,000 feet (2,100 to 3,700 m) above sea level. See also * ...

valley of the northern Ghizer District. Their native region is located in northern

Gilgit–Baltistan Gilgit-Baltistan (; ), formerly known as the Northern Areas, is a region administered by Pakistan as an administrative territory, and constituting the northern portion of the larger Kashmir region which has been the subject of a dispute bet ...

and borders with the

Pamir corridor The Wakhan Corridor ( ps, واخان دهلېز, translit=wāxān dahléz, fa, دالان واخان, translit=dâlân vâxân) is a narrow strip of territory in Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan, extending to Xinjiang in China and separat ...

to the north. In India, Burushaski is spoken in Botraj Mohalla of the

Hari Parbat Hari Parbat (), also called Koh-i-Maran (), is a hill overlooking Srinagar, the largest city and the capital of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It is the site of a fort, built by the Durrani Empire, and of a Hindu temple, mosques, and gurdwara. The ...

region in Srinagar. Other names for the language are ''Biltum'', ''Khajuna'', ''Kunjut'', ''Brushaski'', ''Burucaki'', ''Burucaski'', ''Burushaki'', ''Burushki'', ''Brugaski'', ''Brushas'', ''Werchikwar'' and ''Miśa:ski''.

Classification

Attempts have been made to establish links between Burushaski and several different language families, although none has been accepted by a majority of

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

s. Following Berger (1956), the '' American Heritage'' dictionaries suggested that the word ''*abel'' '

apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

', the only name for a fruit (tree) reconstructed for

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...

, may have been borrowed from a language ancestral to Burushaski. ("Apple" and "apple tree" are ''báalt'' in modern Burushaski.) Other hypotheses posit a genealogical relationship between Burushaski and the

North Caucasian languages The North Caucasian languages, sometimes called simply Caucasic, is a proposed language family consisting of a pair of well established language families spoken in the Caucasus, predominantly in the north, consisting of the Northwest Caucasian ...

Kartvelian languages The Kartvelian languages (; ka, ქართველური ენები, tr; also known as South Caucasian, Kartvelic, and Iberian languagesBoeder (2002), p. 3) are a language family indigenous to the South Caucasus and spoken primari ...

Yeniseian languages The Yeniseian languages (sometimes known as Yeniseic or Yenisei-Ostyak;"Ostyak" is a concept of areal rather than genetic linguistics. In addition to the Yeniseian languages it also includes the Uralic languages Khanty and Selkup. occasionally ...

and/or

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

, usually in proposed macrofamilies. * The proposed but contended " Dené–Caucasian" macrofamily includes Burushaski as a primary branch alongside North Caucasian and Yeniseian. * Another proposed family, known as " Karasuk", links Burushaski with Yeniseian. * A relationship to the proposed "

Indo-Hittite In Indo-European linguistics, the term Indo-Hittite (also Indo-Anatolian) refers to Edgar Howard Sturtevant's 1926 hypothesis that the Anatolian languages may have split off a Pre-Proto-Indo-European language considerably earlier than the separat ...

clade" of the

Indo-European family The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...

has been suggested by Eric P. Hamp and . The various proposals linking Burushaski to Indo-European make divergent—or in the case of Čašule even contradictory—claims about the nature of the relationship, and are rejected by mainstream scholarship. * A possible connection specifically to the

. The linguist Sadaf Munshi stated that Burushaski may have developed alongside the

Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant ...

before the

Indo-Aryan migration The Indo-Aryan migrations were the migrations into the Indian subcontinent of Indo-Aryan peoples, an ethnolinguistic group that spoke Indo-Aryan languages, the predominant languages of today's North India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lank ...

to South Asia, mentioning the fact that both possess retroflex sounds. (Burushaski was not included in a 2008 study from

Edward Vajda Edward J. Vajda (Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, September 10, 1958 as Edward M. Johnson; changed his name in 1981) is a historical linguist at Western Washington University. He is known for his work on the proposed Dené–Yeniseian language fam ...

, to revive

Merritt Ruhlen Merritt Ruhlen (May 10, 1944 – January 29, 2021) was an American linguist who worked on the classification of languages and what this reveals about the origin and evolution of modern humans. Amongst other linguists, Ruhlen's work was recognized ...

's proposed " Dené–Yeniseian macrofamily", which linked Yeniseian and

Na-Dene Na-Dene (; also Nadene, Na-Dené, Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit, Tlina–Dene) is a family of Native American languages that includes at least the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, and Tlingit languages. Haida was formerly included, but is now considered ...

. Vajda rejects any relation between Yeniseian and Burushaski.)

Varieties

Burushaski is spoken by about 120,000 speakers in Pakistan, and also by a few hundred in India. In Pakistan, it is spoken in three main valleys: Yasin,

Hunza Hunza may refer to: * Hunza, Iran * Hunza Valley, an area in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan ** Hunza (princely state), a former principality ** Hunza District, a recently established district ** Hunza River, a waterway ** Hunza Peak, a mou ...

, and Nagar. The varieties of Hunza and Nagar diverge slightly, but are clearly dialects of a single language. The Yasin variety, also known by the Khowar exonym ''Werchikwar'', is much more divergent. Intelligibility between Yasin and Hunza-Nagar is difficult, and Yasin is sometimes considered a distinct language and the pure Burushaski is spoken in Yasin valley. Yasin is the least affected by contact with neighboring languages, though speakers are bilingual in

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 we ...

. Yasin is spoken by a quarter of Burushaski speakers. In

, Jammu & Kashmir Burushaski (JKB) "has developed divergent linguistic features which make it systematically different from the varieties spoken in Pakistan." The dialect of Burushashki spoken in India has been influenced by Kashmiri, as well as

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

and

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' vowel syncopation. Jammu & Kashmir Burushaski shares more similarities with the dialect spoken in Nagar than with that spoken in Hunza. The Srinagar variety of Burushaski has been known as low toned and is spoken a Kashmiri way of speaking the language. The Srinagar variety of Burushaski has only 300 speakers.

Writing system

Burushaski is a predominantly spoken rather than written language. Occasionally the

Urdu alphabet The Urdu alphabet (), is the right-to-left alphabet used for Urdu. It is a modification of the Persian script, which is itself a derivative of the Arabic script. The Urdu alphabet has up to 39 or 40 distinct letters with no distinct letter ...

is used, and there are some specific characters in

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...

, but no fixed

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...

exists. Adu Wazir Shafi wrote a book ''Burushaski Razon'' using a

Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...

an sources record a ''Bru zha'' language of the Gilgit valley, which appears to have been Burushaski, whose script was one of five scripts used to write the extinct

Zhang Zhung language Zhang-Zhung () is an extinct Sino-Tibetan language that was spoken in what is now western Tibet. It is attested in a bilingual text called ''A Cavern of Treasures'' (''mDzod phug'') and several shorter texts. A small number of documents preserv ...

. Although Burushaski may once have been a significant

literary language A literary language is the form (register) of a language used in written literature, which can be either a nonstandard dialect or a standardized variety of the language. Literary language sometimes is noticeably different from the spoken langua ...

, no ''Bru zha'' manuscripts are known to have survived. There is a very voluminous Buddhist tantra of the 'Ancient' (''rNying ma'') school of Tibetan Buddhism, preserved in Tibetan as the ''mDo dgongs 'dus'', which has been the subject of numerous Tibetological publications, including a recent monograph by Jacob P. Dalton, ''The Gathering of Intentions'',Dalton, Jacob P. 2016. Columbia University Press. . This book is a state of the art history of this ''tantra'' in Tibet, but does not deal in depth with the issue of its original source and whether it was actually translated from the Burushaski. which is supposed to be translated from the Burushaski (''bru zha'i skad''). It contains words that are not Sanskrit but which, at this stage, it has not been ascertained whether they could actually be related to the Burushaski, or belong to another language (or, else, be purely "elfic"). If at least part of this text had actually been translated from Burushaski, it would make it one of the major monuments of an apparently lost literature. Linguists working on Burushaski use various makeshift transcriptions based on the Latin alphabet, most commonly that by Berger (see below), in their publications.

Phonology

Burushaski primarily has five vowels, /i e a o u/. Various contractions result in long vowels; stressed vowels (marked with acute accents in Berger's transcription) tend to be longer and less "open" than unstressed ones ( as opposed to ). Long vowels also occur in loans and in a few onomatopoeic words (Grune 1998). All vowels have nasal counterparts in Hunza (in some expressive words) and in Nager (also in proper names and a few other words). Berger (1998) finds the following consonants to be

phonemic In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west ...

, shown below in his transcription and in the IPA: Notes:

Grammar

Burushaski is a

double-marking language A double-marking language is one in which the grammatical marks showing relations between different constituents of a phrase tend to be placed on both the heads (or nuclei) of the phrase in question, and on the modifiers or dependents. Pervasive d ...

and word order is generally subject–object–verb.

Noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...

s in Burushaski are divided into four genders: human masculine, human feminine, countable objects, and uncountable ones (similar to mass nouns). The assignment of a noun to a particular gender is largely predictable. Some words can belong both to the countable and to the uncountable class, producing differences in meaning. For example, when countable, ''báalt'' means 'apple' but when uncountable, it means 'apple tree' (Grune 1998). Noun

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines * Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts * Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...

consists of the noun stem, a possessive prefix (mandatory for some nouns, and thus an example of inherent possession), and

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...

and case

suffixes In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry g ...

. Distinctions in number are singular, plural, indefinite, and grouped. Cases include

absolutive In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative� ...

, ergative/

oblique Oblique may refer to: * an alternative name for the character usually called a slash (punctuation) ( / ) *Oblique angle, in geometry *Oblique triangle, in geometry * Oblique lattice, in geometry * Oblique leaf base, a characteristic shape of the b ...

, genitive, and several locatives; the latter indicate both location and direction and may be compounded. Burushaski

verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

s have three basic stems: past tense, present tense, and consecutive. The past stem is the citation form and is also used for imperatives and nominalization; the consecutive stem is similar to a past participle and is used for coordination. Agreement on the verb has both nominative and ergative features: transitive verbs and unaccusatives mark both the subject and the object of a clause, while unergatives verbs mark only subject agreement on the verb. Altogether, a verb can take up to four prefixes and six suffixes.

Nouns

Noun classes

In Burushaski, there are four

noun class In linguistics, a noun class is a particular category of nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of the characteristic features of its referent, such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some a ...

es, similar to declensional classes in

, but unlike Indo-European, the nominal classes in Burushaski are associated with four grammatical "genders": * m = male human beings, gods and spirits * f = female human beings and spirits * x = animals,

countable In mathematics, a set is countable if either it is finite or it can be made in one to one correspondence with the set of natural numbers. Equivalently, a set is ''countable'' if there exists an injective function from it into the natural numbers ...

nouns * y = abstract concepts, fluids, uncountable nouns Below, the abbreviation "h" will stand for the combination of the m- and f-classes, while "hx" will stand for the combination of the m-, f- and x-classes. Nouns in the x-class typically refer to countable, non-human beings or things, for example animals, fruit, stones, eggs, or coins; conversely, nouns in the y-class are as a rule uncountable abstractions or mass nouns, such as rice, fire, water, snow, wool, etc. However, these rules are not universal – countable objects in the y-class are sometimes encountered, e.g. ''ha'', 'house'. Related words can subtly change their meanings when used in different classes – for example, ''bayú'', when a member of the x-class, means salt in clumps, but when in the y-class, it means powdered salt. Fruit trees are understood collectively and placed in the y-class, but their individual fruits belong to the x-class. Objects made of particular materials can belong to either the x- or the y- class: stone and wood are in the x-class, but metal and leather in the y-class. The article,

adjectives In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the mai ...

numerals A numeral is a figure, symbol, or group of figures or symbols denoting a number. It may refer to: * Numeral system used in mathematics * Numeral (linguistics), a part of speech denoting numbers (e.g. ''one'' and ''first'' in English) * Numerical d ...

and other attributes must be in agreement with the noun class of their subject.

Pluralisation

There are two

numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

in Burushaski: singular and

plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...

. The singular is unmarked, while the plural is expressed by means of suffix, which vary depending on the class of the noun: * h-class: possible suffixes * h- and x-class: possible suffixes * y-class: possible suffixes (Nagar dialect) Some nouns admit two or three different prefixes, while others have no distinctive suffix, and occur only in the plural, e.g. ''bras'' 'rice', ''gur'' 'wheat', ''bishké'', 'fur', (cf.

plurale tantum A ''plurale tantum'' (Latin for "plural only"; ) is a noun that appears only in the plural form and does not have a singular variant for referring to a single object. In a less strict usage of the term, it can also refer to nouns whose singular fo ...

). On the other hand, there are also nouns which have identical forms in the singular and plural, e.g. ''hagúr'' 'horses'. Adjectives have a unique plural suffix, whose form depends on the class of the noun they modify, e.g. ''burúm'' 'white' gives the x-class plural ''burum-išo'' and the y-class plural ''burúm-ing''. Examples of pluralisation in Burushaski: * (m), pl. ''wazíirishu'' 'vizier, minister' * (m), pl. ''huri'' 'man' (stress shifts) * (f), pl. ''gushínga'' 'woman' (stress shifts) * (f), pl. ''daseyoo'' 'girl', 'unmarried woman' * (x), pl. ''huká'' 'dog' * (x), pl. ''tilí'' 'walnut' * (y), pl. ''theleng'' 'walnut tree'

Declension

Burushaski is an ergative language. It has five primary cases. The case suffixes are appended to the plural suffix, e.g. ''Huséiniukutse'', 'the people of Hussein' (ergative plural). The genitive ending is irregular, /mo/, for singular f-class nouns, but /-e/ in all others (identical to the ergative ending). The dative ending, /-ar/, /-r/ is attached to the genitive ending for singular f-class nouns, but to the stem for all others. Examples: * ''hir-e'' 'the man's', ''gus-mo'' 'the woman's' (gen.) * ''hir-ar'' 'to the man', ''gus-mu-r'' 'to the woman' (dat.) The genitive is placed before the thing possessed: ''Hunzue tham'', 'the Emir of Hunza.' The endings of the secondary cases are formed from a secondary case suffix (or infix) and one of the primary endings /-e/, /-ar/ or /-um/. These endings are directional, /-e/ being locative (answering 'where?'), /-ar/ being terminative (answering 'where to?'), and /-um/ being ablative (answering 'where from?'). The infixes, and their basic meanings, are as follows: # ''-ts-'' 'at' # ''-ul-'' 'in' # ''-aṭ-'' 'on; with' # ''-al-'' 'near' (only in the Hunza dialect) From these, the following secondary or compound cases are formed: The regular endings /-ul-e/ and /-ul-ar/ are archaic and are now replaced by /-ul-o/ and /-ar-ulo/ respectively.

Pronouns and pronominal prefixes

Nouns indicating parts of the body and kinship terms are accompanied by an obligatory pronominal prefix. Thus, one cannot simply say 'mother' or 'arm' in Burushaski, but only 'my arm', 'your mother', 'his father', etc. For example, the root ''mi'' 'mother', is never found in isolation, instead one finds: * ''i-mi'' 'his mother', ''mu-mi'' 'her mother', "gu-mi" 'your mother'(3f sg.), ''u-mi'' 'their mother' (3h pl.), ''u-mi-tsaro'' 'their mothers'(3h pl.). The pronominal, or personal, prefixes agree with the person, number and – in the third person, the class of their noun. A summary of the basic forms is given in the following table: Personal pronouns in Burushaski distinguish proximal and distal forms, e.g. ''khin'' 'he, this one here', but ''in'', 'he, that one there'. In the oblique, there are additional abbreviated forms.

Numerals

The Burushaski number system is vigesimal, i.e. based on the number 20. For example, 20 ''altar'', 40 ''alto-altar'' (2 times 20), 60 ''iski-altar'' (3 times 20) etc. The base numerals are: * 1 ''han'' (or ''hen'', ''hak'') * 2 ''altó'' (or ''altán'') * 3 ''isko'' (or ''iskey'') * 4 ''wálto'' * 5 ''čindó'' * 6 ''mishíndo'' * 7 ''thaló'' * 8 ''altámbo'' * 9 ''hunchó'' * 10 ''tóorumo'' (also ''toorimi'' and ''turma'') * 100 ''tha'' Examples of compound numerals: 11 ''turma-han'', 12 ''turma-alto'', 13 ''turma-isko'', ... , 19 ''turma-hunti''; 20 ''altar'', 30 ''altar-toorumo'', 40 ''alto-altar'', 50 ''alto-altar-toorumo'', 60 ''iski-altar'' and so on; 21 ''altar-hak'', 22 ''altar-alto'', 23 ''altar-isko'' and so on.

Verbs

Overview

The verbal morphology of Burushaski is extremely complicated and rich in forms. Many sound changes can take place, including assimilation, deletion and accent shift, which are unique for almost every verb. Here, we can specify only certain basic principles. The Burushaski

finite verb Traditionally, a finite verb (from la, fīnītus, past participle of to put an end to, bound, limit) is the form "to which number and person appertain", in other words, those inflected for number and person. Verbs were originally said to be ''fin ...

falls into the following categories: For many

transitive verb A transitive verb is a verb that accepts one or more objects, for example, 'cleaned' in ''Donald cleaned the window''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not have objects, for example, 'panicked' in ''Donald panicked''. Transiti ...

s, in addition to the subject, the (direct) object is also indicated, also by pronominal prefixes which vary according to person, number and class. All verbs have negative forms, and many intransitive verbs also have derived transitive forms. The

infinitive Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The word is deri ...

forms – which in Burushaski are the absolutives of the past and present, the perfect participle, and two infinitives – admit all the finite variations except tense and mood. Infinitive forms are made together with auxiliary verbs and periphrastic forms.

The 11 positions of the finite verb

All verb forms can be constructed according to a complex but regular position system. Berger describes a total of 11 possible positions, or slots, although not all of these will be filled in any given verb form. Many positions also have several alternative contents (indicated by A/B/C below). The verb stem is in position 5, preceded by four possible prefixes and followed by seven possible suffixes. The following table gives an overview of the positions and their functions

Formation of tenses and moods

The formation of the tenses and moods involves the use of several positions, or slots, in complicated ways. The preterite, perfect, pluperfect and conative are formed from the 'simple stem,' whereas the present, imperfect, future and conditional are formed from the 'present stem,' which is itself formed from the simple stem by placing -č- in position 7. The optative and imperative are derived directly from the stem. Altogether, the schema is as follows: The formation of the tenses and moods of the verb ''her'' 'to cry', without prefixes:

Indication of the subject and object

The subject and object of the verb are indicated by the use of personal prefixes and suffixes in positions 3, 8 and 10 as follows: The personal prefixes are identical to the pronominal prefixes of nouns (mandatory with body parts and kinship terms, as above). A simplified overview of the forms of the affixes is given in the following table: For example, the construction of the preterite of the transitive verb ''phus'' 'to tie', with prefixes and suffixes separated by hyphens, is as follows : * ''i-phus-i-m-i'' "he ties him" (filled positions: 3-5-8-9-10) * ''mu-phus-i-m-i'' "he ties her (f)" * ''u-phus-i-m-i'' "he ties them (pl. hx)" * ''mi-phus-i-m-i'' "he ties us" * ''i-phus-i-m-an'' "we/you/they tie him" * ''mi-phus-i-m-an'' "you/they tie us" * ''i-phus-i-m-a'' "I tie it" * ''gu-phus-i-m-a'' "I tie you" The personal affixes are also used when the noun occupies the role of the subject or the object, e.g. ''hir i-ír-i-mi'' 'the man died'. With intransitive verbs, the subject function is indicated by both a prefix and a suffix, as in: * ''gu-ir-č-u-m-a'' "you will die" (future) * ''i-ghurts-i-m-i'' "he sank" (preterite) Personal prefixes do not occur in all verbs and all tenses. Some verbs do not admit personal prefixes, others still do so only under certain circumstances. Personal prefixes used with intransitive verbs often express a volitional function, with prefixed forms indicating an action contrary to the intention of the subject. For example: * ''hurúṭ-i-m-i'' "he sat down" (volitional action without prefix) * ''i-ír-i-m-i'' "he died" (involuntary action with prefix) * ''ghurts-i-mi'' "he went willingly underwater", "he dove" (without prefix) * ''i-ghurts-i-m-i'' "he went unwillingly underwater", "he sank" (with prefix)

The d- prefix

A number of verbs – mostly according to their root form – are found with the d-prefix in position 2, which occurs before a consonant according to

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, mea ...

. The precise semantic function of the d-prefix is unclear. With primary transitive verbs the d-prefix, always without personal prefixes, forms regular intransitives. Examples: * ''i-phalt-i-mi'' 'he breaks it open' (transitive) * ''du-phalt-as'' 'to break open, to explode' (intransitive) A master's thesis research work of a native speaker of Burushaski on Middle Voice Construction in the Hunza Dialect claims that the d-verbal prefix is an overt morphological middle marker for MV constructions, while the -verbal prefix is a morphological marker for passive voice. The data primarily come from the Hunza dialect of Burushaski, but analogous phenomena can be observed in other dialects. This research is based on a corpus of 120 dd-prefix verbs. This research has showed that position on the verb template is occupied by voice-marker in Burushaski. The author argues that the middle marker is a semantic category of its own and that it is clearly distinguished from the reflexive marker in this language. The middle marker (MM) means the grammatical device used to "indicate that the two semantic roles of Initiator and Endpoint refer to a single holistic entity" (Kemmer 1993: 47). In the view of that definition, I look at a middle marked verb in Burushaski and illustration follows the example. * ''hiles dd-i-il-imi'' 'the boy drenched'

References

Bibliography

* Anderson, Gregory D. S. 1997. Burushaski Morphology. In ''Morphologies of Asia and Africa'', ed. by Alan Kaye. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. * Anderson, Gregory D. S. 1997. Burushaski Phonology. In ''Phonologies of Asia and Africa'', ed. by Alan Kaye. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. * Anderson, Gregory D. S. 1999. M. Witzel's "South Asian Substrate Languages" from a Burushaski Perspective. ''Mother Tongue'' (Special Issue, October 1999). * Anderson, Gregory D. S. forthcoming b. Burushaski. In ''Language Islands: Isolates and Microfamilies of Eurasia'', ed. by D.A. Abondolo. London: Curzon Press. * Backstrom, Peter C. ''Burushaski'' in Backstrom and Radloff (eds.), ''Languages of northern areas, Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan, 2. Islamabad'', National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Qaid-i-Azam University and

Summer Institute of Linguistics SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics) is an evangelical Christian non-profit organization whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, in order to ex ...

(1992), 31–54. * Berger, Hermann. 1974. ''Das Yasin-Burushaski (Werchikwar)''. Volume 3 of ''Neuindische Studien'', ed. by Hermann Berger, Lothar Lutze and Günther Sontheimer. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. * Berger, Hermann. 1998. ''Die Burushaski-Sprache von Hunza und Nager'' he B. language of H. and N. Three volumes: ''Grammatik'' rammar ''Texte mit Übersetzungen'' exts with translations ''Wörterbuch'' ictionary Altogether Volume 13 of ''Neuindische Studien'' (ed. by Hermann Berger, Heidrun Brückner and Lothar Lutze). Wiesbaden: Otto Harassowitz. * Grune, Dick. 1998
Burushaski – An Extraordinary Language in the Karakoram Mountains
* * Karim, Piar. 2013. ''Middle Voice Construction in Burushaski: From the Perspective of a Native Speaker of the Hunza Dialect. ''Unpublished MA Thesis. Denton: University of North Texas. Department of Linguistics. * Morgenstierne, Georg. 1945. Notes on Burushaski Phonology. ''Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap'' 13: 61–95. * Munshi, Sadaf. 2006. ''Jammu and Kashmir Burushaski: Language, language contact, and change.'' Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. Austin: University of Texas at Austin, Department of Linguistics. * Munshi, Sadaf. 2010. "Contact-induced language change in a trilingual context: the case of Burushaski in Srinagar". In Diachronica. John Benjamins Publishing Company. 27.1: pp32–72.

_External_links

Burushaski_Language_Documentation_Project

Burushaski_basic_lexicon_at_the_Global_Lexicostatistical_Database

Noboru._2012._''A_reference_grammar_of_Eastern_Burushaski''.

Jammu_and_Kashmir_Burushaski:_Language,_Language_contact_and_change
{{Authority_control Burushaski.html" ;"title="Romani language">Gypsy language">Romani_language.html" ;"title="he B. loanwords in the Romani language">Gypsy language Indo-Iranian Journal 3.1: 17–43. * Casule Ilija. 2016. Evidence for the Indo-European and Balkan Origin of Burushaski.München: Lincom GmbH. 205 p.Lincom Etymological Studies 05. * Casule, Ilija. 2017. Burushaski etymological dictionary of the inherited Indo-European lexicon. München: Lincom GmbH. 325 p. (LINCOM Etymological Studies; no. 6) * Casule, Ilija. 2018, New Burushaski etymologies and the origin of the ethnonym Burúśo, Burúśaski, Brugaski and Miśáski. Acta Orientalia. Vol. 79: 27–71. * David Lockhart Robertson Lorimer">Lorimer, D. L. R. 1935–1938. ''The Burushaski Language'' (3 vols.). Oslo: Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning. * Munshi, Sadaf. 2016. ''Burushaski Language Resource''. A digital collection of Burushaski oral literature available at URL: https://digital.library.unt.edu/explore/collections/BURUS/ * van Skyhawk, Hugh. 1996. Libi Kisar. Ein Volksepos im Burushaski von Nager. ''Asiatische Studien'' 133. . * van Skyhawk, Hugh. 2003. Burushaski-Texte aus Hispar. Materialien zum Verständnis einer archaischen Bergkultur in Nordpakistan. ''Beiträge zur Indologie'' 38. . * Tiffou, Étienne. 1993. ''Hunza Proverbs''. University of Calgary Press. * Tiffou, Étienne. 1999. ''Parlons Bourouchaski''. Paris: L'Harmattan. * Tiffou, Étienne. 2000. Current Research in Burushaski: A Survey. ''History of Language'' 6(1): 15–20. * Tikkanen, Bertil. 1988. On Burushaski and other ancient substrata in northwest South Asia. ''Studia Orientalia'' 64: 303–325. * Varma, Siddheshwar. 1941. Studies in Burushaski Dialectology. ''Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, Letters'' 7: 133–173.

External links

Burushaski Language Documentation Project

Burushaski basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database

Noboru. 2012. ''A reference grammar of Eastern Burushaski''.

Jammu and Kashmir Burushaski: Language, Language contact and change
{{Authority control Burushaski"> Language isolates of Asia Languages of Gilgit-Baltistan Languages of Jammu and Kashmir Endangered languages of India Hunza Burusho people Subject–object–verb languages