Khowar language
| Khowar | |
|---|---|
| Chitrali | |
| کھوار | |
| Native to | Pakistan |
| Region | Chitral District |
| Ethnicity | Khowar people |
Native speakers | 240,000 (1992–2000)[1] |
|
Indo-European
| |
| Khowar alphabet Nastaʿlīq script | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Chitrli |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
khw |
| Glottolog |
khow1242[2] |
| Linguasphere |
59-AAB-aa |
Khowar (کھوار), also known as Chitrali, is an Indo-Aryan language of the Dardic branch, spoken by 240,000 people in Chitral in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in the Ghizer district of Gilgit-Baltistan (including the Yasin Valley, Phandar Ishkoman and Gupis), and in parts of Upper Swat. Speakers of Khowar have also migrated heavily to Pakistan's major urban centres with Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi, having sizeable populations. It is spoken as a second language in the rest of Gilgit and Hunza. There are believed to be small numbers of Khowar speakers in Afghanistan, China, Tajikistan and Istanbul.
Khowar has been influenced by Iranian languages to a greater degree than other Dardic languages, and less by Sanskrit than Shina or the Kohistani languages. John Biddulph (Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh) was among the first westerners to study Khowar and claimed that further research would prove Khowar to be equally derived from "Zend" (Avestan, Old Persian) and Sanskrit.
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-mondr, Palula, Dameli, Gawar-Bati, Nuristani, Yidgha, Burushaski, Gojri, Wakhi, Kyrgyz, Persian and Pashto. Since many of these languages have no written form, letters are usually written in Urdu, Pakistan's national language.
Khowar is designated as one of 14 regional languages of Chitral, Pakistan.
Phonology
Khowar has a variety of dialects which may vary phonemically.[3] The following tables lay out the basic phonology of Khowar.[4][5]
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
Khowar may also have nasalized vowels and a series of long vowels /aː/, /eː/, /iː/, /oː/, and /uː/. Sources are inconsistent on whether length is phonemic, with one author stating "vowel-length is observed mainly as a substitute one. The vowel-length of phonological value is noted far more rarely."[3] Unlike the neighboring and related Kalasha language, Khowar does not have retroflex vowels.[4]
Consonants
| Labial | Coronal | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Post- velar |
Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ||||||
| Stop | voiceless /voiced |
p b |
t d |
ʈ ɖ |
k g |
(q) |
||
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | ʈʰ | kʰ | ||||
| Affricate | voiceless /voiced |
ts dz |
ʈʂ ɖʐ |
tʃ dʒ |
||||
| aspirated | tsʰ (?) | ʈʂʰ | tʃʰ | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless /voiced |
f |
s z |
ʂ ʐ |
ʃ ʒ |
x ɣ |
h | |
| Approximant /Lateral |
j | w | ||||||
| l(ʲ) ɫ | ||||||||
| Rhotic | ɾ | |||||||
The phonemic status of /tsʰ/ is unclear in the sources
Tone
Khowar, like many Dardic languages, has either phonemic tone or stress distinctions.[6]
Comparative Vocabulary
The names of the days of the week, in Khowar, are compared with their equivalents in Shina, Sanskrit, and English.
| English | Shina | Sanskrit | Khowar |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday | Adit | Aditya var | yak shambey |
| Monday | Tsunduro | Som var | du shambey |
| Tuesday | Ungaroo | Mangal var | sey shambey |
| Wednesday | Bodo | Budh var | char shambey |
| Thursday | Bressput | Brihaspati var | panch shambey |
| Friday | Shooker | Shukra var | Adina |
| Saturday | Shimshere | Sanisch var | shambey |
Dialects
- Standard Khowar
Writing system
Khowar has been written in the Nasta'liq script since the early twentieth century. Prior to that, the administrative and literary language of the region was Persian and works such as poetry and songs in Khowar were passed down in oral tradition. Today Urdu and English are the official languages and the only major literary usage of Khowar is in both poetry and prose composition. Khowar has also been written in the Roman script since the 1960s.
Khowar media
Television channels
| TV Channel | Genre | Founded | Official Website |
| Khyber News TV (خیبر نیوز ٹیلی ویژن) | News and current affairs | http://www.khybernews.tv/ | |
| AVT Khyber TV (اے وی ٹی خیبر) | Entertainment | http://www.avtkhyber.tv/ | |
| K2 TV (کے ٹو) | Entertainment, news and current affairs | http://www.kay2.tv/ | |
Radio
These are not dedicated Khowar channels but play most programmes in Khowar.
| Radio Channel | Genre | Founded | Official Website |
| Radio Pakistan Chitral | Entertainment | http://www.radio.gov.pk/ | |
| Radio Pakistan Peshawar | Entertainment | http://www.radio.gov.pk/ | |
| Radio Pakistan Gilgit | Entertainment | http://www.radio.gov.pk/ |
Newspapers
| Newspaper | City(ies) | Founded | Official Website |
| Chitral Vision (چترال وژن) | Karachi, Chitral, Pakistan | ||
| Chitral Today | http://chitraltoday.net |
Gallery
-
Allama Iqbal's poetry's versified khowar translation by Rehmat Aziz Chitrali
-
Chitral Vision, Urdu and Khowar Language coloured newspaper of Chitral, Pakistan
See also
- Chitrali people
References
- ↑ Khowar at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Khowar". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Edelman, D. I. (1983). The Dardic and Nuristani Languages. Moscow: Institut vostokovedenii︠a︡ (Akademii︠a︡ nauk SSSR). p. 210.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Bashir, Elena L. (1988), "Topics in Kalasha Syntax: An areal and typological perspective" (PDF), Ph.d Dissertation, University of Michigan: 37–40
- ↑ Bashir, Elena L., Maula Nigah and Rahmat Karim Baig, A Digital Khowar-English Dictionary with Audio
- ↑ Baart, Joan L. G. (2003), Tonal features in languages of northern Pakistan (PDF), National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University and Summer Institute of Linguistics, pp. 3, 6
Additional references
- Bashir, Elena (2001) Spatial Representation in Khowar. Proceedings of the 36th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
- Decker, D. Kendall (1992). Languages of Chitral. ISBN 969-8023-15-1.
- L'Homme, Erik (1999) Parlons Khowar. Langue et culture de l'ancien royaume de Chitral au Pakistan. Paris: L'Harmattan
- Morgenstierne, Georg (1936) Iranian Elements in Khowar. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. VIII, London.
- Badshah Munir Bukhari (2001) Khowar language. University publisher. Pakistan
- Morgenstierne, Georg (1947) Some Features of Khowar Morphology. Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap, Vol. XIV, Oslo.
- Morgenstierne, Georg (1957) Sanskritic Words in Khowar. Felicitation Volume Presented to S.K. Belvalkar. Benares. 84–98 [Reprinted in Morgenstierne (1973): Irano-Dardica, 267-72]
- Mohammad Ismail Sloan (1981) Khowar-English Dictionary. Peshawar. ISBN 0-923891-15-3.
- Decker, Kendall D. (1992). Languages of Chitral (Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan, 5). National Institute of Pakistani Studies, 257 pp. ISBN 969-8023-15-1.
External links
 |
Khowar language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Khowar language. |
 |
Khowar language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator |
- "Georg Morgenstierne". National Library of Norway. 2001. Retrieved 11 January 2009.
- Strand, Richard F. (2011). "Khow`ar Lexicon". Retrieved 16 January 2012.
- Strand, Richard F. (2012). "The Sound System of Khow`ar". Retrieved 16 January 2012.
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