Rushani is one of the
Pamir languages spoken in
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 ...
and
Tajikistan
Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital city, capital and most populous city. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border, south, Uzbekistan to ...
. Rushani is relatively closer to all Northern
Pamiri languages sub-group whether it is
Shughni,
Yazgulami,
Sarikuli or
Oroshori sharing many grammatical and vocabulary similarity with all of them especially with
Shughni and thus some linguists consider it a dialect of
Shughni.
Rushan is divided into two parts by
Panj river where on right bank along
Bartang river to the East located Rushan district of
GBAO,
Tajikistan
Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital city, capital and most populous city. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border, south, Uzbekistan to ...
and on the left side located several villages of Roshan area in northern part of the Sheghnan District, in the
Badakhshan Province of
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 ...
and the
Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region in Tajikistan. Afghani Roshan consists of six villages including Rubotin, Paguor, Chawed, York, Shaikhin and Chasnud, five of which are located on the bank of the river
Panj, which meets at the border of Tajikistan.
[Muller, K. 2010: ''Language in Community-Oriented and Contact-Oriented Domains: The Case of the Shughni of Tajakistan.'' SIL International.] Most Rushani speakers belong to the
Ismaili branch of
Shi'a Islam
Shia Islam is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that Muhammad designated Ali ibn Abi Talib () as both his political successor (caliph) and as the spiritual leader of the Muslim community (imam). However, his right is understood ...
.
Language use
Rushani, like Shughni, is only used in unofficial settings. All of the children in the community learn Rushani as their first language and rely heavily on it until they enroll in school. It is only then that they learn the official language of the country.
Adult speakers are all bi- or tri-lingual in
Tajik and
Russian.
Traditionally Rushani was not a written language, with Rushani speakers writing in
Persian.
[Dodykhudoeva, L. 2007: ''Revitalization of minority languages: comparative dictionary of key cultural terms in the languages and dialects of the Shugni-Rushani group. London: SOAS.] Writing systems have been developed for the language using
Cyrillic
The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...
and
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
scripts, for example for use in translation of parts of the bible by the
Institute for Bible Translation.
Phonology
Vowels
*Long vowels occur as /, , , /
Consonants
The following are the consonants of Rushani:
* /r/ can be realised as a trill
or a tap
�
* A glottal /h/ may also appear due to the influence of Tajik.
Orthography
Verbs
Rushani is unusual in having a
transitive alignment system – a so-called ''double-
oblique'' clause structure – in the past tense. That is, in the past tense, the agent and object of a transitive verb are both marked, while the subject of an intransitive verb is not. In the present tense, the object of the transitive verb is marked, the other two roles are not – that is, a typical
nominative–accusative alignment.
[J.R. Payne, 'Language Universals and Language Types', in Collinge, ed. 1990. ''An Encyclopedia of Language''. Routledge. From Payne, 1980.] See
transitive alignment for examples.
Literature
*
Zarubin, I.I. Bartangskie i rushanskie teksty i slovar. Moskva : Izd-vo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1937.
*Payne, John, "Pamir languages" in ''Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum'', ed. Schmitt (1989), 417–444.
*Payne, John. "The decay of ergativity in Pamir languages." ''Lingua'' 51:147-186.
References
External links
* Rushan
at the Endangered Languages Project
{{Iranian languages
Pamir languages
Eastern Iranian languages
Languages of Tajikistan
Endangered languages of Tajikistan