| Khowar | |
|---|---|
| کھووار کھوار | |
 Khowar written in theKhowar alphabet inNastaliq style. | |
| Native to | Pakistan |
| Region | Chitral |
| Ethnicity | Kho people (Chitralis) |
Native speakers | 580,000 (2020)[1] |
| Perso-Arabic script (Khowar alphabet) | |
| Official status | |
| Regulated by | Association for the Promotion of Khowar[2] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | khw |
| Glottolog | khow1242 |
| ELP | Khowar |
| Linguasphere | 59-AAB-aa |
 Map showing the distribution of the Khowar language | |
Khowar (کھووار,Khōwār,[kʰɔːwɑːɾ]), also known by its commonexonymChitrali,[a] is anIndo-Aryan language of theDardic group, primarily spoken by theKho people (Chitralis), native to theChitral region and surrounding areas ofPakistan.[3]
Khowar is the lingua franca ofChitral,[3] and it is also spoken in theGupis-Yasin andGhizer districts of Gilgit-Baltistan, as well as in the UpperSwat district.[4]
Speakers of Khowar have also migrated heavily to Pakistan's major urban centres, withIslamabad,Karachi,Lahore andPeshawar having significant populations. It is also spoken as a second language by theKalash people.[5][6]
The native name of the language isKhō-wār,[7] meaning "language (wār) of theKho people". During theBritish Raj, it was known to the English asChitrālī (a derived adjective from the name of theChitral region) orQāshqārī.[7] Among the Pashtuns and Badakhshanis, it is known asKashkār.[8] Another name, used by Leitner in 1880, isArnyiá[9] orArniya, derived from theShina language name for the part of theYasin (a valley in Gilgit-Baltistan) where Khowar is spoken.[7]
The Khowar language expanded throughout Chitral from the northern part of the region, specifically from theMulkhow andTorkhow Valley.[10][11] According toMorgenstierne, the original abode of the Khowar language wasnorthern Chitral in the valleys aroundMastuj.[10] The Khowar language started expanding into southern Chitral around the early 14th century.[10]
Khowar shares a great number of morphological characteristics with neighbouringIranian languages ofBadakhshan, pointing to a very early location of proto-Khowar in its original abode in Upper Chitral, although from its links with theGandhari language, it likely came from further south in the first millennium BC, possibly through Swat and Dir.[11]
Georg Morgenstierne noted, "Khowar, in many respects [is] the most archaic of all modernIndian languages, retaining a great part ofSanskrit case inflexion, and retaining many words in a nearly Sanskritic form".[12]: 3
Khowar has a variety of dialects, which may vary phonemically.[13] The following tables lay out the basic phonology of Khowar.[14][15][16]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | ɛ | ɔ | |
| Open | ɑ |
Khowar may also have nasalized vowels and a series oflong vowels/ɑː/,/ɛː/,/iː/,/ɔː/, 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."[13] Unlike the neighboring and relatedKalasha language, Khowar does not have retroflex vowels.[14]
Allophones of/xɣhʋɾ/ are heard as sounds[χʁɦwɹ].[16] /q x ɣ ʑ f/ are restricted to Perso-Arabic loanwords in most IA languages but they occur natively in Khowar, e.g. Sanskrit mukha, yūkā, yákan, bhrāturjāyā; Khowar mux, žuġ, ṣéġun, brežáyu. The originalOld Indo-Aryan /s, ʂ, ɕ/ contrast is maintained, eg. OIA. joṣati, aśru, svásṛ; Kh. ǰoṣík, aśrú, ispusár.[17] The OIA kṣ became c̣/c̣h eg. OIA. pakṣa, Kh. poc̣ and more sibilants were made instead of a reduction which Continental IA did, eg. OIA. gaḍa, Kh. goẓ. OIA cluster ts was either preserved as a single phoneme ċ/ċh or merged with some other consonant OIA. vatsa, matsya, uts Kh. bac̣hóɫ, maċhí, uċ.
Khowar, like manyDardic languages, has either phonemic tone or stress distinctions.[18]
Khowar orthography is derived fromUrdu alphabet, with additional letters created to represent sounds unique to Khowar. Similar to Urdu, Khowar is typically written in thecalligraphicNastaʿlīq script.
From the end of the 19th century onwards, literaturists and rulers ofChitral princely state have put in much effort to popularize literacy, reading, and writing in Khowar. Initially,Mirza Muhammad Shakur andPrince Tajumal Shah Mohfi adoptedPersian alphabet, used in neighbouringAfghanistan. However, Persian alphabet did not have letters for many unique sounds in Khowar. By the early 20th century, as under British Colonial rule, Urdu education and literacy became ever more popular among Indian Muslims (seeHindi–Urdu controversy),[19] Chitrali literaturists, namelySir Nasir ul-Mulk andMirza Muhammad Ghafran saw Urdu script as a better fit for Khowar. Nonetheless, Urdu also lacked sounds that existed in Chitrali. Thus, new letters were proposed and created. But the process of settling on a standard Khowar script continued for decades into the 1970s. This process was not without controversy either. Some literaturists were advocating for keeping the number of letters to a minimum, or in other words removing Arabic letters that do not represent distinct sounds in Khowar and are homophone with other letters (for exampleث، ذ، ص, being homophone withس، ز، س respectively). In total, 6 new letters were added to the 37-letter Urdu Alphabet, to create the 43-letter Khowar script.[20]
Khowar nouns inflect based onanimacy,number, andcase.[21]
The threegender system from Old Indo-Aryan has been replaced with an animacy-based noun classification system in Khowar.
The direct case plural is usually marked only on animate nouns.
All Khowar nouns have four case forms,direct,oblique,ablative, andvocative. Inanimate nouns additionally have forms forinstrumental, and four differentlocative cases. The locative 1 expresses pointlike locations as opposed to those having linear extent. The locative 2 expresses horizontal motion or location. The locative 3 expresses upward motion or location, while the locative 4 expresses downward motion or location.[21]
| Case | Singular | Plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| animate | inanimate | animate | inanimate | |
| direct | Ø, or -án | Ø | -án, -gíni, or reduplication | Ø, (-án) |
| oblique | -o | -o | -an | -an |
| locative 1 | — | -a | — | -en |
| locative 2 | -i | -en | ||
| locative 3 | -tu | -en | ||
| locative 4 | -o | -en | ||
| instrumental | -en | -en | ||
| ablative | -ar ~ -ári | -ar | -ar ~ -ári | -ar ~ -ári |
| vocative | -é, -aá (for God) | -án (used with voc particleé: ‘hey, o’ …) | ||
Only the first and second personpronouns have distinct direct and oblique forms.[21]: 88
| Case | Singular | Plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 2nd | 1st | 2nd | |
| Direct | aʋá | tu | ispá | pisá |
| Oblique | ma | ta | ispá | pisá |
Interrogative and indefinite pronouns are closely related and mostly homophonous.[21]: 89
| Case | Pronominal | Adjectival | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Interrogative | Indefinite | Interrogative | Indefinite | |
| Direct | ka ‘who?’ | kaá ‘someone’ | kos ‘whose’, ‘whom’ | kos di ‘whosever’, ‘whomever’ |
| Oblique | kos ‘whom?’ | kos ‘someone’ | ||
| Direct | kyá ‘what?’ | kya ‘some’; ‘any’ (in negative contexts) | kya ‘what’ | kya ‘a’, ‘some’ |
| Oblique | khyo ‘what?’ | |||
| Direct | kyaγ ‘what?’ | kyaáγ ‘something | kya ‘what’ | kya ‘a’, ‘some’, ‘any’ |
| Oblique | khyo ‘what?’ | khyo ‘something’ | kyá.di ‘any’ | |
| Direct | kí ‘which one?’ | kiʋál(u~i) di ‘whichever one’ | kí ‘which? (out of a specific set)’ | kya ‘a’, ‘some’, ‘any’ |
| Oblique | kí ‘which one?’ | kiʋálo di ‘whichever one’ | khyo ‘what?’ | kyá.di ‘any’ |
Demonstrative pronouns in Khowar display a three-termdeictic system based on distance and visibility: proximal (+ near, + visible), distal (Ø near, Ø visible), and remote (− near, − visible). They have both a basic and extended form which is formed withh(a). The emphatic form is usually used when something is mentioned for the first time.[21]: 95–96
| Singular | Plural | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct | Oblique | Direct | Oblique | |
| Proximal | (ha)yá ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’; ‘this person/thing’ | (ha)mó ‘him’, ‘her’, ‘it’; ‘his’, ‘hers’, ‘its’ | (ha)mít ‘they’, ‘these people/things’ | (ha)mítan ‘them’; ‘theirs’ |
| Distal | (h)es ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’, ‘that one’ | (h)oró ‘him’, ‘her’, ‘it’; ‘his’‘hers’, ‘its’ | (h)et ‘they’, ‘those people/things | (h)étan ‘them’; ‘theirs’ |
| Remote | (ha)sé ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘it’; ‘that one’ | (ha)toγó ~(ha)toó ‘him’, ‘her’, ‘it’; ‘his’, ‘hers’, ‘its’ | (ha)tét ‘they’ | (ha)tétan ‘them’; ‘theirs’ |
The main language of Chitral is Khowar, in many respects the most archaic of all modern Indian languages, retaining a great part of Sanskrit case inflexion, and retaining many words in a nearly Sanskritic form.
In the nineteenth century in north India, before the extension of the British system of government schools, Urdu was not used in its written form as a medium of instruction in traditional Islamic schools, where Muslim children were taught Persian and Arabic, the traditional languages of Islam and Muslim culture. It was only when the Muslim elites of north India and the British decided that Muslims were backward in education in relation to Hindus and should be encouraged to attend government schools that it was felt necessary to offer Urdu in the Persian-Arabic script as an inducement to Muslims to attend the schools. And it was only after the Hindi-Urdu controversy developed that Urdu, once disdained by Muslim elites in north India and not even taught in the Muslim religious schools in the early nineteenth century, became a symbol of Muslim identity second to Islam itself. A second point revealed by the Hindi-Urdu controversy in north India is how symbols may be used to separate peoples who, in fact, share aspects of culture. It is well known that ordinary Muslims and Hindus alike spoke the same language in the United Provinces in the nineteenth century, namely Hindustani, whether called by that name or whether called Hindi, Urdu, or one of the regional dialects such as Braj or Awadhi. Although a variety of styles of Hindi-Urdu were in use in the nineteenth century among different social classes and status groups, the legal and administrative elites in courts and government offices, Hindus and Muslims alike, used Urdu in the Persian-Arabic script.
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