Nuristani languages
| Nuristani | |
|---|---|
| Kafiri | |
| Geographic distribution | Proto-Nuristani |
| Subdivisions |
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| Glottolog | nuri1243 |
 Nuristan region, located on southern range of Hindu Kush | |
 Nuristan Province in modern-day Afghanistan, where most speakers live | |
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| Indo-European topics |
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The Nuristani languages, also known as Kafiri languages, are one of the three groups within the
Dameli is often thought to belong to Nuristani instead of Dardic based on its vocabulary, but its pronoun system and morphology are characteristically of Dardic origin, suggesting that the language is Indo-Aryan, with heavy Nuristani influence.
Languages
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- Northern:
- Southern:
History
The prehistory of Nuristani is unclear, except that it clearly belongs to the Indo-Iranian subgroup. However, its classification within Indo-Iranian was debated until recent research settled its position as a third branch distinct from Indo-Aryan or Iranian, though extensive Indo-Aryan influence can be detected within the Nuristani languages, pointing to prolonged contact. According to Jakob Halfmann (2023), Nuristani may have had contact with Bactrian in the 1st millennium.
The Nuristani languages were not described in literature until the 19th century. The older name for the region was
The languages are spoken by tribal peoples in an extremely isolated mountainous region of the
Many Nuristani people now speak other languages, such as
Proto-Nuristani
 |
| Proto-Nuristani | |
|---|---|
| PNur | |
| Reconstruction of | Nuristani languages |
Reconstructed ancestors | |
The earliest divergence of Nuristani from the other Indo-Iranian languages may be indicated by the fact that the Ruki sound law does not apply after *u: e.g. Kamviri musa /muˈsɘ/ "mouse".
Nuristani shares with Iranian the merger of the tenuis and breathy-voiced consonants, the preservation of the distinction between the two sets of Indo-Iranian voiced palatals (which merged in Indo-Aryan), and the fronting of the Proto-Indo-Iranian primary palatal consonants. The latter were retained as dental affricates in Proto-Nuristani, in contrast to simplification to sibilants (in most of Iranian) or interdentals (in Persian). Nuristani is distinguished by the lack of debuccalizing /s/ to /h/ as in Indo-Aryan. Later on /*d͡z/ shifted to /z/ in all Nuristani varieties other than Kamviri and Tregami, while /*t͡s/ shifted to /s/ only in Ashkun.
Many Nuristani languages have
See also
References
Bibliography
- Decker, Kendall D. (1992). Languages of Chitral. In: Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan 5. Islamabad: National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University and Summer Institute of Linguistics. ISBN 4-87187-520-2.
- Grjunberg, A. L. (1971). K dialektologii dardskich jazykov (glangali i zemiaki). Indijskaja i iranskaja filologija: Voprosy dialektologii. Moscow.
- Jakob Halfmann (2023). Lād "law": a Bactrian loanword in the Nuristani languages, in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, United Kingdom.
- Morgenstierne, Georg (1926). Report on a Linguistic Mission to Afghanistan. ISBN 0-923891-09-9.
- Jettmar, Karl (1985). Religions of the Hindu Kush ISBN 0-85668-163-6
- Mallory, J. P. In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth. Thames and Hudson, 1989.
- Mallory, James P.; Adams, Douglas Q. "Indo-Iranian Languages". In: Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.
- Strand, Richard F. "NURESTÂNI LANGUAGES" in Encyclopædia Iranica
Further reading
- Degener, Almuth (2002). "The Nuristani Languages". In Sims-Williams, Nicholas (ed.). Indo-Iranian Languages and Peoples. Proceedings of the British Academy. Vol. 116. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 103–117.
- Fries, Simon; Halfmann, Jakob; Hill, Eugen; Hübner, Denise (2023). "From noun to future tense: The functional diachrony of the l-future in the Nuristani languages and its typological background". STUF – Language Typology and Universals. 76 (1): 53–85. .
- Hegedűs, Irén; Blažek, Václav (2010). "On the position of Nuristani within Indo-Iranian". Paper presented at the conference Sound of Indo-European 2 (Opava, Oct 2010).
- Hegedűs, Irén (2022). "Two plant-based numeral classifiers in Nuristani languages: grain and branch". Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics. 9 (1–2): 69–95. .
- Kuz’Mina, E.E.; Mallory, J.P. (2007). "The genesis of the dards and nuristani". The Origin of the Indo-Iranians. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. pp. 307–320. .
- Rybatzki, V. (2013). "Vocabularies from the middle of the 20th century from Afghanistan Part one: Iranian, Nuristani and Dardic materials I.". Acta Orientalia. 66 (3): 297–348. JSTOR 43282518.
- Rybatzki, Volker (2013). "Vocabularies from the middle of the 20th century from Afghanistan Part one: Iranian, Nuristani and Dardic materials II". Acta Orientalia. 66 (4): 443–469. JSTOR 43282530.
- Strand, Richard F. (2022). "Ethnolinguistic and Genetic Clues to Nûristânî Origins". International Journal of Diachronic Linguistics and Linguistic Reconstruction. 19: 267–353.
External links
- Reiko and Jun's Kalash Page
- Hindi/Urdu-English-Kalasha-Khowar-Nuristani-Pashtu Comparative Word List
- Richard Strand's Nuristân Site This site is the primary source on the linguistics and ethnography of Nuristân and neighboring regions, collected and analyzed over the last forty years by the leading scholar on Nuristân.
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