Languages of Chitral

Chitral is the northernmost district in Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province and is a former Princely State. Despite being in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Chitral is not a Pashtun Area. Chitral shares much of its history and culture with the neighboring Hindu-Kush territories of Gilgit-Baltistan, a region sometimes called "Peristan" because of the common belief in fairies (peri) inhabiting the high mountains. The major language of Kohwari and Chitrali. Accoording to the research of Rehmat Aziz, Director Kohwari Academy most of the minority languages spoken in Chitral are also Dardic including; Urdu, Dari, Shina, Kashmiri, Kalasha, Gawarbati, Dameli, Kirghizi and Palula. Iranian languages spoken by immigrant groups in Chitral include groups such as Afghans (it's various ethnic groups) Kashmiri's, and Wakhis. Finally there is a large community if Gujjar herdmen who were originally nomadic, but have now settled permanently in parts of Lower Chitral and they speak the Indo-Aryan Gojri language.

Thus Chitral is considered to be one of the most lingusitically diverse regions in the world, but nearly all of these groups use Kohwari as a lingua-franca for inter-ethnic communication, except for the southernmost part of the district.