Kalasha-mun language

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Kalasha-mun
Spoken in: Pakistan 
Region: Pakistan: North-West Frontier Province
Total speakers: approx. 3,000 - 6,000
Language family: Indo-European
 Indo-Iranian
  Dardic
   Chitrali languages
    Kalasha-mun
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: to be added
ISO/FDIS 639-3: —

 
Indic script
 This page contains Indic text. Without rendering support you may see irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. More...

Kalasha-mun or simply Kalasha is an Indo-European language in the Indo-Iranian branch, further classified as a Dardic language in the Chitral Group. However, this Dardic classification is questionable because only 53% of the commonly used words in Kalasha-mun have cognates in Khowar language. The Kalasha language is phonologically atypical because it contrasts plain, long, nasal, and retroflex vowels as well as combinations of these (Heegård & Mørch 2004).

Kalasha-mun is spoken by the Kalasha of Chitral who reside in the remote valleys of Bumboret, Birir and Rumbur, which are west of Ayun, which is ten miles down the river from Chitral Town, high in the Hindu Kush mountains in the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan. The Kalash have their own religion, with gods and goddesses. Most have been converted to Islam, but there are still about 3,000 believers in old religion. There are an estimated 6,000 speakers of Kalasha, of which 3,000 still follow the Kalasha religion and the other 3,000 have converted to Islam.

However, all this is disputed. According to Richard Strand, who is the world's leading authority on this subject, Kalasha is a regional name for an area South of the Kalash Valleys and in the area of Asadabad. The term "Kalasa" seems to be mostly used for different peoples of the region, which don’t have a close relation. Richard Strand's map which is posted on his website shows "Kalasha" (orange colored) as being a place about 50 miles south of the Kalash Valleys. http://users.sedona.net/~strand/lngMap.html

Note, there is no closer connection between Kalasha-mun and Kalasha-ala. These two languages descend from different branches of the Indo-Iranian language. According to linguist Richard Strand the Kalasha of Chitral apparently adopted the term of the former Kafiristan Kalasha, who at some unknown time extended their influence into the region of Chitral.

Meanwhile, the Kafiristan Kafiri over in Kafiristan were converted to Islam by King Abdul Rehman in 1895. They are now known as Nuristani.

History contains references to "Siah-Posh Kafirs". Timur fought with them. Babur advised not to tangle with them. Alexander the Great encountered them. Genghis Khan passed by them. However, there is a question whether these were the Red or the Black Kafirs, or both. It has been widely assumed that these were the Red Kafirs who were thought of as fierce and independent, as opposed to the Black Kafirs, who were somewhat subservient to the King of Chitral. On the other hand, the word "Siah-Posh Kafirs" translates to mean "Black Robed Kafirs", as the word "siah" means "black", so it seems possible that it was the Black and not the Red Kafirs who fought against and defeated Tamurlane.

The Norwegian Linguist Georg Morgenstierne wrote that Chitral is the area of the greatest linguistic diversity in the world. Although Khowar is the predominant language of Chitral, more than ten other languages are spoken here. These include Kalasha-mun, Palula, Dameli, Gawar-Bati, Nuristani, Yidgha, Burushaski, Gujar, Wakhi, Kyrgyz, Persian and Pashto. Since many of these languages have no written form, letters are usually written in Urdu or Persian.

[edit] References

  • The Kalasha. Retrieved July 02, 2006, from Richard F. Strand: Nuristan, Hidden Land of the Hindu-Kush [1].
  • Kalasha. Retrieved July 19, 2006, from Ethnologue: Languages of the World, fifteenth edition. SIL International. Online version.
  • "Atlas Linguistique Des Parles Dardes Et Kafirs" by Gerard Fussman (two volumes). Maps showing distribution of words among people of Kafiristan.
  • Heegård, Jan & Ida Elisabeth Mørch, 2004, "Retroflex vowels and other peculiarities in Kalasha sound system". In: Anju Saxena and Jadranka Gvozdanovic (eds.), Synchronic and Diachronic Aspects of Himalayan Linguistics, Selected Proceedings of the 7th Himalayan Languages Symposium held in Uppsala, Sweden. The Hague: Mouton.
  • Morgenstierne, Georg (1926) Report on a Linguistic Mission to Afghanistan. Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning, Serie C I-2. Oslo.
  • The Kafirs of the Hindukush (1896) Sir George Scott Robertson.

[edit] External links

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