Gawar-Bati language
Indo-Aryan language spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan
| Gawar-Bati | |
|---|---|
| Narsati | |
 | |
| Native to | Afghanistan, Pakistan |
| Region | Kunar,province , Chitral |
Native speakers | 75,000 (2017–2024)[1] |
Language family | Indo-European
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | gwt |
| Glottolog | gawa1247 |
| ELP | Gawar-Bati |
Gawar-Bati or Narsati is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Kunar, Nari of Eastern Afghanistan, and across the border in Pakistan , It is also known as Kohistani in Kunar. Gawar-Bati has estimated speakers of 75,000. 5,0000 of them are living in ,Kunar,Nari,Afghanistan and 25,000 of them are in Chitral, Pakistan.
Study and classification
The Gawar-Bati language has not been given serious study by linguists, except that it is mentioned by George Morgenstierne (1926) and Kendall Decker (1992).
It is classified as an Indo-Aryan language of the Dardic subgroup. However, the term Dardic is not linguistic but merely geographic.[2]
Phonology
The following tables set out the phonology of the Gawar-Bati language:[3]
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i iː | u uː | |
| Mid | (e) eː | (o) oː | |
| Open | a aː |
The status of short /e/ and /o/ is unclear.
Consonants
A breathy voiced series, /bʱ dʱ gʱ/, existed recently in older speakers—and may still do so.
| Labial | Coronal | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɳ | ||||
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | ʈ | k | ||
| voiced | b | d | ɖ | ɡ | |||
| aspirated | pʰ [pf f] | tʰ | ʈʰ | kʰ | |||
| Affricate | voiceless | ts | tʂ | tʃ | |||
| voiced | dz | dʐ | dʒ | ||||
| aspirated | tsʰ | tʂʰ | tʃʰ | ||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | ʂ | ʃ | x | h | |
| voiced | z | ʐ | ʒ | ɣ | |||
| Approximant | j | w | |||||
| Lateral | plain | l | |||||
| Fricative | ɬ ~ l̥ | ||||||
| Rhotic | r | ɽ | |||||
Orthography
It is rarely written. This alphabet is used in Pakistan:[4]
| Letter | ا | ب | پ | ت | ٹ | ث | ج | چ | ح | خ | ڄ | ݮ | څ | ځ | د | ڈ | ذ | ر | ڑ | ز | ژ | ݫ | س |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transliteration | ā, Ø | b | p | t | ṭ | s | ǰ | č | h | x | c̣ | j̣ | c | j | d | ḍ | z | r | ṛ | z | ẓ | ž | s |
| IPA | [aː], Ø | [b] | [p] | [t] | [ʈ] | [s] | [d͡ʒ] | [t͡ʃ] | [h] | [x] | [ʈ͡ʂ] | [ɖ͡ʐ] | [t͡s] | [d͡z] | [d] | [ɖ] | [z] | [r~ɾ] | [ɽ] | [z] | [ʐ] | [ʒ] | [s] |
| Letter | ش | ݭ | ص | ض | ط | ظ | ع | غ | ف | ق | ک | گ | ل | ݪ | م | ن | ݨ | ں | ه | ء | و | ی | ے |
| Transliteration | š | ṣ | s | z | t | z | ʔ | ǧ | f | q | k | g | l | ł | m | n | ṇ | ˜ | h | ʔ | w, ū, o | y, ī | e |
| IPA | [ʃ] | [ʂ] | [s] | [z] | [t] | [z] | [ʔ] | [ɣ] | [f] | [q] | [k] | [ɡ] | [l] | [ɬ~l] | [m] | [n] | [ɳ] | [˜] | [h] | [ʔ] | [w], [uː], [oː] | [j], [iː] | [eː] |
| Letter | تھ | پھ | ٹھ | چھ | ڄھ | څھ | کھ | َ | ِ | ُ | |||||||||||||
| Transliteration | th | ph | ṭh | čh | c̣h | ch | kh | a | i | u | |||||||||||||
| IPA | [tʰ] | [pʰ] | [ʈʰ] | [t͡ʃʰ] | [ʈ͡ʂʰ] | [t͡sʰ] | [kʰ] | [a] | [i] | [u] |
Notes and references
- ^ Gawar-Bati at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Bashir, Elena (2007). Jain, Danesh; Cardona, George (eds.). The Indo-Aryan languages. Routledge. p. 905. ISBN 978-0415772945.
'Dardic' is a geographic cover term for those Northwest Indo-Aryan languages which [..] developed new characteristics different from the IA languages of the Indo-Gangetic plain. Although the Dardic and Nuristani (previously 'Kafiri') languages were formerly grouped together, Morgenstierne (1965) has established that the Dardic languages are Indo-Aryan, and that the Nuristani languages constitute a separate subgroup of Indo-Iranian.
- ^ Edelman, D. I. (1983). The Dardic and Nuristani Languages. Moscow: Institut vostokovedenii︠a︡ (Akademii︠a︡ nauk SSSR). p. 139.
- ^ Gawarbati Alif Be fli-online.org
Further reading
- Decker, Kendall D. (1992) Languages of Chitral Islamabad, Pakistan: National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University, 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
- Georg Morgenstierne multimedia database
- Gawar-Bati online keyboard
35°19′38″N 71°35′05″E / 35.32722°N 71.58472°E / 35.32722; 71.58472
- v
- t
- e
(by administrative unit)
| Azad Kashmir | |
|---|---|
| Balochistan | |
| Gilgit-Baltistan | |
| Khyber Pakhtunkhwa | |
| Punjab | |
| Sindh |
