Rushani is one of the

Pamir languages The Pamir languages are an areal group of the Eastern Iranian languages, spoken by numerous people in the Pamir Mountains, primarily along the Panj River and its tributaries. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Pamir language family wa ...

spoken in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bord ...

and

Tajikistan Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...

. Rushani is relatively closer to all Northern

Pamiri languages The Pamir languages are an areal group of the Eastern Iranian languages, spoken by numerous people in the Pamir Mountains, primarily along the Panj River and its tributaries. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Pamir language family was ...

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 Panj () is a city in southern Tajikistan which is situated on the Afghan border, some south of the capital Dushanbe. It is located along the north bank of the river Panj, from which it derives its name. The population of the town is 12,500 (J ...

river where on right bank along Bartang river to the East located Rushan district of

GBAO Gorno-Badakhshan, officially the Badakhshan Mountainous Autonomous Region,, abbr. / is an autonomous region in eastern Tajikistan, in the Pamir Mountains. It makes up nearly forty-five percent of the country's land area, but only two percen ...

and on the left side located several villages of Roshan area in northern part of the Sheghnan District, in the

Badakhshan Province Badakhshan Province ( Persian/ Uzbek: , ''Badaxšān'') is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the northeastern part of the country. It is bordered by Tajikistan's Gorno-Badakhshan in the north and the Pakistani regions of Lower ...

and the

Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region Gorno-Badakhshan, officially the Badakhshan Mountainous Autonomous Region,, abbr. / is an autonomous region in eastern Tajikistan, in the Pamir Mountains. It makes up nearly forty-five percent of the country's land area, but only two percen ...

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

, 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 Isma'ilism ( ar, الإسماعيلية, al-ʾIsmāʿīlīyah) is a branch or sub-sect of Shia Islam. The Isma'ili () get their name from their acceptance of Imam Isma'il ibn Jafar as the appointed spiritual successor (imām) to Ja'far al-Sa ...

branch of

Shi'a Islam Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, most ...

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 Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

. 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 and

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

scripts, for example for use in translation of parts of the bible by the Institute for Bible Translation.

Verbs

Rushani is unusual in having a transitive alignment system – a so-called ''double-

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 ...

'' 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 Iran Endangered languages of Tajikistan