Khowar: Difference between revisions

Chitrali, is an Indo-Aryan language of the Dardic branch, spoken by 1,000,000 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.

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.^{[This quote needs a citation]}

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.^{[citation needed]}

Khowar has a variety of dialects which may vary phonemically.^[2] The following tables lay out the basic phonology of Khowar.^[3][4]

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."^[2] Unlike the neighboring and related Kalasha language, Khowar does not have retroflex vowels.^[3]

The phonemic status of /tsʰ/ is unclear in the sources

Khowar, like many Dardic languages, has either phonemic tone or stress distinctions.^[5]

The names of the days of the week, in Khowar, are compared with their equivalents in Shina, Sanskrit, and English.^{[citation needed]}

• Standard Khowar

Khowar has been written in the Nasta'liq script since the early twentieth century. But Chitrali has its own script 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.

These are not dedicated Khowar channels but play most programmes in Khowar.

• Allama Iqbal’s poetry’s versified khowar translation by Rehmat Aziz Chitrali
  Allama Iqbal’s poetry’s versified khowar translation by Rehmat Aziz Chitrali
• Chitral Vision, Urdu and Khowar Language coloured newspaper of Chitral, Pakistan
  Chitral Vision, Urdu and Khowar Language coloured newspaper of Chitral, Pakistan

• Chitrali people
• Chitrali literature

• 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.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Khowar language.

Khowar test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

• "Georg Morgenstierne". National Library of Norway. 2001. Retrieved 2009-01-11.
• Strand, Richard F. (2011). "Khow`ar Lexicon". Retrieved 2012-01-16.
• Strand, Richard F. (2012). "The Sound System of Khow`ar". Retrieved 2012-01-16.