Kalasha language explained

Kalasha language should not be confused with Kalasha-ala.

Kalasha
Nativename:	Kal'as'amondr, کالؕاشؕا
States:	Pakistan (Chitral District)
Region:	Kalasha Valleys
Ethnicity:	Kalash
Date:	2000
Ref:	e18
Familycolor:	Indo-European
Fam2:	Indo-Iranian
Fam3:	Indo-Aryan
Fam4:	Dardic
Fam5:	Chitrali
Script:	Arabic script, Latin script
Iso3:	kls
Glotto:	kala1372
Glottorefname:	Chitral Kalasha
Lingua:	59-AAB-ab
Dia1:	Urtsuniwar

Kalasha (pronounced as /kls/, 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.^[1] It is an endangered language and there is an ongoing language shift to Khowar.^[2]

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.^[3] 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.^[4] 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.^[5]

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:^[6]

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/
Mid	pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/
Open		pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/

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/.^[7]

		Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Postalveolar/ Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	(pronounced as /link/)	(pronounced as /link/)	(pronounced as /link/)
Stop		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	(pronounced as /link/)
		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/
Affricate			pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
			pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
			pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
					pronounced as /link/
Fricative			pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	(pronounced as /link/)		pronounced as /link/
			pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/	(pronounced as /link/)
Approximant			pronounced as /link/ pronounced as /link/		pronounced as /link/	pronounced as /link/
Rhotic			pronounced as /link/	(pronounced as /link/)

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.^[8]

English	Kalasha	Sanskrit	other Indo-Aryan languages
bone	athi, aṭhí	Sanskrit: asthi	Nepali: ā̃ṭh 'the ribs'
urine	mutra, mútra	Sanskrit: mūtra	Hindi: mūt Assamese: mut
village	grom	Sanskrit: grama	Hindi: gā̃w Assamese: gãü
rope	rajuk, raĵhú-k	Sanskrit: rajju	Hindi: lej, lejur Assamese: lezu
smoke	thum	Sanskrit: dhūma	Hindi: dhūā̃, dhuwā̃ Assamese: dhü̃a
meat	mos	Sanskrit: maṃsa	Hindi: mā̃s, mās, māsā
dog	shua, śõ.'a	Sanskrit: śvan	Sinhala; Sinhalese: suvan
ant	pililak, pilílak	Sanskrit: pipīla, pippīlika	Hindi: pipṛā Assamese: pipora
son	put, putr	Sanskrit: putra	Hindi: pūt Assamese: put
long	driga, dríga	Sanskrit: dīrgha	Hindi: dīha Assamese: digha
eight	asht, aṣṭ	Sanskrit: aṣṭā	Hindi: āṭh Assamese: ath
broken	china, čhína	Sanskrit: chinna	Hindi: chīn-nā 'to snatch'
kill	nash	Sanskrit: nash, naś, naśyati	Hindi: nā̆s 'destroy'

Conservative traits

Examples of conservative features in Kalasha and Khowar are (note, NIA = New Indo-Aryan, MIA = Middle Indo-Aryan, OIA = Old Indo-Aryan):^[9]

• 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 *Indic languages: 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)

Further reading

• Kochetov, Alexei and Arsenault, Paul and Petersen, Jan Heegård and Kalas, Sikandar and Kalash, Taj Khan. Kalasha (Bumburet variety). 51. 3. 468 - 489. 10.1017/S0025100319000367. 2021-12. yes.

Bibliography

• Book: Topics in Kalasha Syntax: An Areal and Typological Perspective . Bashir . Elena L.. Elena Bashir . (Ph.D. dissertation) University of Michigan . 1988.
• Book: Gates of Peristan: History, Religion, and Society in the Hindu Kush . Cacopardo . Alberto M. . Cacopardo . Augusto S. . Instituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente . Rome . 2001.
• Book: Languages of Chitral . Decker . Kendall D. . 5 . 257 . National Institute of Pakistani Studies . Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan . 1992 . 969-8023-15-1.
• Book: Atlas Linguistique Des Parles Dardes Et Kafirs . Gerard Fussman . Gérard Fussman . (two umes). Maps showing distribution of words among people of Kafiristan.
• Book: Heegård, Jan . Synchronic and Diachronic Aspects of Himalayan Linguistics . Mørch, Ida Elisabeth . Retroflex vowels and other peculiarities in Kalasha sound system . Mouton . The Hague . Anju Saxena . Jadranka Gvozdanovic . Selected Proceedings of the 7th Himalayan Languages Symposium held in Uppsala, Sweden . March 2004.
• Book: Jettmar, Karl . Religions of the Hindu Kush . 1985 . Aris & Phillips . 0-85668-163-6.
  • Book: Morgenstierne, Georg . Report on a Linguistic Mission to Afghanistan . Georg Morgenstierne . . Oslo . Serie C I-2 . 1926 . 0-923891-09-9.
• Book: Morgenstierne, Georg . The Kalasha Language & Notes on Kalasha . Georg Morgenstierne . IV . Oslo . Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages . 1973 . 4871875245.
• Book: The Kafirs of the Hindukush . Sir George Scott Robertson . 1896.
• Notes on the Nûristânî and Dardic Languages . Strand . Richard F. . Richard Strand . 93 . 297–305 . Journal of the American Oriental Society . 3 . 1973. 10.2307/599462 . 599462 .
• Book: Strand, Richard F. . Gates of Peristan: History, Religion and Society in the Hindu Kush . Richard Strand . The Tongues of Peristân . Instituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente . Rome . Alberto M. Cacopardo . Augusto S. Cacopardo . 251–259 . 2001.
• Book: Strand, Richard F. . 2022 . Phonatory Location in the Far North-Western Indo-Âryan Languages . Joan L.G. . Baart . Henrik . Liljegren . Thomas E. . Payne . Languages of Northern Pakistan: Essays in Memory of Carla Radloff . 446-495 . Karachi . Oxford University Press.
• Book: Kalasha dictionary—with English and Urdu . Trail . Ronald L. . Cooper . Gregory R. . 7 . National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University and Summer Institute of Linguistics . Islamabad . Studies in Languages of Northern Pakistan . 1999 . 4871875237.

External links

• Richard Strand's Nuristan Site
• Reiko and Jun's Japanese Kalasha Page
• Hindi/Urdu-English-Kalasha-Khowar-Nuristani-Pashtu Comparative Word List
• Frontier Language Institute The Kalasha Dictionary
• Georg Morgenstierne multimedia database
• Frontier Language Institute Kalasha dictionary

Notes and References

1. 1998 Census Report of Pakistan. (2001). Population Census Organization, Statistics Division, Government of Pakistan.
2. Heegård Petersen . Jan . 30 September 2015 . Kalasha texts – With introductory grammar . Acta Linguistica Hafniensia . en . 47 . sup1 . 1–275 . 10.1080/03740463.2015.1069049 . 218660179 . 0374-0463.
3. Web site: Richard Strand's Nuristân Site: The Kalasha of Kalashüm . 1 November 2001 . dead . http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20011101195044/http://users.sedona.net/~strand/nuristani/kalasha/kalasha.html . 1 November 2001 ., http://nuristan.info/Nuristani/Kalasha/kalasha.html
4. [Georg Morgenstierne]
5. [Gérard Fussman]
6. Book: Petersen, Jan H.. Kalasha texts – With introductory grammar. International Journal of Linguistics. 2015. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia,Vol. 47.
7. Book: Edelman, D. I. . The Dardic and Nuristani Languages . 1983 . (Institut vostokovedenii︠a︡ (Akademii︠a︡ nauk SSSR) . Moscow . 202.
8. 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
9. Jan Heegård Petersen (2015) Kalasha texts – With introductory grammar, Acta Linguistica Hafniensia, 47: sup1, 1-275,