Pamir languages | |
---|---|
(ethnically defined) | |
Ethnicity | Pamiris |
Geographic distribution | Pamir Mountains |
Linguistic classification | Indo-European
|
Glottolog | shug1237 (Shughni-Yazgulami) yidg1239 (Yidgha-Munji) sang1316 (Sanglechi-Ishkashimi) wakh1245 (Wakhi) |
The Pamir languages are an areal group of the Eastern Iranian languages, spoken by numerous people in the Pamir Mountains, primarily along the Panj River and its tributaries.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Pamir language family was sometimes referred to as the Ghalchah languages by western scholars. [1] The term Ghalchah is no longer used to refer to the Pamir languages or the native speakers of these languages.
One of the most prolific researchers of the Pamir languages was Soviet linguist Ivan Ivanovich Zarubin.
The Pamirian languages are spoken primarily in the Badakhshan Province of northeastern Afghanistan and the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of eastern Tajikistan.
Pamirian languages are also spoken in Xinjiang and the Pamir language Sarikoli is spoken beyond the Sarikol Range on the Afghanistan-China border and thus qualifies as the easternmost of the extant Iranian languages.
Wakhi communities are also found in the adjacent Chitral District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and in Gojal, Gilgit Baltistan in Pakistan.
The only other living member of the Southeastern Iranian group is Pashto.
No features uniting the Pamir languages as a single subgroup of Iranian have been demonstrated. [2] The Ethnologue lists the Pamir languages along with Pashto as Southeastern Iranian, [3] however, according to Encyclopedia Iranica, the Pamirian languages and Pashto belong to the North-Eastern Iranian branch. [4]
Members of the Pamirian language area include four reliable groups: a Shughni-Yazgulyam group including Shughni, Sarikoli, and Yazgulyam; Munji and Yidgha; Ishkashimi and related dialects; and Wakhi. They have the subject-object-verb syntactic typology.
Václav Blažek (2019) suggests that the Pamir languages have a Burushaski-like substratum. Although Burushaski is today spoken in Pakistan to the south of the Pamir language area, Burushaski formerly had a much wider geographic distribution before being assimilated by Indo-Iranian languages. [5]
The Shughni, Sarikoli, and Yazgulyam languages belong to the Shughni-Yazgulami branch. There are about 75,000 speakers of languages in this family in Afghanistan and Tajikistan (including the dialects of Rushani, Bartangi, Oroshori, Khufi, and Shughni). In 1982, there were about 20,000 speakers of Sarikoli in the Sarikol Valley located in the Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County in Xinjiang Province, China. Shughni and Sarikoli are not mutually intelligible. In 1994, there were 4000 speakers of Yazgulyam along the Yazgulyam River in Tajikistan. Yazgulyam is not written.
The Vanji language was spoken in the Vanj river valley in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region in Tajikistan, and was related to Yazgulyam. In the 19th century, the region was forcibly annexed to the Bukharan Emirate and a violent assimilation campaign was undertaken. By the end of the 19th century the Vanji language had disappeared, displaced by Tajik Persian.
Most language speakers and others in Tajikistan refer to languages in this group as 'Pamirski" or 'Pamir'. (e.g. "I can speak Pamir, Ishkashem and Wakhi")
The Munji and Yidgha languages are closely related.[ citation needed ] There are about 6,000 speakers of Yidgha in Upper Lotkoh Valley recorded in the former Chitral district of Pakistan, and in 2008 there were around 5,300 speakers of Munji mainly in the Mamalgha and Munjan valleys in the Kuran wa Munjan district of the Badakhshan province in northeastern Afghanistan. Munji-Yidgha shares with Bactrian a development *ð > /l/, absent from the other three Pamir groups. The extinct Sarghulami language of Badakhshan is thought to be of the Munji-Yidgha branch.
There are about 2,500 speakers of Sanglechi and Ishkashmi in Afghanistan and Tajikistan respectively, they are not written languages.
There are around 58,000 speakers of the Wakhi language in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, China, Pakistan, and Russia.
The vast majority of Pamir speakers in Tajikistan and Afghanistan also use Tajik (Persian) as a literary language, which is—unlike the languages of the Pamir group—a Southwestern Iranian tongue. The language group is endangered, with the total number of speakers roughly around 100,000 in 1990.
The Demographics of Tajikistan is about the demography of the population of Tajikistan, including population growth, population density, ethnicity, education level, health, economic status, religious affiliations, and other aspects of the population.
Tajiks are a Persian-speaking Iranian ethnic group native to Central Asia, living primarily in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Tajiks are the largest ethnicity in Tajikistan, and the second-largest in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. They speak varieties of Persian, a Western Iranian language. In Tajikistan, since the 1939 Soviet census, its small Pamiri and Yaghnobi ethnic groups are included as Tajiks. In China, the term is used to refer to its Pamiri ethnic groups, the Tajiks of Xinjiang, who speak the Eastern Iranian Pamiri languages. In Afghanistan, the Pamiris are counted as a separate ethnic group.
Gorno-Badakhshan, officially the Badakhshan Mountainous Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region in eastern Tajikistan, in the Pamir Mountains. It makes up nearly forty-five percent of the country's land area but only two percent of its population.
Wakhi is an Indo-European language in the Eastern Iranian branch of the language family spoken today in Wakhan District, Northern Afghanistan and also in Tajikistan, Northern Pakistan and Western China.
The Wakhi people, also locally referred to as the Wokhik, are an Iranian ethnic group native to Central and South Asia. They are found in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and China—primarily situated in and around Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor, the northernmost part of Pakistan's Gilgit−Baltistan and Chitral, Tajikistan's Gorno−Badakhshan Autonomous Region and the southwestern areas of China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The Wakhi people are native speakers of the Wakhi language, an Eastern Iranian language.
The Yidgha language is an Eastern Iranian language of the Pamir group spoken in the upper Lotkoh Valley of Chitral in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Yidgha is similar to the Munji language spoken on the Afghan side of the border.
The Yazghulami language (also Yazgulami, Yazgulyami, Iazgulem, Yazgulyam, Yazgulam, Yazgulyamskiy, Jazguljamskij, is a member of the Southeastern subgroup of the Iranian languages, spoken by around 9,000 people along the Yazghulom River in Gorno-Badakhshan, Tajikistan. Together with Shugni, it is classified in a Shugni-Yazgulami subgroup of the areal group of Pamir languages. Virtually all speakers are bilingual in the Tajik language.
The Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages, having emerged during the Middle Iranian era. The Avestan language is often classified as early Eastern Iranian. As opposed to the Middle-era Western Iranian dialects, the Middle-era Eastern Iranian dialects preserve word-final syllables.
Ishkashimi is an Iranian language spoken by Ishkashimi people who live predominantly in the Badakhshan Province in Afghanistan and in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region in Tajikistan.
Shughni or Khughni, is one of the Pamir languages of the Southeastern Iranian language group. Its distribution is in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region in Tajikistan, Badakhshan Province in Afghanistan, Chitral district in Pakistan and Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County in China.
The Sarikoli language is a member of the Pamir subgroup of the Southeastern Iranian languages spoken by the Pamiris of Xinjiang, China. It is officially referred to in China as the "Tajik language", although it is different from the related Iranian language spoken in Tajikistan, which is considered a dialect of Persian.
The Pamiris are an Eastern Iranian ethnic group, native to Central Asia, living primarily in Tajikistan (Gorno-Badakhshan), Afghanistan (Badakhshan), Pakistan (Gilgit-Baltistan) and China. They speak a variety of different languages, amongst which languages of the Eastern Iranian Pamir language group stand out. The languages of the Shughni-Rushani group, alongside Wakhi, are the most widely spoken Pamir languages of this area.
Afghanistan is a linguistically diverse nation, with upwards of 40 distinct languages. However, Dari and Pashto are two of the most prominent languages in the country, and have shared official status under various governments of Afghanistan. Dari, as a shared language between multiple ethnic groups in the country, has served as a historical lingua franca between different linguistic groups in the region and is the most widely understood language in the country. Pashto is also widely spoken in the region; but the language does not have a diverse multi-ethnic population like Dari, and the language is not as commonly spoken by non-Pashtuns. Dari and Pashto are also "relatives", as both are Iranian languages.
Rushani is one of the Pamir languages spoken in Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Rushani is relatively closer to all Northern Pamiri languages sub-group whether it is Shughni, Yazgulami, Sarikuli or Oroshori sharing many grammatical and vocabulary similarity with all of them especially with Shughni and thus some linguists consider it a dialect of Shughni.
The Bartangi language is a Pamir language spoken along the Bartang River from Yemtz to Nikbist, in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region. It is typically classified as a dialect of Shughni, but is quite distinct. Within Bartangi, there are two (sub)dialects, Basid and Sipandzh, which are named after the villages in which they are spoken. It is not written.
The Sarikol Range is a mountain range in the Pamirs on the border of Tajikistan and the People's Republic of China.
Fayzabad is a city in northeastern Afghanistan, with a population of around 39,555 people. It serves as the provincial capital and largest city of Badakhshan Province. It is situated in Fayzabad District and is at an altitude of 1,254 m (4,114 ft).
Oroshori is a dialect of Shughni, a Pamiri language spoken in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region in Tajikistan as well as 267 speakers in Afghanistan's Badakhshan Province. It is similar to other dialects of Shughni such as Rushani and Bartangi. Oroshori contains many loanwords from Sarikoli as well as Kyrgyz.
The Shughni are an Iranian sub-ethnic group of Pamiris, who reside in the Pamir Mountains of the Badakhshan region of Central Asia. They mostly live in the country of Tajikistan, while a minority lives in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China. They speak the Shughni language, an Eastern Iranian language of the Pamiri subgroup.
The Yidgha-Munji people also known as Mukhbani are the Iranian-Pamiri peoples inhabiting the Lotkoh Valley in Chitral and Kuran wa Munjan District in Badakhshan in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.