Palula

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Palula, also known as Phalura, Ashreti, or Ashretiwar, is spoken by 7,000 to 15,000 people in the valleys of Ashret and Biori, in the Chitral District of the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan. A variety of this language is spoken in the village Sau in Afghanistan.

The people of Ashret are important because they are strategically located at the main gate to Chitral. All persons entering Chitral through Lowari Top, the 10,230 feet high pass which connects Chitral to Dir and the rest of Pakistan, must pass the customs checkpost at Ashret.

The area where Palula is spoken includes 35°27′54″N, 71°52′31″E

Tradition has it that the people of Ashret are originally from Chilas in the Indus River Valley. The "Mitar" or ruler of Chitral brought them over, gave them land, and appointed them as the guardians of the gate to Chitral at Ashret, because he did not trust his own Chitrali people to perform this task.

The story that the people of Ashret originally come from Chilas cannot be confirmed. There is no date to this story. It appears to have happened even as much as 500 years ago. The present people of Chilas speak the related Shina language. Any connection they may have with the people of Ashret has been lost.

The Palula language has been documented to some extent by George Morgenstierne (1926), Kendall Decker (1992), and Henrik Liljegren (2005). It is classified as a Dardic Language but this is more of a geographical classification than a linguistic one.

In some villages, Palula is believed to be a dying language, as most speakers are converting to the more widely spoken Khowar language. However, in other areas Palula is a strong, vibrant and growing language, as the population in those areas increases.

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] Books

  • Morgenstierne, Georg (1926) Report on a Linguistic Mission to Afghanistan. Institutet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning, Serie C I-2. Oslo.

[edit] External links

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