Gawar-Bati is known in
ChitralChitral or Chatrāl , translated as field in the native language Khowar, is the capital of the Chitral District, situated on the western bank of the Kunar River . The town is at the foot of Tirich Mir, the highest peak of the Hindu Kush, high...
as Aranduyiwar, because it is spoken in Village Arandu, which is the last village in the bottom of Chitral and is across the Kunar River from Berkot in
AfghanistanThe Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a landlocked country in south central Asia. It is variously described as being located within Central Asia, South Asia, or the Middle East...
. Chitral keeps a military base in Arandu to guard against an attack by
AfghanistanThe Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a landlocked country in south central Asia. It is variously described as being located within Central Asia, South Asia, or the Middle East...
.
There are 9,000 speakers of Gawar-Bati, but only 1,500 are in
PakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located at the crossroads of South Asia, the Middle East, and Central Asia...
. The rest are in
AfghanistanThe Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a landlocked country in south central Asia. It is variously described as being located within Central Asia, South Asia, or the Middle East...
.
The Gawar-Bati Language has not been given study by serious linguists, except that it is mentioned by George Morgenstierne (1926) and Kendall Decker (1992).
Gawar-Bati is known in
ChitralChitral or Chatrāl , translated as field in the native language Khowar, is the capital of the Chitral District, situated on the western bank of the Kunar River . The town is at the foot of Tirich Mir, the highest peak of the Hindu Kush, high...
as Aranduyiwar, because it is spoken in Village Arandu, which is the last village in the bottom of Chitral and is across the Kunar River from Berkot in
AfghanistanThe Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a landlocked country in south central Asia. It is variously described as being located within Central Asia, South Asia, or the Middle East...
. Chitral keeps a military base in Arandu to guard against an attack by
AfghanistanThe Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a landlocked country in south central Asia. It is variously described as being located within Central Asia, South Asia, or the Middle East...
.
There are 9,000 speakers of Gawar-Bati, but only 1,500 are in
PakistanPakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located at the crossroads of South Asia, the Middle East, and Central Asia...
. The rest are in
AfghanistanThe Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is a landlocked country in south central Asia. It is variously described as being located within Central Asia, South Asia, or the Middle East...
.
The Gawar-Bati Language has not been given study by serious linguists, except that it is mentioned by George Morgenstierne (1926) and Kendall Decker (1992). It is classified as a
Dardic LanguageThe Dardic languages is a sub-group of the Indo-Aryan languages spoken in northern Pakistan, eastern Afghanistan, and in the Indian region of Jammu and Kashmir.-Position in Indo-Iranian languages:...
but this is more of a geographical classification than a linguistic one.
The Norwegian Linguist
Georg Morgenstierne wrote that
ChitralChitral or Chatrāl , translated as field in the native language Khowar, is the capital of the Chitral District, situated on the western bank of the Kunar River . The town is at the foot of Tirich Mir, the highest peak of the Hindu Kush, high...
is the area of the greatest linguistic diversity in the world. Although
KhowarFor the ethnic group, see Kho people.Khowar , also known as Chitrali, is a Dardic language spoken by 400,000 people in Chitral in Northwest Pakistan, in Yasin Valley and Gupis in neighbouring Gilgit, and in parts of Upper Swat. Speakers of Khowar have also migrated heavily to Pakistan's major urban...
is the predominant language of Chitral, more than ten other languages are spoken here. These include
Kalasha-munKalash or Kalasha is an Indo-European language in the Indo-Iranian branch, further classified as a Dardic language in the Chitral Group...
,
PalulaPalula , Ashreti, or Dangarikwar , is a language spoken by approximately 10,000 people in the valleys of Ashret and Biori, as well as in the village Puri in the Shishi valley, and at least by a portion of the population in the village Kalkatak, in the Chitral District of the North-West Frontier...
, Dameli, Gawar-Bati,
NuristaniThe Nuristani languages are a third separate group of the Indo-Iranian language family, and they are spoken primarily in eastern Afghanistan.-History:The Nuristani languages were not described in the literature until the 19th century...
,
YidghaThe Yidgha language is a Pamir language spoken in the Upper Lutkuh Valley of Chitral, west of Garam Chishma in Pakistan. Yidgha is similar to the Munji language spoken on the Afghan side of the border....
,
BurushaskiBurushaski is a language isolate . It is spoken by some 87,000 Burusho people in the Hunza, Nagar, Yasin, and parts of the Gilgit valleys in the Northern Areas in Pakistan and by about 300 Burusho people in Srinagar, India...
, Gujar,
WakhiWakhi is an Indo-European language in the sub-branch of Southeastern Iranian languages and is intimately related to other Pamir languages and Pashto.-Classification and Distribution:...
,
KyrgyzKyrgyz or Kirghiz is a Turkic language and, together with Russian, an official language of Kyrgyzstan...
,
PersianPersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq and Bahrain, and has a status of official language in the first three countries under different names...
and
PashtoPashto , also known as Afghani, is an Indo-European language spoken primarily in Afghanistan and western Pakistan. Pashto belongs to the Eastern Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian language family...
. Since many of these languages have no written form, letters are usually written in
UrduUrdu is a Central Indo-Aryan language of the Indo-Iranian branch, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. It is one of the two official languages of Pakistan. It is also one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of five Indian states...
or
PersianPersian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is widely spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and to some extent in Iraq and Bahrain, and has a status of official language in the first three countries under different names...
.
Books
- Decker, Kendall D. (1992) Languages of Chitral ISBN 969-8023-15-1 http://www.ethnologue.com/show_work.asp?id=32850
- Morgenstierne, Georg (1926) Report on a Linguistic Mission to Afghanistan. Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning, Serie C I-2. Oslo. ISBN 0-923891-09-9
External links