Khowar language

Khowar
Chitrali
کهووار
Native to Pakistan
Region Chitral District
Ethnicity Kho people
Native speakers
 290,000 (2004)[1]
Khowar alphabet (Arabic script)
Language codes
ISO 639-3 khw
Glottolog khow1242[2]
Linguasphere 59-AAB-aa
Khowar letter jeem

Khowar, also known as Chitrali, Qashqari and Arniya, is an Indo-Aryan language of the Dardic subbranch.[3]

"Kho" means the people of Chitral, "War" means language. It is spoken by the Kho people in Chitral district, Ghizer district of Gilgit-Baltistan (including the Yasin Valley, Golaghmuli 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 significant 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 and Tajikistan.

Names

The native name of the language is Khō-wār,[4] meaning "language" (wār) of the Kho people. During the British Raj it was known to the English as Chitrālī (a derived adjective from the name of the Chitral region) or Qāshqārī.[4] Among the Pathans and Badakshis it is known as Kashkār.[5] Another name, used by Leitner in 1880, is Arnyiá[6] or Arniya, derived from the Shina language name for the part of the Yasin where Khowar is spoken.[4]

Phonology

Khowar has a variety of dialects, which may vary phonemically.[7] The following tables lay out the basic phonology of Khowar.[8][9]

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."[7] Unlike the neighboring and related Kalasha language, Khowar does not have retroflex vowels.[8]

Consonants

Labial Coronal Retroflex Palatal Velar Post-
velar		 Glottal
Nasal m n
Stop voiceless p t ʈ k (q)
voiced b d ɖ g
aspirated pʰ tʰ ʈʰ kʰ
Affricate voiceless ts ʈʂ tʃ
voiced dz ɖʐ dʒ
aspirated tsʰ (?) ʈʂʰ tʃʰ
Fricative voiceless f s ʂ ʃ x h
voiced z ʐ ʒ ɣ
Approximant l(ʲ) ɫ j w
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.[10]

Writing system

Since the early twentieth century Khowar has been written in the Khowar alphabet, which is based on the Urdu alphabet and uses the Nasta'liq script. Prior to that, the language was carried on through 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 occasionally written in a version of the Roman script called Roman Khowar since the 1960s.

Dialects

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 ChitralEntertainmenthttp://www.radio.gov.pk/
Radio Pakistan PeshawarEntertainmenthttp://www.radio.gov.pk/
Radio Pakistan GilgitEntertainmenthttp://www.radio.gov.pk/

Newspapers

Newspaper City(ies) Founded Official Website
Chitral Vision (چترال وژن) Karachi, Chitral, Pakistan    
Chitral Today     http://chitraltoday.net

See also

References

  1. ↑ Khowar at Ethnologue (19th ed., 2016)
  2. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Khowar". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  3. ↑ electricpulp.com. "DARDESTĀN – Encyclopaedia Iranica".
  4. 1 2 3 Grierson, George A. (1919). Linguistic Survey of India. Volume VIII , Part 2, Indo-Aryan family. North-western group. Specimens of the Dardic or Piśācha languages (including Kāshmiri). Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India. p. 133.
  5. ↑ O'Brien, Donatus James Thomond (1895). Grammar and vocabulary of the K̲h̲owâr dialect (Chitrâli). Lahore: Civil and military gazette press. p. i.
  6. ↑ Leitner, Gottlieb William (1880). Kafiristan. Section 1: the Bashgeli Kafirs and their language. Lahore: Dilbagroy. p. 43. Retrieved 2016-06-06.
  7. 1 2 Edelman, D. I. (1983). The Dardic and Nuristani Languages. Moscow: Institut vostokovedenii︠a︡ (Akademii︠a︡ nauk SSSR). p. 210.
  8. 1 2 Bashir, Elena L. (1988), "Topics in Kalasha Syntax: An areal and typological perspective" (PDF), Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Michigan: 37–40
  9. ↑ Bashir, Elena L., Maula Nigah and Rahmat Karim Baig, A Digital Khowar-English Dictionary with Audio
  10. ↑ 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

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