Kalasha language

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.

Of all the languages in Pakistan, Kalasha is likely the most conservative, along with the nearby language Khowar.Georg Morgenstierne. Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages, Vol. IV: The Kalasha Language & Notes on Kalasha. Oslo 1973, p. 184, details pp. 195-237 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.Gérard Fussman: 1972 Atlas linguistique des parlers dardes et kafirs. Publications de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient

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:{{Harvsp|Kochetov|Arsenault|2008|p=4}}

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/.{{Cite book

| title = The Dardic and Nuristani Languages

| last = Edelman | first = D. I.

| year = 1983

| publisher = (Institut vostokovedenii︠a︡ (Akademii︠a︡ nauk SSSR) | location = Moscow

| pages = 202

}}

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

The following table compares Kalash words to their cognates in other Indo-Aryan languages.{{Harvsp|Trail|Cooper|1999}}

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

• Preservation of intervocalic /m/ (reduced to a nasalized /w/ or /v/ in late MIA elsewhere), e.g. Kal. grom, Kho. gram "village" < OIA grāma
• Non-deletion of intervocalic /t/, preserved as /l/ or /w/ in Kalasha, /r/ in Khowar (deleted in middle MIA elsewhere), e.g. Kho. brār "brother" < OIA bhrātṛ; Kal. ʃau < *ʃal, Kho. ʃor "hundred" < OIA śata
• Preservation of the distinction between all three OIA sibilants (dental /s/, palatal /ś/, retroflex /ṣ/); in most of the subcontinent, these three had already merged before 200 BC (early MIA)
• Preservation of sibilant + consonant, stop + /r/ clusters (lost by early MIA in most other places):
• Kal. aṣṭ, Kho. oṣṭ "eight" < OIA aṣṭā; Kal. hast, Kho. host "hand" < OIA hasta; Kal. istam "bunch" < OIA stamba; Kho. istōr "pack horse" < OIA sthōra; Kho. isnār "bathed" < OIA snāta; Kal. Kho. iskow "peg" < OIA *{{lang|inc|skabha}} (< skambha); Kho. iśper "white" < OIA śvēta; Kal. isprɛs, Kho. iśpreṣi "mother-in-law" < OIA śvaśru; Kal. piṣṭ "back" < OIA pṛṣṭha; Kho. aśrū "tear" < OIA aśru.
• Kho. kren- "buy" < OIA krīṇ-; Kal. grom, Kho. grom "village" < OIA grāma; Kal. gŕä "neck" < OIA grīva; Kho. griṣp "summer" < OIA grīṣma
• Preservation of /ts/ in Kalasha (reinterpreted as a single phoneme)
• Direct preservation of many OIA case endings as so-called "layer 1" case endings (as opposed to newer "layer 2" case endings, typically tacked onto a layer-1 oblique case):
• Nominative
• Oblique (Animate): Pl. Kal. -an, Kho. -an < OIA -ān
• Genitive: Kal. -as (sg.), -an (pl.); Kho. -o (sg.), -an, -ān (pl.) < OIA -asya (sg.), āṇām (pl.)
• Dative: Kal. -a, Kho. -a < OIA dative -āya, elsewhere lost already in late OIA
• Instrumental: Kal. -an, Kho. -en < OIA -ēna
• Ablative: Kal. -au, Kho. -ār < OIA -āt
• Locative: Kal. -ai, Kho. -i < OIA -ai
• Preservation of more than one verbal conjugation (e.g. Kho. mār-īm "I kill" vs. bri-um "I die")
• Preservation of OIA distinction between "primary" (non-past) and "secondary" (past) endings and of a past-tense "augment" in a-, both lost entirely elsewhere: Kal. pim "I drink", apis "I drank"; kārim "I do", akāris "I did"
• Preservation of a verbal preterite tense (see examples above), with normal nominative/accusative marking and normal verbal agreement, as opposed to the ergative-type past tenses with nominal-type agreement elsewhere in NIA (originally based on a participial passive construction)

{{Reflist|30em}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{Cite book| title = Topics in Kalasha Syntax: An Areal and Typological Perspective

| last1 = Bashir | first1 = Elena L.|author1-link=Elena Bashir

| publisher = (Ph.D. dissertation) University of Michigan

| date = 1988

}}

• {{Cite book| title = Gates of Peristan: History, Religion, and Society in the Hindu Kush

| last1 = Cacopardo | first1 = Alberto M.

| last2 = Cacopardo | first2 = Augusto S.

| publisher = Instituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente | location = Rome

| date = 2001

}}

• {{Cite book| title = Languages of Chitral

| last1 = Decker | first1 = Kendall D.

| volume = 5 | pages = 257

| publisher = National Institute of Pakistani Studies

| series = Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan

| date = 1992

| isbn = 969-8023-15-1

}}

• {{Cite book| title = Atlas linguistique des parlers dardes et kafirs

| last = Fussman | first = Gerard

| author-link = Gérard Fussman

| volume = (two volumes)

}} Maps showing distribution of words among people of Kafiristan.

• {{Cite book| title = Synchronic and Diachronic Aspects of Himalayan Linguistics

| last = Heegård | first = Jan

| author2 = Mørch, Ida Elisabeth

| chapter = Retroflex vowels and other peculiarities in Kalasha sound system

| publisher = Mouton | location = The Hague

| editor1 = Anju Saxena

| editor2 = Jadranka Gvozdanovic

| series = Selected Proceedings of the 7th Himalayan Languages Symposium held in Uppsala, Sweden

| date = March 2004

}}

• {{Cite journal

|last=Heegård Petersen

|first=Jan

|date=30 September 2015

|title=Kalasha texts – With introductory grammar

|url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03740463.2015.1069049

|journal=Acta Linguistica Hafniensia

|language=en

|volume=47

|issue=sup1

|pages=1–275

|doi=10.1080/03740463.2015.1069049

|s2cid=218660179

|issn=0374-0463

|url-access=subscription

}}

• {{Cite book| title = Religions of the Hindu Kush

| last = Jettmar | first = Karl

| date = 1985

| publisher = Aris & Phillips | isbn = 0-85668-163-6

}}

• {{Citation| title = Retroflex harmony in Kalasha: Agreement or spreading?

| last1 = Kochetov | first1 = Alexei

| last2 = Arsenault | first2 = Paul

| publisher = Cornell University

| year = 2008 | volume = 39

| series = NELS

| url = http://individual.utoronto.ca/arsenault/files/nels39_hndt_kalasha.pdf

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110622042626/http://individual.utoronto.ca/arsenault/files/nels39_hndt_kalasha.pdf

| archive-date = 2011-06-22

}}

• {{Cite book| title = Report on a Linguistic Mission to Afghanistan

| last = Morgenstierne | first = Georg

| author-link = Georg Morgenstierne

| publisher = Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning | location = Oslo

| series = Serie C I-2

| date = 1926

| isbn = 0-923891-09-9

}}

• {{Cite book| title = The Kalasha Language & Notes on Kalasha

| last = Morgenstierne | first = Georg

| author-link = Georg Morgenstierne

| volume = IV

| location = Oslo

| series = Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages

| date = 1973

| isbn = 4871875245

}}

• {{Cite book| title = The Kafirs of the Hindukush

| author = Sir George Scott Robertson

| date = 1896

}}

• {{Cite journal| title = Notes on the Nûristânî and Dardic Languages

| last = Strand | first = Richard F.

| author-link = Richard Strand

| volume = 93 | pages = 297–305

| journal = Journal of the American Oriental Society

| number = 3

| date = 1973

| doi = 10.2307/599462 | jstor = 599462 }}

• {{Cite book| title = Gates of Peristan: History, Religion and Society in the Hindu Kush

| last = Strand | first = Richard F.

| author-link = Richard Strand

| chapter = The Tongues of Peristân

| publisher = Instituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente | location = Rome

| editor1 = Alberto M. Cacopardo

| editor2 = Augusto S. Cacopardo

| pages = 251–259

| date = 2001

}}

• {{cite book |last=Strand |first=Richard F. |date=2022 |chapter=Phonatory Location in the Far North-Western Indo-Âryan Languages |editor-first1=Joan L.G. |editor-last1=Baart |editor-first2=Henrik |editor-last2=Liljegren |editor-first3=Thomas E. |editor-last3=Payne |title=Languages of Northern Pakistan: Essays in Memory of Carla Radloff |pages=446-495 |location=Karachi |publisher=Oxford University Press}}
• {{Cite book| title = Kalasha dictionary—with English and Urdu

| last1 = Trail | first1 = Ronald L.

| last2 = Cooper | first2 = Gregory R.

| volume = 7

| publisher = National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University and Summer Institute of Linguistics | location = Islamabad

| series = Studies in Languages of Northern Pakistan

| date = 1999

| isbn = 4871875237

}}

{{refend}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{Cite JIPA|author=Kochetov, Alexei and Arsenault, Paul and Petersen, Jan Heegård and Kalas, Sikandar and Kalash, Taj Khan|title=Kalasha (Bumburet variety)|volume=51|issue=3|pages=468–489|doi=10.1017/S0025100319000367|printdate=2021-12|soundfiles=yes}}

{{refend}}

• [https://archive.today/20090108042538/http://users.sedona.net/~strand Richard Strand's Nuristan Site]
• [http://www.site-shara.net/ Reiko and Jun's Japanese Kalasha Page]
• [http://www.lexicool.com/dlink.asp?ID=0FW3HU5663&L1=34&L2=44 Hindi/Urdu-English-Kalasha-Khowar-Nuristani-Pashtu Comparative Word List]
• [http://www.fli-online.org/documents/languages/kalasha/kalasha-dictionary.htm Frontier Language Institute] The Kalasha Dictionary
• [http://www.nb.no/baser/morgenstierne/english/index.html Georg Morgenstierne multimedia database]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060430191518/http://www.fli-online.org/kalasha-dictionary.htm Frontier Language Institute] Kalasha dictionary

{{Languages of Pakistan}}

{{Dardic languages}}

Category:Dardic languages

Category:Kalash people

Category:Languages of Lower Chitral District