Nuristani languages

Nuristani
Nuristani
Geographic; distribution	Nuristan, Kunar, Afghanistan; Chitral, Pakistan
Native speakers	c. 214,000
Linguistic classification	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Nuristani; ;
Proto-language	Proto-Nuristani
Subdivisions	Katë; Prasun; Ashkun; Nuristani Kalasha; Tregami; Zemiaki;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	nuri1243
	Nuristan region, located on southern range of Hindu Kush
	; Nuristan Province in modern-day Afghanistan, where most speakers live

The Nuristani languages are one of the three groups within the Indo-Iranian language family, alongside the Indo-Aryan and Iranian languages.^[1]^[2]^[3] They have approximately 214,000 speakers primarily in Nuristan and Kunar provinces in northeastern Afghanistan and a few adjacent valleys in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Chitral District, Pakistan. The region inhabited by the Nuristanis is located in the southern Hindu Kush mountains, and is drained by the Alingar River in the west, the Pech River in the center, and the Landai Sin and Kunar rivers in the east. More broadly, the Nuristan region is located at the northern intersection of the Indian subcontinent and the Iranian plateau.

The Nuristani languages were not described in literature until the 19th century. The older name for the region was Kafiristan due to their pre-Islamic religious practices, but this term has been abandoned in favor of Nuristan ("land of light").

Languages

Nuristani languages can be classified into:

Katë, also called Kati, Kamviri or Kamkata-vari, is the most-spoken Nuristani language at 150,000 speakers. It includes the Western, Northeastern, and Southeastern dialects.
Prasun, also called Vasi-vari, is spoken by 8,000 speakers. Prasun is considered as the most divergent member of the group, featuring a distinct grammar and phonology.
Ashkun, also called Ashkunu or Sanu-viri, is spoken by 40,000 speakers. Although Ashkun shares commonalities with other Nuristani languages, there are some sound changes in Ashkun that are not shared by any other member.
Nuristani Kalasha, formerly known as Waigali, is spoken by 12,000 speakers. It is rather closely related with Tregami and Zemiaki. Nuristani Kalasha is distinct from Kalasha-mun, which is an Indo-Aryan language.
Tregami (lit. 'of three villages') is spoken by 3,500 speakers in the three villages of Gambir, Kaṭâr, and Devoz in the Watapur District of Kunar Province, Afghanistan.
Zemiaki is spoken by 500 speakers. It is so far the smallest Nuristani language known to exist. Local traditions confirm a historical link with Nuristani Kalasha.

History

Nuristani languages are Indo-European languages, ultimately descending from Proto-Indo-European. The prehistory of Nuristani is unclear, except that it apparently split off from the rest of the Indo-European languages as part of the Indo-Iranian branch. The Proto-Indo-Iranian language of late 3rd millennium BCE represents the reconstructed ancestral language which the Nuristani languages share with Sanskrit and Avestan as their common origin. This makes Nuristani languages closely related to Indo-Iranian languages like Hindustani, Pashto, and Persian, and more distantly related to other Indo-European languages like Lithuanian, Albanian, and Icelandic. However, its classification within the Indo-Iranian branch was debated until recent scholarship settled its position as a third branch distinct from Indo-Aryan or Iranian, though extensive Indo-Aryan influence can be detected.

Proto-Nuristani is the reconstructed ancestral language of all the modern-day Nuristani languages, representing the latest point at which the languages were still unified as a single language. Proto-Nuristani began breaking off into distinct languages from around 8th century BCE. The influences from surrounding Indo-Aryan and Iranian languages onto early Nuristani languages have been highly complex, due to different patterns of migration and settlement by various Nuristani-speaking tribes through their history.^[4]

Today, Indo-Aryan Dardic languages like Khowar, Pashai, and Kalasha-mun, and Eastern Iranian languages like Munji, Sanglechi, and Yidgha are natively spoken in the neighboring regions of Nuristan, leading to language contact. Dameli, a neighboring language, has a significant amount of vocabulary borrowed from Nuristani languages, and thus was previously classified as a Nuristani language. However, the morphology and the pronominal system of Dameli are charcteristically Indo-Aryan, leading to its re-classification as Dardic.^[5]

Vocabulary

The most archaic layer of Nuristani lexicon is the common inheritance from Proto-Indo-European, shared with other Indo-European languages. For example, Tregami tre is cognate with English three and Spanish tres.

Much of Nuristani lexicon ultimately traces back to the Proto-Indo-Iranian stage since the late 3rd millennium BCE. Nuristani-speaking peoples have since long participated in enduring social contact with Indo-Aryan speakers, leading to a large number of early Indo-Aryan loanwards and relative semantic closeness among the shared cognates between Indo-Aryan and Nuristani.^[6] Early forms of Eastern Iranian and Indo-Aryan languages, like Gandhari or other unattested varieties, have shared a general cultural and linguistic milieu with Nuristanis for more than two millennia, as their independent developments continued. For instance, Nuristani languages may have been in contact with Bactrian around the 1st century CE, as hinted by the existence of Bactrian loanwords.^[7]

Due to their relative isolation, the Nuristani languages have retained some archaic words from the ancient Indo-Iranian religious framework. There have also been mutual influences and historical exchanges between the Nuristani religious practices and the earlier forms of Zoroastrianism and Hinduism. For instance, Katë Indrë may be linked to the Hindu deity Indra, from which it derives Katë indrõ "rainbow" (Indra-bow) and indrëṣ "earthquake" (Indra-impulse).^[8]^[9]

The most recent influx of loanwords into Nuristani is from the official state languages of the region: Persian and Pashto, principally in fields of government, religion, and the sciences.

The chart below compares some basic vocabulary among the Nuristani languages.

English	Prasun	Katë	Ashkun	Nuristani Kalasha	Tregami
one	upün	ew	ac̣	ew	yo
two	lü	dyu, dü	du	dü	du
three	ćši	tre	trë	tre	tre
four	čpu	štëvo, što	ćatā	čatā	čātā
five	vuču	puč	põć	pũč	põč
six	vuṣ	ṣu	ṣo	ṣu	ṣu
seven	sëtë	sut	sōt	sot	sut
eight	astë	uṣṭ	ōṣṭ	oṣṭ	voṣṭ
nine	nu	nu	no	nu	nũ
ten	lezë	duć	dos	doš	dåš
eye	ižĩ	ačẽ	aćĩ	ačẽ	ac̣ĩ
tongue	luzuk	diz	žū	jip	jip
gut	vu	řu	ẓo	vřu
name	nom	num	nām	nām

Syntax

Many Nuristani languages have subject–object–verb (SOV) word order, like most of the other Indo-Iranian languages, and unlike the nearby Dardic Kashmiri language, which has verb-second word order.

References

^ SIL Ethnologue [1]
^ Morgenstierne, G. (1975) [1973]. "Die Stellung der Kafirsprachen" [The position of the Kafir languages]. In Morgenstierne, G. (ed.). Irano-Dardica (in German). Wiesbaden: Reichert. pp. 327–343.
^ Strand, Richard F. (1973). "Notes on the Nûristânî and Dardic Languages". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 93 (3): 297–305. doi:10.2307/599462. JSTOR 599462.
^ Strand, Richard F. (2023). "Kâmboǰâs and Sakas in the Holly-Oak Mountains: On the Origins of the Nûristânîs." In Cacopardo, Alberto M., and Augusto S. Cacopardo, eds., Roots of Peristan: The Pre-Islamic Cultures of the Hindukush/Karakorum. Serie Orientale Roma, n.s. 37, Part II: 781-808. Roma.
^ Bashir, Elena (2007). Jain, Danesh; Cardona, George (eds.). The Indo-Aryan languages. p. 905. ISBN 978-0415772945. 'Dardic' is a geographic cover term for those Northwest Indo-Aryan languages which [..] developed new characteristics different from the IA languages of the Indo-Gangetic plain. Although the Dardic and Nuristani (previously 'Kafiri') languages were formerly grouped together, Morgenstierne (1965) has established that the Dardic languages are Indo-Aryan, and that the Nuristani languages constitute a separate subgroup of Indo-Iranian.
^ Strand, Richard F. (2022). "Ethnolinguistic and Genetic Clues to Nûristânî Origins". International Journal of Diachronic Linguistics and Linguistic Reconstruction. 19: 267–353.
^ Halfmann, Jakob (2023). "Lād 'law' – a Bactrian loanword in the Nuristani languages". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (BSOAS).
^ Strand, Richard F. (2016). "inrʹo˜" in Nûristânî Etymological Lexicon.
^ Strand, Richard F. (2016). "inrʹaṣ" in Nûristânî Etymological Lexicon.

Bibliography

Decker, Kendall D. (1992). Languages of Chitral. In: Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan 5. Islamabad: National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University and Summer Institute of Linguistics. ISBN 4-87187-520-2.
Grjunberg, A. L. (1971). K dialektologii dardskich jazykov (glangali i zemiaki). Indijskaja i iranskaja filologija: Voprosy dialektologii. Moscow.
Jakob Halfmann (2023). Lād "law": a Bactrian loanword in the Nuristani languages, in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, United Kingdom.
Morgenstierne, Georg (1926). Report on a Linguistic Mission to Afghanistan. Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning, Serie C I-2. Oslo. ISBN 0-923891-09-9.
Jettmar, Karl (1985). Religions of the Hindu Kush ISBN 0-85668-163-6
Mallory, J. P. In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth. Thames and Hudson, 1989.
Mallory, James P.; Adams, Douglas Q. "Indo-Iranian Languages". In: Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.
Strand, Richard F. "NURESTÂNI LANGUAGES" in Encyclopædia Iranica
Strand, Richard F. "- Kâmboǰâs and Sakas in the Holly-Oak Mountains.pdf"

External links

Reiko and Jun's Kalash Page
Hindi/Urdu-English-Kalasha-Khowar-Nuristani-Pashtu Comparative Word List
Richard Strand's Nuristân Site This site is the primary source on the linguistics and ethnography of Nuristân and neighboring regions, collected and analyzed over the last forty years by the leading scholar on Nuristân.

[1] SIL Ethnologue [1]

[2] Morgenstierne, G. (1975) [1973]. "Die Stellung der Kafirsprachen" [The position of the Kafir languages]. In Morgenstierne, G. (ed.). Irano-Dardica (in German). Wiesbaden: Reichert. pp. 327–343.

[3] Strand, Richard F. (1973). "Notes on the Nûristânî and Dardic Languages". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 93 (3): 297–305. doi:10.2307/599462. JSTOR 599462.

[4] Strand, Richard F. (2023). "Kâmboǰâs and Sakas in the Holly-Oak Mountains: On the Origins of the Nûristânîs." In Cacopardo, Alberto M., and Augusto S. Cacopardo, eds., Roots of Peristan: The Pre-Islamic Cultures of the Hindukush/Karakorum. Serie Orientale Roma, n.s. 37, Part II: 781-808. Roma.

[jain-cardona-2007-5] Bashir, Elena (2007). Jain, Danesh; Cardona, George (eds.). The Indo-Aryan languages. p. 905. ISBN 978-0415772945. 'Dardic' is a geographic cover term for those Northwest Indo-Aryan languages which [..] developed new characteristics different from the IA languages of the Indo-Gangetic plain. Although the Dardic and Nuristani (previously 'Kafiri') languages were formerly grouped together, Morgenstierne (1965) has established that the Dardic languages are Indo-Aryan, and that the Nuristani languages constitute a separate subgroup of Indo-Iranian.

[6] Strand, Richard F. (2022). "Ethnolinguistic and Genetic Clues to Nûristânî Origins". International Journal of Diachronic Linguistics and Linguistic Reconstruction. 19: 267–353.

[7] Halfmann, Jakob (2023). "Lād 'law' – a Bactrian loanword in the Nuristani languages". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (BSOAS).

[8] Strand, Richard F. (2016). "inrʹo˜" in Nûristânî Etymological Lexicon.

[9] Strand, Richard F. (2016). "inrʹaṣ" in Nûristânî Etymological Lexicon.

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