Kalasha language

Kalasha
Kal'as'amondr / کاࣇاشؕا موندر
Native toPakistan (Chitral District)
RegionKalasha Valleys
EthnicityKalash
Native speakers
7,500 (2023)
Dialects
Arabic script, Latin script
Language codes
ISO 639-3kls
Glottologkala1372
ELPKalasha
Linguasphere59-AAB-ab

Kalasha (IPA: [kaɫaʂaː], locally: Kal'as'amondr) is a Dardic Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Kalash people, in the Chitral District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. There are an estimated 7,466 speakers of Kalasha according to the 2023 Census of Pakistan. It is an endangered language and there is an ongoing language shift to Khowar.

Kalasha should not be confused with the nearby Nuristani Kalasha (known as "Kalasha-ala" or "Waigali"), which is a Nuristani language. According to Badshah Munir Bukhari, a researcher on the Kalash, "Kalasha" is also the ethnic name for the Nuristani inhabitants of a region southwest of the Kalasha Valleys, in the Waygal and middle Pech Valleys of Afghanistan's Nuristan Province. The name "Kalasha" seems to have been adopted for the Kalash people by the Kalasha speakers of Chitral from the Nuristanis of Waygal, who for a time expanded up to southern Chitral several centuries ago. However, there is no close connection between the Indo-Aryan language Kalasha-mun (Kalasha) and the Nuristani language Kalasha-ala (Waigali), which descend from different branches of the Indo-Iranian languages.

Kalasha, alongside Khowar, retain some archaic features of the Indo-Aryan languages, such as archaic Vedic Sanskrit vocabulary, sibilants, and several types of consonant clusters long lost in others.

History

Early scholars to have done work on Kalasha include the 19th-century orientalist Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner and the 20th-century linguist Georg Morgenstierne. More recently, studies have been undertaken by Elena Bashir and several others. The development of practical literacy materials has been associated with the Kalasha linguist Taj Khan Kalash. The Southern Kalash or Urtsun Kalash shifted to a Khowar-influenced dialect of Kalasha-mun in the 20th century called Urtsuniwar.

Classification

Of all the languages in Pakistan, Kalasha is likely the most conservative, along with the nearby language Khowar. In a few cases, Kalasha is even more conservative than Khowar, e.g. in retaining voiced aspirate consonants, which have disappeared from most other Dardic languages.

Some of the typical retentions of sounds and clusters (and meanings) are seen in the following list. However, note some common New Indo-Aryan and Dardic features as well.

Phonology

The Kalasha language is phonologically atypical because it contrasts plain, long, nasal and retroflex vowels as well as combinations of these. Set out below is the phonology of Kalasha:

Vowels

Front Central Back
Close i ĩ i˞ ĩ˞u ũ u˞ ũ˞
Mid e ẽ e˞ ẽ˞ o õ o˞ õ˞
Open a ã a˞ ã˞

Consonants

As with other Dardic languages, the phonemic status of the breathy voiced series is debatable. Some analyses are unsure of whether they are phonemic or allophonic—i.e., the regular pronunciations of clusters of voiced consonants with /h/.[needs update]

Labial Alveolar Retroflex (Alveolo)-
Palatal		 Velar Uvular Glottal
Nasal m n (ɳ) (ɲ) (ŋ)
Stop voiceless p t ʈ k (q)
voiced b d ɖ ɡ
aspirated pʰ tʰ ʈʰ kʰ
breathy voiced bʱ dʱ ɖʱ ɡʱ
Affricate voiceless ts tʂ tɕ
voiced dz dʐ dʑ
aspirated tsʰ tʂʰ tɕʰ
breathy voiced dʑʱ
Fricative voiceless s ʂ ɕ (x) h
voiced z ʐ ʑ (ɣ)
Approximant l ɫ j w
Rhotic r (ɽ)

The phonemes /x ɣ q/ are found in loanwords.

Vocabulary comparison

The following table compares Kalash words to their cognates in other Indo-Aryan languages.

English Kalasha Sanskrit other Indo-Aryan languages
bone athi, aṭhí asthi Nepali: ā̃ṭh 'the ribs'
urine mutra, mútra mūtra Hindi: mūt; Assamese: mut
village grom grāma Hindi: gā̃w; Assamese: gãü
rope rajuk, raĵhú-k rajju Hindi: lej, lejur; Assamese: lezu
smoke thum dhūma Hindi: dhūā̃, dhuwā̃; Assamese: dhü̃a
meat mos maṃsa Hindi: mā̃s, mās, māsā
dog shua, śõ.'a śvan Sinhala: suvan
ant pililak, pilílak pipīla, pippīlika Hindi: pipṛā; Assamese: pipora
son put, putr putra Hindi: pūt; Assamese: put
long driga, dríga dīrgha Hindi: dīha; Assamese: digha
eight asht, aṣṭ aṣṭā Hindi: āṭh; Assamese: ath
broken china, čhína chinna Hindi: chīn-nā 'to snatch'
kill nash nash, naś, naśyati Hindi: nā̆s 'destroy'

Conservative traits

Examples of conservative features in Kalasha and Khowar are (note, NIA = New Indo-Aryan, MIA = Middle Indo-Aryan, OIA = Old Indo-Aryan):

References

  1. 1 2 "Pakistan Bureau of Statistics – Data, Statistics, Decisions" (PDF). www.pbs.gov.pk. Retrieved 15 November 2025.
  2. ↑ Kalasha at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  3. 1 2 3 Heegård Petersen (2015)
  4. ↑ "Richard Strand's Nuristân Site: The Kalasha of Kalashüm". Archived from the original on 1 November 2001. Retrieved 1 November 2001., http://nuristan.info/Nuristani/Kalasha/kalasha.html
  5. ↑ Georg Morgenstierne. Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages, Vol. IV: The Kalasha Language & Notes on Kalasha. Oslo 1973, p. 184, details pp. 195-237
  6. ↑ Gérard Fussman: 1972 Atlas linguistique des parlers dardes et kafirs. Publications de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient
  7. ↑ Heegård & Mørch (2004).
  8. ↑ Kochetov & Arsenault (2008), p. 4.
  9. ↑ Эдельман (Ėdelʹman), Джой Иосифовна (Dzhoĭ Iosifovna) (1983). Дардские и нуристанские языки (Dardskie i nuristanskie jazyki) [The Dardic and Nuristani Languages]. Moscow: Nauka. p. 202.
  10. ↑ Trail & Cooper (1999).

Bibliography

Further reading