Burushaski

Burushaski
Native to Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan
Region Hunza-Nagar, northern Ghizer, northern Gilgit
Ethnicity Burusho people
Native speakers
 87,000 in Pakistan (2000)[1]
Dialects
  • Burushaski proper (Hunza-Nagar)
  • Wershikwar (Yasin)
Language codes
ISO 639-3 bsk
Glottolog buru1296[2]

Burushaski /bʊrʊˈʃæski/[3] (Burushaski: burū́šaskī / بروشسکی‎) is a language isolate spoken by Burusho people in northern Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan.[4] Burushaski is spoken by people in Hunza-Nagar District, northern Gilgit District, and in the Yasin and Ishkoman valleys of northern Ghizer District. Their native region is located in northern Gilgit–Baltistan and borders with Pamir corridor to the north. Burushaski is also spoken in Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir.[5][6] Other names for the language are Biltum, Khajuna, Kunjut, Brushaski, Burucaki, Burucaski, Burushaki, Burushki,[7] Brugaski, Brushas, Werchikwar and Miśa:ski.

Classification

Attempts have been made to establish links between Burushaski and several different language families, although none has been accepted by a majority of linguists.

Following Berger (1956), the American Heritage dictionaries suggested that the word *abel ‘apple’, the only name for a fruit (tree) reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European, may have been borrowed from a language ancestral to Burushaski. ("Apple" and "apple tree" are báalt in modern Burushaski.)

Other hypotheses posit a genealogical relationship between Burushaski and the North Caucasian languages, Kartvelian languages,[8] Yeniseian languages and/or Indo-European languages, usually in proposed macrofamilies.

(Burushaski was not included in a 2008 attempt by Edward Vajda,[17] to revive Merritt Ruhlen's proposed "Dené–Yeniseian macrofamily",[18] which linked Yeniseian and Na-Dene.)

Varieties

Burushaski is spoken in main valleys: Hunza, Nagar, and Yasin. The varieties of Hunza and Nagar diverge slightly, but are clearly dialects of a single language. The Yasin variety, also known by the Khowar exonym Werchikwar, is much more divergent. Intelligibility between Hunza-Nagar and Yasin is difficult, and Yasin is sometimes considered a distinct language.[19] Yasin is the least affected by contact with neighboring languages, though speakers are bilingual in Khowar. Yasin is spoken by a quarter of speakers.[20]

Writing system

Burushaski is a predominantly spoken rather than written language. Occasionally the Urdu alphabet is used,[21] but no fixed orthography exists. Adu Wazir Shafi wrote a book Burushaski Razon using a Latin script.

Tibetan sources record a Bru-śa language of the Gilgit valley, which appears to have been Burushaski, whose script was one of five scripts used to write the extinct Zhang-Zhung language. Although Burushaski may once have been a significant literary language, no Bru-śa manuscripts are known to have survived.[22]

Linguists working on Burushaski use various makeshift transcriptions based on the Latin alphabet, most commonly that by Berger (see below), in their publications.

Phonology

Burushaski primarily has five vowels, /i e a o u/. Various contractions result in long vowels; stressed vowels (marked with acute accents in Berger's transcription) tend to be longer and less "open" than unstressed ones ([i e a o u] as opposed to [ɪ ɛ ʌ ɔ ʊ]). Long vowels also occur in loans and in a few onomatopoeic words (Grune 1998). All vowels have nasal counterparts in Hunza (in some expressive words) and in Nager (also in proper names and a few other words).

Berger (1998) finds the following consonants to be phonemic, shown below in his transcription and in the IPA:

Bilabial Dental/Alveolar Alveolo-
palatal		 Retroflex Velar Uvular Glottal
Nasal m /m/ n /n/ ṅ /ŋ/
Plosive aspirated ph /pʰ/[decimal 1] th /tʰ/ ṭh /ʈʰ/ kh /kʰ/ qh /qʰ/[decimal 2]
voiceless p /p/ t /t/ ṭ /ʈ/ k /k/ q /q/
voiced b /b/ d /d/ ḍ /ɖ/ g /ɡ/
Affricate aspirated[decimal 3] ch /t͡sʰ/ ćh /t͡ɕʰ/ c̣h /ʈ͡ʂʰ/
voiceless c /t͡s/ ć /t͡ɕ/ c̣ /ʈ͡ʂ/
voiced j /d͡ʑ/[decimal 4] j̣ /ɖ͡ʐ/[decimal 5]
Fricative voiceless s /s/ ś /ɕ/ ṣ /ʂ/ h /h/
voiced z /z/ ġ /ʁ/
Trill r /r/
Approximant l /l/ y [j][decimal 6] ỵ /ɻ/[decimal 7] w [w][decimal 6]

Notes:

  1. ↑ Pronunciation varies: [pʰ] ~ [p͡f] ~ [f].
  2. ↑ Pronunciation varies: [qʰ] ~ [q͡χ] ~ [χ].
  3. ↑ The Yasin dialect lacks aspirated affricates and uses the plain ones instead.
  4. ↑ Sometimes pronounced [ʑ].
  5. ↑ Sometimes pronounced [ʐ].
  6. 1 2 Berger (1998) regards [w] and [j] as allophones of /u/ and /i/ that occur in front of stressed vowels.
  7. ↑ This phoneme has various pronunciations, all of which are rare sounds cross-linguistically. Descriptions include: "a voiced retroflex sibilant with simultaneous dorso-palatal narrowing" (apparently [ʐʲ]) (Berger 1998); "a fricative r, pronounced with the tongue in the retroflex ('cerebral') position" (apparently [ɻ̝]/[ʐ̞], a sound which also occurs in Standard Chinese, written r in Pinyin) (Morgenstierne 1945); and "a curious sound whose phonetic realizations vary from a retroflex, spirantized glide to a retroflex velarized spirant" (Anderson forthcoming). In any case, it does not occur in the Yasin dialect, and in Hunza and Nager it does not occur at the beginning of words.

Grammar

Burushaski is a double-marking language and word order is generally subject–object–verb.

Nouns in Burushaski are divided into four genders: human masculine, human feminine, countable objects, and uncountable ones (similar to mass nouns). The assignment of a noun to a particular gender is largely predictable. Some words can belong both to the countable and to the uncountable class, producing differences in meaning. For example, when countable, báalt means ‘apple’ but when uncountable, it means ‘apple tree’ (Grune 1998).

Noun morphology consists of the noun stem, a possessive prefix (mandatory for some nouns, and thus an example of inherent possession), and number and case suffixes. Distinctions in number are singular, plural, indefinite, and grouped. Cases include absolutive, ergative/oblique, genitive, and several locatives; the latter indicate both location and direction and may be compounded.

Burushaski verbs have three basic stems: past tense, present tense, and consecutive. The past stem is the citation form and is also used for imperatives and nominalization; the consecutive stem is similar to a past participle and is used for coordination. Agreement on the verb has both nominative and ergative features: transitive verbs mark both the subject and the object of a clause, while intransitive verbs mark their sole argument as both a subject and an object. Altogether, a verb can take up to four prefixes and six suffixes.

Nouns

Noun classes

In Burushaski, there are four noun classes, similar to declensional classes in Indo-European languages, but unlike Indo-European, the nominal classes in Burushaski are associated with four grammatical "genders":

Below, the abbreviation "h" will stand for the combination of the m- and f-classes, while "hx" will stand for the combination of the m-, f- and x-classes. Nouns in the x-class typically refer to countable, non-human beings or things, for example animals, fruit, stones, eggs, or coins; conversely, nouns in the y-class are as a rule uncountable abstractions or mass nouns, such as rice, fire, water, snow, wool, etc.

However, these rules are not universal – countable objects in the y-class are sometimes encountered, e.g. ha, 'house'. Related words can subtly change their meanings when used in different classes – for example, bayú, when a member of the x-class, means salt in clumps, but when in the y-class, it means powdered salt. Fruit trees are understood collectively and placed in the y-class, but their individual fruits belong to the x-class. Objects made of particular materials can belong to either the x- or the y- class: stone and wood are in the x-class, but metal and leather in the y-class. The article, adjectives, numerals and other attributes must be in agreement with the noun class of their subject.

Pluralisation

There are two numbers in Burushaski: singular and plural. The singular is unmarked, while the plural is expressed by means of suffix, which vary depending on the class of the noun:

Some nouns admit two or three different prefixes, while others have no distinctive suffix, and occur only in the plural, e.g. bras 'rice', gur 'wheat', bishké, 'fur', (cf. plurale tantum). On the other hand, there are also nouns which have identical forms in the singular and plural, e.g. hagúr 'horse(s)'. Adjectives have a unique plural suffix, whose form depends on the class of the noun they modify, e.g. burúm 'white' gives the x-class plural burum-išo and the y-class plural burúm-ing.

Examples of pluralisation in Burushaski:

Declension

Burushaski is an ergative language. It has five primary cases.

Case Suffix Function
Absolutive unmarked The subject of intransitive verbs and the object of transitive ones.
Ergative -e The subject of transitive verbs.
Oblique -e; -mo (f) Genitive; the basis of secondary case endings
Dative -ar, -r Dative, allative.
Ablative -um, -m, -mo Indicates separation (e.g. 'from where?')

The case suffixes are appended to the plural suffix, e.g. Huséiniukutse, 'the people of Hussein' (ergative plural). The genitive ending is irregular, /mo/, for singular f-class nouns, but /-e/ in all others (identical to the ergative ending). The dative ending, /-ar/, /-r/ is attached to the genitive ending for singular f-class nouns, but to the stem for all others. Examples:

The genitive is placed before the thing possessed: Hunzue tham, 'the Emir of Hunza.'

The endings of the secondary cases are formed from a secondary case suffix (or infix) and one of the primary endings /-e/, /-ar/ or /-um/. These endings are directional, /-e/ being locative (answering 'where?'), /-ar/ being terminative (answering 'where to?'), and /-um/ being ablative (answering 'where from?'). The infixes, and their basic meanings, are as follows:

  1. -ts- 'at'
  2. -ul- 'in'
  3. -aṭ- 'on; with'
  4. -al- 'near' (only in the Hunza dialect)

From these, the following secondary or compound cases are formed:

Infix Locative Terminative Ablative
-ts- -ts-e 'at' -ts-ar 'to' -ts-um 'from'
-ul- -ul-e 'in' -ul-ar 'into' -ul-um 'out of'
-aṭ- -aṭ-e 'on','with' -aṭ-ar 'up to' -aṭ-um 'down from'
-al- -al-e 'near' -al-ar 'to' -al-um 'from'

The regular endings /-ul-e/ and /-ul-ar/ are archaic and are now replaced by /-ul-o/ and /-ar-ulo/ respectively.

Pronouns and pronominal prefixes

Nouns indicating parts of the body and kinship terms are accompanied by an obligatory pronominal prefix. Thus, one cannot simply say 'mother' or 'arm' in Burushaski, but only 'my arm', 'your mother', 'his father', etc. For example, the root mi 'mother', is never found in isolation, instead one finds:

The pronominal, or personal, prefixes agree with the person, number and – in the third person, the class of their noun. A summary of the basic forms is given in the following table:

Person/
Noun class		 Singular Plural
1st person a- mi-, me-
2nd person gu-, go- ma-
3rd person m i-, e- u-, o-
3rd person f mu- u-, o-
3rd person x i-, y- u-, o-
3rd person y i-, e-

Personal pronouns in Burushaski distinguish proximal and distal forms, e.g. khin 'he, this one here', but in, 'he, that one there'. In the oblique, there are additional abbreviated forms.

Numerals

The Burushaski number system is vigesimal, i.e. based on the number 20. For example, 20 altar, 40 alto-altar (2 times 20), 60 iski-altar (3 times 20) etc. The base numerals are:

Examples of compound numerals:

11 turma-han, 12 turma-alto, 13 turma-isko, ..., 19 turma-hunti; 20 altar, 30 altar-toorumo, 40 alto-altar, 50 alto-altar-toorumo, 60 iski-altar and so on; 21 altar-hak, 22 altar-alto, 23 altar-isko and so on.

Verbs

Overview

The verbal morphology of Burushaski is extremely complicated and rich in forms. Many sound changes can take place, including assimilation, deletion and accent shift, which are unique for almost every verb. Here, we can only specify certain basic principles.

The Burushaski finite verb falls into the following categories:

Category Possible forms
Tense/Aspect Present, Future, Imperfect, Perfect, Pluperfect
Mood Conditional, three Optatives, Imperative, Conative
Number Singular, Plural
Person 1st, 2nd and 3rd Person (2nd person only in the imperative).
Noun class the four noun classes m, f, x and y (only in the 3rd person)

For many transitive verbs, in addition to the subject, the (direct) object is also indicated, also by pronomimal prefixes which vary according to person, number and class. All verbs have negative forms, and many intransitive verbs also have derived transitive forms. The infinitive forms – which in Burushaski are the absolutives of the past and present, the perfect participle, and two infinitives – admit all the finite variations except tense and mood. Infinitive forms are made together with auxiliary verbs and periphrastic forms.

The 11 positions of the finite verb

All verb forms can be constructed according to a complex but regular position system. Berger describes a total of 11 possible positions, or slots, although not all of these will be filled in any given verb form. Many positions also have several alternative contents (indicated by A/B/C below). The verb stem is in position 5, preceded by four possible prefixes and followed by seven possible suffixes. The following table gives an overview of the positions and their functions

Position Affixes and their meanings
1 Negative prefix a-
2a/b d-prefix (creates intransitive verbs) / n-prefix (absolutive prefix)
3 Pronominal prefixes: subject of intransitive, object of transitive verbs
4 s-prefix (creates secondary transitive verbs)
5 Verb Stem
6 Plural suffix -ya- on the verb stem
7 Present stem mark -č- (or š, ts..) forming the present, future and imperfect
8a/b Pronominal suffix of the 1.sg. -a- (subject) / linking vowel (no semantic meaning)
9a m-suffix: forms the m-participle and m-optative from the simple /
9b m-suffix: forms the future and conditional from the present stem /
9c n-suffix: marks the absolutive (see position 2) /
9d š-suffix: forms the š-optative and the -iš-Infinitive /
9e Infinitive ending -as, -áas / optative suffix -áa (added directly to the stem)
10a Pronominal suffixes of the 2nd and 3rd Person and 1. pl. (subject) /
10b Imperative forms (added directly to the stem) /
10c Forms of the auxiliary verb ba- for forming the present, imperfect, perfect and pluperfect
11 Nominal endings and particles

Formation of tenses and moods

The formation of the tenses and moods involves the use of several positions, or slots, in complicated ways. The preterite, perfect, pluperfect and conative are formed from the 'simple stem,' whereas the present, imperfect, future and conditional are formed from the 'present stem,' which is itself formed from the simple stem by placing -č- in position 7. The optative and imperative are derived directly from the stem. Altogether, the schema is as follows:

The formation of the tenses and moods of the verb her 'to cry', without prefixes:

Grammatical
category		 Construction Form and meaning
Conative stem + personal suffix her-i 'he starts to cry'
Preterite stem [+ linking vowel] + m-suffix + personal suffix her-i-m-i 'he cried'
Perfect stem [+ linking vowel] + present auxiliary her-a-i 'he has cried'
Pluperfect stem [+ linking vowel] + perfect auxiliary her-a-m 'he had cried'
Grammatical
category		 Construction Form and meaning
Future stem + present marker [+ linking vowel + m-suffix] + personal ending her-č-i 'he will cry'
Present stem + present marker + linking vowel + present auxiliary her-č-a-i 'he is crying'
Imperfect stem + present marker + linking vowel + perfect auxiliary her-č-a-m 'he was crying, used to cry'
Conditional stem + present marker + linking vowel + m-Suffix (except 1. pl.) + če her-č-u-m-če '... he would cry',
Conditional stem + present marker + linking vowel + 1. pl. ending + če her-č-an-če 'we would cry'
Grammatical
category		 Construction Form and meaning
áa-optative stem + áa (in all persons) her-áa “... should.. cry“
m-optative stem [+ linking vowel] + m-suffix her-u-m "... should.. cry“
š-optative stem + (i)š + personal suffix her-š-an "he should cry"
Imperative
singular 		stem [+ é for ending-accented verbs] her "cry!"
Imperative
plural 		stem + in her-in "cry!"

Indication of the subject and object

The subject and object of the verb are indicated by the use of personal prefixes and suffixes in positions 3, 8 and 10 as follows:

Affix Position Function
Prefixes 3 direct object of transitive verbs, subject of intransitive ones
Suffixe 8/10 subject of transitive and intransitive verbs

The personal prefixes are identical to the pronominal prefixes of nouns (mandatory with body parts and kinship terms, as above). A simplified overview of the forms of the affixes is given in the following table:

Person/
noun class		 Singular Plural
1st Person a- mi-
2nd Person gu- ma-
3rd Person m i- u-
3rd Person f mu- u-
3rd Person x i- u-
3rd Person y i-
Person/
noun class		 Singular Plural
1st/2nd Person -a -an
3rd Person m -i -an
3rd Person f -o -an
3rd Person x -i -ie
3rd Person y -i

For example, the construction of the preterite of the transitive verb phus 'to tie', with prefixes and suffixes separated by hyphens, is as follows :

The personal affixes are also used when the noun occupies the role of the subject or the object, e.g. hir i-ír-i-mi 'the man died'. With intransitive verbs, the subject function is indicated by both a prefix and a suffix, as in:

Personal prefixes do not occur in all verbs and all tenses. Some verbs do not admit personal prefixes, others still do so only under certain circumstances. Personal prefixes used with intransitive verbs often express a volitional function, with prefixed forms indicating an action contrary to the intention of the subject. For example:

The d-prefix

A number of verbs – mostly according to their root form – are found with the d-prefix in position 2, which occurs before a consonant according to vowel harmony. The precise semantic function of the d-prefix is unclear. With primary transitive verbs the d-prefix, always without personal prefixes, forms regular intransitives. Examples:

A master's thesis research work of a native speaker of Burushaski: Middle Voice Construction in Burushaski: From the Perspective of a Native Speaker of the Hunza Dialect claims that the [dd-] verbal prefix is an overt morphological middle marker for MV constructions, while the [n-] verbal prefixis a morphological marker for passive voice. The data primarily come from the Hunza dialect of Burushaski, but analogous phenomena can be observed in otherdialects. This research is based on a corpus of 120 dd-prefix verbs. This research has showed that position {-2} on the verb template is occupied by voice-marker in Burushaski. The author argues that the middle marker is a semantic category of its own and that it is clearly distinguished from the reflexive marker in this language. The middle marker (MM) means the grammatical device used to “indicate that the two semantic roles of Initiator and Endpoint refer to a single holistic entity” (Kemmer 1993: 47). In the view of that definition, I look at a middle marked verb in Burushaski and illustration follows the example

See also

References

  1. ↑ Burushaski at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Burushaski". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. ↑ Laurie Bauer, 2007, The Linguistics Student’s Handbook, Edinburgh
  4. ↑ "Encyclopedia - Britannica Online Encyclopedia". Original.britannica.com. Retrieved 2013-09-14.
  5. ↑ "Dissertation Abstracts". Linguist List. Retrieved 2013-09-14.
  6. ↑ "Copyright by Sadaf Munshi, 2006" (PDF). Repositories.lib.utexas.edu. Retrieved 2013-09-15.
  7. ↑ "Burushaski". Ethnologue. 1999-02-19. Retrieved 2013-09-14.
  8. ↑ Holst (2014).
  9. ↑ John Bengtson, Some features of Dene–Caucasian phonology (with special reference to Basque). Cahiers de l’Institut de Linguistique de Louvain (CILL) 30.4: 33-54,
  10. ↑ John Bengtson and V. Blazek, "Lexica Dene–Caucasica". Central Asiatic Journal 39, 1995, 11-50 & 161-164
  11. ↑ George van Driem (2001) Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region, Brill
  12. ↑ John Bengtson, Ein vergleich von buruschaski und nordkaukasisch, Georgica 20, 1997, 88-94
  13. ↑ Hamp, Eric P. (August 2013). "The Expansion of the Indo-European Languages: An Indo-Europeanist’s Evolving View" (PDF). Sino-Platonic Papers. 239: 8. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
  14. ↑ Casule, Ilija. 2003. Evidence for the Indo-European laryngeals in Burushaski and its genetic affiliation with Indo-European. The Journal of Indo-European Studies 31:1–2, pp 21–86.
  15. ↑ Čašule, Ilija. 2012. Correlation of the Burushaski Pronominal System with Indo-European and Phonological and Grammatical Evidence for a Genetic Relationship. The Journal of Indo-European Studies 40:1–2, pp 59 ff, with review by Hamp, Huld, and Bengtson & Blazek
  16. ↑ Correlation of the Burushaski pronominal system with Indo-European and phonological and grammatical evidence for a genetic relationship
  17. ↑ Archived May 26, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  18. ↑ Merritt Ruhlen (November 1998). ""The origin of the Na-Dene", Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA" (PDF). pp. 13994–13996. Retrieved 2013-09-15.
  19. ↑ Backstrom & Radloff (1992), Anderson (2006)
  20. ↑ Anderson 1997: 1022
  21. ↑ Bashir, Elena; Hussain, Sarmad; Anderson, Deborah (2006-05-05). "N3117: Proposal to add characters needed for Khowar, Torwali, and Burushaski" (PDF). ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2.
  22. ↑ George van Driem, Languages of the Himalayas, Brill 2001:921

Literature

Burushaski test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator
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