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Kalasha language

Kalasha (IPA: [kaɭaʂaː], locally: Kal'as'amondr) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Kalash people, in the Chitral District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. There are an estimated 4,100 speakers of Kalasha.[2] It is an endangered language and there is an ongoing language shift to Khowar.[3]

Kalasha should not be confused with the nearby Nuristani language Waigali (Kalasha-ala). According to Badshah Munir Bukhari, a researcher on the Kalash, "Kalasha" is also the ethnic name for the Nuristani inhabitants of a region southwest of the Kalasha Valleys, in the Waygal and middle Pech Valleys of Afghanistan's Nuristan Province. The name "Kalasha" seems to have been adopted for the Kalash people by the Kalasha speakers of Chitral from the Nuristanis of Waygal, who for a time expanded up to southern Chitral several centuries ago.[4] However, there is no close connection between the Indo-Aryan language Kalasha-mun (Kalasha) and the Nuristani language Kalasha-ala (Waigali), which descend from different branches of the Indo-Iranian languages.

History

Early scholars to have done work on Kalasha include the 19th-century orientalist Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner and the 20th-century linguist Georg Morgenstierne. More recently, studies have been undertaken by Elena Bashir and several others. The development of practical literacy materials has been associated with the Kalasha linguist Taj Khan Kalash. The Southern Kalash or Urtsun Kalash shifted to a Khowar-influenced dialect of Kalasha-mun in the 20th century called Urtsuniwar.

Classification

Of all the languages in Pakistan, Kalasha is likely the most conservative, along with the nearby language Khowar.[5] In a few cases, Kalasha is even more conservative than Khowar, e.g. in retaining voiced aspirate consonants, which have disappeared from most other Dardic languages.

Some of the typical retentions of sounds and clusters (and meanings) are seen in the following list. However, note some common New Indo-Aryan and Dardic features as well.[6]

Phonology

The Kalasha language is phonologically atypical because it contrasts plain, long, nasal and retroflex vowels as well as combinations of these (Heegård & Mørch 2004). Set out below is the phonology of Kalasha:[7][8]

Vowels

Consonants

As with other Dardic languages, the phonemic status of the breathy voiced series is debatable. Some analyses are unsure of whether they are phonemic or allophonic—i.e., the regular pronunciations of clusters of voiced consonants with /h/.[9]

The phonemes /x ɣ q/ are found in loanwords.

Vocabulary comparison

The following table compares Kalash words to their cognates in other Indo-Aryan languages.[10]

Conservative traits

Examples of conservative features in Kalasha and Khowar are (note, NIA = New Indo-Aryan, MIA = Middle Indo-Aryan, OIA = Old Indo-Aryan):[11]

Further reading

References

  1. ^ Kalasha at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ 1998 Census Report of Pakistan. (2001). Population Census Organization, Statistics Division, Government of Pakistan.
  3. ^ Heegård Petersen, Jan (30 September 2015). "Kalasha texts – With introductory grammar". Acta Linguistica Hafniensia. 47 (sup1): 1–275. doi:10.1080/03740463.2015.1069049. ISSN 0374-0463. S2CID 218660179.
  4. ^ "Richard Strand's Nuristân Site: The Kalasha of Kalashüm". Archived from the original on 1 November 2001. Retrieved 1 November 2001., http://nuristan.info/Nuristani/Kalasha/kalasha.html
  5. ^ Georg Morgenstierne. Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages, Vol. IV: The Kalasha Language & Notes on Kalasha. Oslo 1973, p. 184, details pp. 195-237
  6. ^ Gérard Fussman: 1972 Atlas linguistique des parlers dardes et kafirs. Publications de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient
  7. ^ Kochetov, Alexei; Arsenault, Paul (2008), Retroflex harmony in Kalasha: Agreement or spreading? (PDF), NELS, vol. 39, Cornell University, p. 4
  8. ^ Petersen, Jan H. (2015). Kalasha texts – With introductory grammar. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia,Vol. 47: International Journal of Linguistics.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  9. ^ Edelman, D. I. (1983). The Dardic and Nuristani Languages. Moscow: (Institut vostokovedenii︠a︡ (Akademii︠a︡ nauk SSSR). p. 202.
  10. ^ R.T.Trail and G.R. Cooper, Kalasha Dictionary – with English and Urdu. National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Islamabad & Summer Institute of Linguistics, Dallas TX. 1999
  11. ^ Jan Heegård Petersen (2015) Kalasha texts – With introductory grammar, Acta Linguistica Hafniensia, 47: sup1, 1-275, doi:10.1080/03740463.2015.1069049

Bibliography

External links

Kalasha language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator