Pashayi or Pashai (Persian: زبان پشه ای; Pashto: پشه اې ژبه) is a group of
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 2024, there are more than 1.5 billion speakers, primarily concentrated east ...
spoken by the
Pashai people in parts of
Kapisa,
Laghman,
Nangarhar,
Nuristan
Nuristan, also spelled as Nurestan or Nooristan (Pashto: ; Katë: ), is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the eastern part of the country. It is divided into seven districts and is Afghanistan's least populous province, with a ...
,
Kunar and
Kabul
Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province. The city is divided for administration into #Districts, 22 municipal districts. A ...
(
Surobi District) provinces in Northeastern
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...
.
The Pashayi languages had no known written form prior to 2003.
There are four mutually unintelligible varieties, with only about a 30% lexical similarity:
* Northeastern: Aret, Chalas (Chilas), Kandak,
Korangal, Kurdar dialects
* Northwestern: Alasai, Bolaghain, Gulbahar, Kohnadeh, Laurowan, Najil, Nangarach, Pachagan, Pandau, Parazhghan, Pashagar, Sanjan, Shamakot, Shutul, Uzbin, Wadau dialects
* Southeastern: Damench, Laghmani, Sum, Upper and Lower
Darai Nur, Wegali dialects
* Southwestern: Ishpi, Isken, Tagau dialects
A grammar of the language was written as a doctoral dissertation in 2014.
Phonology
Consonants
*
is only phonemic in the Amla dialect.
* Sounds
and
can also occur, but only in loanwords and among Dari speakers.
*
is more commonly heard among older speakers, but is lost among younger speakers, and is heard as a postalveolar
*
is more commonly heard among older speakers, but is lost among younger speakers, and is heard as a postalveolar
* /ʋ/ is heard before front vowels /i e/. When occurring before or after central or back vowels /a u o/, it is heard as
* According to Masica (1991) some dialects have a //.
Vowels
* Only mid or low vowels have lengthened equivalents.
* /e/ can be heard as
and /a/ can be heard as
or
in certain environments.
*
Further reading
*
References
Dardic languages
Languages of Afghanistan
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