Dard people
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The Dards are various ethnic groups living in Afghanistan, Pakistan and a few scattered villages in a remote region of Ladakh district, itself a remote region of Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir (Dah Hanu). The term Dard is due to Herodotus who described a land of the Dardikae in the Hindukush.
The people of Northernmost Pakistan are mostly Dards, although this term is not used by any of the groups themselves, and include the people of Chitral, Gilgit, Kohistan and upper Swat.
There are also Dardic groups in Afghanistan such as the Pashai and the Kohistanis. The Nuristanis were previously considered to be Dards but are today classified as a distinct group.
The Kashmiri speaking people of the Kashmir valley are also considered Dards, but they do not consider themslves Dards.
The vast majority of Dardic peoples are Muslims (Sunni, Shia and Ismaili) but there are a few who have retained their ancient religions. Amongst these groups are the Kalasha and the Dards of Ladakh.
The Dards of Dah Hanu are nominally Buddhist but also worship their own Pantheon of gods. They have an Indo-European appearance in contrast to the predominant Tibeto-Mongol inhabitants of most of Ladakh. They live in very primitive conditions even when judged by the standards of Ladakh.
Parpola (1999) identifies "Proto-Dardic" with "Proto-Rigvedic", suggesting that the Dards are the direct descendants of the bearers of early Rigvedic culture ca. 1700 BC, pointing to features in certain Dardic dialects that continue peculiarities of Rigvedic Sanskrit, such as the gerund in -tvī (p. 189).
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Dards, Dardistan, and Dardic: an Ethnographic, Geographic, and Linguistic Conundrum
- Asko Parpola, 'The formation of the Aryan branch of Indo-European', in Blench and Spriggs (eds), Archaeology and Language III, London and New York (1999).
