Pashayi languages
Group of Indo-Aryan languages spoken in Afghanistan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pashayi (or Pashai) is a group of Indo-Aryan languages spoken by the Pashayi people in parts of the Kapisa, Laghman, Nangarhar, Nuristan, Kunar, and Kabul (Surobi) provinces in northeastern Afghanistan.[2]
| Pashayi | |
|---|---|
| Pashai | |
| زبان پشهای (Dari) پشه اې ژبه (Pashto) | |
Pashayi in Nastaliq | |
| Native to | Afghanistan |
| Ethnicity | Pashayi |
Native speakers | (400,000 cited 2000–2011)[1] |
| Arabic script (Nastaliq) | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Variously:aee – Northeasternglh – Northwesternpsi – Southeasternpsh – Southwestern |
| Glottolog | pash1270 |
| Linguasphere | 59-AAA-a |
_in_Afghanistan.jpg) Linguistic map of Afghanistan; Pashayi is spoken in the purple area in the east. | |
 Pashayi is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
The Pashayi languages had no known written form prior to 2003.[3] There are four mutually unintelligible varieties, with only about a 30% lexical similarity:[1]
- Northeastern: Aret, Chalas (Chilas), Kandak, Korangal, Kurdar dialects
- Northwestern: Alasai, Bolaghain, Gulbahar, Kohnadeh, Laurowan, Najil, Nangarach, Pachagan, Pandau, Parazhghan, Pashagar, Sanjan, Shamakot, Shutul, Uzbin, Wadau dialects
- Southeastern: Damench, Laghmani, Sum, Upper and Lower Darai Nur, Wegali dialects
- Southwestern: Ishpi, Isken, Tagau dialects
A grammar of the language was written as a doctoral dissertation in 2014.[4]
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Palato- alveolar |
Retroflex | Dorsal | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɳ | ŋ | |||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t̪ | ʈ | k | ||
| voiced | b | d̪ | ɖ | ɡ | |||
| Affricate | voiceless | t͡ʃ | |||||
| voiced | d͡ʒ | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | ʃ | (ʂ) | x | (h) | |
| voiced | z | ʒ | (ʐ) | ɣ | |||
| lateral | ɬ | ||||||
| Rhotic | tap | ɾ | ɽ | ||||
| trill | r | ||||||
| Approximant | lateral | l | |||||
| central | ʋ ~ w | j | |||||
- [h] is only phonemic in the Amla dialect.
- Sounds [f] and [q] can also occur, but only in loanwords and among Dari speakers.
- [ʂ] is more commonly heard among older speakers, but is lost among younger speakers, and is heard as a postalveolar [ʃ].
- [ʐ] is more commonly heard among older speakers, but is lost among younger speakers, and is heard as a postalveolar [ʒ].
- /ʋ/ is heard before front vowels /i e/. When occurring before or after central or back vowels /a u o/, it is heard as [w].
- According to Masica (1991) some dialects have a /θ/.
Vowels
- Only mid or low vowels have lengthened equivalents.
- /e/ can be heard as [ɛ] and /a/ can be heard as [ə] or [æ], in certain environments.[4]
Further reading
- Lamuwal, Abd-El-Malek; Baker, Adam (2013). "Southeastern Pashayi". Illustrations of the IPA. Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 43 (2): 243–246. doi:10.1017/S0025100313000133, with supplementary sound recordings.
