The Dardic languages (also Dardu or Pisaca), also known as Hindu-Kush Indo-Aryan languages, is a group of several Indo-Aryan languages spoken in northern Pakistan, northwestern India and parts of northeastern Afghanistan.
Rather than close linguistic or ethnic relationships, the term Dardic is a geographical concept, denoting the northwesternmost group of Indo-Aryan languages. There is no ethnic unity among the speakers of these languages, nor can the languages be traced to a single ancestor.
The extinct Gandhari language, used by the Gandhara civilization, was Dardic in nature. Linguistic evidence has linked Gandhari with some living Dardic languages, particularly Torwali and other Kohistani languages.
History
Leitner's Dardistan, in its broadest sense, became the basis for the classification of the languages in the north-west of the Indo-Aryan linguistic area (which includes present-day eastern Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, and Kashmir). George Abraham Grierson, with scant data, borrowed the term and proposed an independent Dardic family within the Indo-Iranian languages. However, Grierson's formulation of Dardic is now considered to be incorrect in its details, and has therefore been rendered obsolete by modern scholarship.
Georg Morgenstierne, who conducted an extensive fieldwork in the region during the early 20th century, revised Grierson's classification and came to the view that only the "Kafiri" (Nuristani) languages formed an independent branch of the Indo-Iranian languages separate from Indo-Aryan and Iranian families, and determined that the Dardic languages were unmistakably Indo-Aryan in character. For example driga "long" in Kalasha is nearly identical to dīrghá in Sanskrit and ašrú "tear" in Khowar is identical to the Sanskrit word.
French Indologist Gérard Fussman points out that the term Dardic is geographic, not a linguistic expression. Taken literally, it allows one to believe that all the languages spoken in Dardistan are Dardic. Richard Strand has argued that the term should be abandoned, citing both the lack of justification for a distinct Dardic subgroup and the problematic history of the label, and instead proposes classifying the languages directly into smaller genealogical groups within Indo-Aryan. Both terms are increasingly used in recent scholarship as replacements for Dardic.
However, Anton Kogan has suggested an 'East-Dardic' sub-family; comprising the 'Kashmiri', 'Kohistani' and 'Shina' groups.
Scholars have differed in their assessment of the internal subgrouping of the languages traditionally labelled Dardic. Some proposed groupings appear comparatively stable, while others have been substantially revised or remain uncertain. Rambani and Sarazi have likewise been excluded from Kashmiri and classified under Western Pahari. by contrast, 'Kohistani' is frequently viewed as a looser regional grouping, and some quantitative analyses do not separate Kohistani' and 'Shina' cleanly. the Pahari languages, including the Central Pahari languages of Uttarakhand, and purportedly even further afield. Some linguists have posited that Dardic lects may have originally been spoken throughout a much larger region, stretching from the mouth of the Indus (in Sindh) northwards in an arc, and then eastwards through modern day Himachal Pradesh to Kumaon. However, this has not been conclusively established.
Subdivisions
thumb|Map showcasing the areas where each Dardic language is spoken
thumb|Map showcasing the areas where each Dardic language is spoken, with subdivisions visible
Dardic languages have been organized into the following subfamilies:
- Shina languages: Shina, Brokskad, Kalkoti, Kohistani Shina, Kundal Shahi, Palula, Savi, Ushoji
- Kohistani languages: Maiya (Indus Kohistani), Bateri, Chilisso, Gawri, Gawro, Torwali, Mankiyali, Wotapuri-Katarqalai, Tirahi
- Chitrali languages: Kalasha (Urtsuniwar), Khowar
- Pashai languages
- Kunar languages: Dameli, Gawar-Bati, Nangalami (Grangali), Shumashti
Characteristics
Loss of voiced aspiration
Virtually all Dardic languages have experienced a partial or complete loss of voiced aspirated consonants. Khowar uses the word buum for 'earth' (Sanskrit: bhumi), Pashai uses the word duum for 'smoke' (Urdu: dhuān, Sanskrit: dhūma) and Kashmiri uses the word dọd for 'milk' (Sanskrit: dugdha, Urdu: dūdh). This was seen in Ashokan rock edicts (erected 269 BCE to 231 BCE) in the Gandhara region, where Dardic dialects were and still are widespread. Examples include a tendency to spell the Classical Sanskrit words priyadarshi (one of the titles of Emperor Ashoka) as instead priyadrashi and dharma as dhrama.
Dardic languages also show other consonantal changes. Kashmiri, for instance, has a marked tendency to shift k to ch and j to z (e.g. zon 'person' is cognate to Sanskrit jan 'person or living being' and Persian jān 'life').
Verb position in Dardic
Unique among the Dardic languages, Kashmiri presents "verb second" as the normal grammatical form. This is similar to many Germanic languages, such as German and Dutch, as well as Uto-Aztecan O'odham and Northeast Caucasian Ingush. All other Dardic languages, and more generally within Indo-Iranian, follow the subject-object-verb (SOV) pattern.
{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Language
!First example sentence
!Second example sentence
|-
|English (Germanic)
|This is a horse.
|We will go to Tokyo.
|-
|Kashmiri (Dardic)
|Yi chu akh gur.
|Ạs' gatshav Tokiyo.
|-
|Katë (Nuristani)
|Ina ušpa âsa.
|Imo Tokyo âćamo.
|-
|Pashto (Iranian)
|Masculine: Dā yaw as day. / Feminine: Dā yawa aspa da.
|Mūng/Mūẓ̌ ba Ṭokyo ta/tar lāṛšū.
|-
|Dari (Iranian)
|In yak asb ast.
|Mâ ba Tokyo xâhem raft.
|-
|Shina (Dardic)
|Anu ek aspo han.
|Be Tokyo et bujun.
|-
|Brokskat (Dardic)
|Homo ek apʂak bait.
|Ba Tokyo ray "byénaings".
|-
|Indus Kohistani (Dardic)
|Shu ek gho thu.
|Be Tokyo ye bay-tho.
|-
|Sindhi (Indo-Aryan)
|Heeu hiku ghoro aahe.
|Asaan Tokyo veendaaseen.
|-
|Hindi-Urdu (Indo-Aryan)
|Ye ek ghoṛa hain.
|Ham Tokyo jāenge.
|-
|Punjabi (Indo-Aryan)
|É (iha) ikk kòṛa ài.
|Asĩ Tokyo jāvange.
|-
|Mandeali (Indo-Aryan)
|Ye ek ghōṛā hā.
|Āsā Tokyo jāṇā.
|-
|Nepali (Indo-Aryan)
|Yo euta ghoda ho.
|Hami Tokyo jānechhaũ.
|-
|Garhwali (Indo-Aryan)
|Yuu ek ghoda cha.
|Ham Tokyo Jaula.
|-
|Kumaoni (Indo-Aryan)
|Yo ek ghwad chhu.
|Ham Tokyo jaunl.
|-
|Khowar (Dardic language)
|Haya ei istore.
|Ispa Tokyo ote besi.
|}
See also
- Nuristani languages
Notes
:1.The Khowar word for 'earth' is more accurately represented, with tonality, as buúm rather than buum, where ú indicates a rising tone.
:2.The word drolid actually includes a Kashmiri half-vowel, which is difficult to render in the Urdu, Devnagri and Roman scripts alike. Sometimes, an umlaut is used when it occurs in conjunction with a vowel, so the word might be more accurately rendered as drölid.
:3.Sandhi rules in Sanskrit allow the combination of multiple neighboring words together into a single word: for instance, word-final aḥ plus word-initial a merge into o. In actual Sanskrit literature, with the effects of sandhi, this sentence would be expected to appear as Eṣá ékóśvósti. Also, word-final a is Sanskrit is a schwa, (similar to the ending 'e' in the German name, Nietzsche), so e.g. the second word is pronounced . Pitch accent is indicated with an acute accent in the case of the older Vedic language, which was inherited from Proto-Indo-European.
:4.Hindi-Urdu, and other non-Dardic Indo-Aryan languages, also sometimes utilize a "verb second" order (similar to Kashmiri and English) for dramatic effect. Yeh ek ghoṛā hain is the normal conversational form in Hindi-Urdu. Yeh hain ek ghoṛā is also grammatically correct but indicates a dramatic revelation or other surprise. This dramatic form is often used in news headlines in Hindi-Urdu, Punjabi and other Indo-Aryan languages.
Sources
Academic literature from outside South Asia
- Morgenstierne, G. Irano-Dardica. Wiesbaden 1973;
- Morgenstierne, G. Die Stellung der Kafirsprachen. In Irano-Dardica, 327-343. Wiesbaden, Reichert 1975
- Decker, Kendall D. Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan, Volume 5. Languages of Chitral.
Academic literature from South Asia
- The Comparative study of Urdu and Khowar. Badshah Munir Bukhari National Language Authority Pakistan 2003. [No Reference]
- National Institute of Pakistani Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University & Summer Institute of Linguistics
Further reading
- Khan, Sawar, et al. "Ethnogenetic analysis reveals that Kohistanis of Pakistan were genetically linked to west Eurasians by a probable ancestral genepool from Eurasian steppe in the bronze age." Mitochondrion 47 (2019): 82-93.