Kalasha language
Indo-Aryan language spoken in Chitral, Pakistan
title: "Kalasha language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["dardic-languages", "kalash-people", "languages-of-lower-chitral-district"] description: "Indo-Aryan language spoken in Chitral, Pakistan" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalasha_language" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Indo-Aryan language spoken in Chitral, Pakistan ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Kalasha |
| nativename | Kal'as'amondr / کاࣇاشؕا موندر |
| image | Kalasha.svg |
| states | Pakistan (Chitral District) |
| region | Kalasha Valleys |
| ethnicity | Kalash |
| speakers | |
| date | 2023 |
| ref | e18 |
| familycolor | Indo-European |
| fam2 | Indo-Iranian |
| fam3 | Indo-Aryan |
| fam4 | Dardic |
| fam5 | Chitrali |
| script | Arabic script, Latin script |
| iso3 | kls |
| glotto | kala1372 |
| glottorefname | Chitral Kalasha |
| lingua | 59-AAB-ab |
| dia1 | Urtsuniwar |
| :: |
| name = Kalasha | nativename = Kal'as'amondr / کاࣇاشؕا موندر | image = Kalasha.svg | states = Pakistan (Chitral District) | region = Kalasha Valleys | ethnicity = Kalash | speakers = | date = 2023 | ref = e18 | familycolor = Indo-European | fam2 = Indo-Iranian | fam3 = Indo-Aryan | fam4 = Dardic | fam5 = Chitrali | script = Arabic script, Latin script | iso3 = kls | glotto = kala1372 | glottorefname = Chitral Kalasha | lingua = 59-AAB-ab | map = | dia1 = Urtsuniwar
Kalasha (, locally: Kal'as'amondr) is an 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 (Heegård & Mørch 2004). Set out below is the phonology of Kalasha:
Vowels
::data[format=table]
| Front | Central | Back | Close | Mid | Open |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| :: |
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/.{{Cite book | title = The Dardic and Nuristani Languages | last = Edelman | first = D. I. | year = 1983 | publisher = (Institut vostokovedenii︠a︡ (Akademii︠a︡ nauk SSSR) | location = Moscow | pages = 202
::data[format=table] | Labial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Postalveolar/ Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | Nasal | Stop | voiceless | voiced | aspirated | breathy voiced | Affricate | voiceless | voiced | aspirated | breathy voiced | Fricative | voiceless | voiced | Approximant | Rhotic | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | | | () | () | () | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | () | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | () | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | () | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | () | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ::
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.
::data[format=table]
| English | Kalasha | Sanskrit | other Indo-Aryan languages |
|---|---|---|---|
| bone | athi, aṭhí | asthi | 'the ribs' |
| urine | mutra, mútra | mūtra | ; |
| village | grom | grāma | ; |
| rope | rajuk, raĵhú-k | rajju | ; |
| smoke | thum | dhūma | ; |
| meat | mos | maṃsa | |
| dog | shua, śõ.'a | śvan | |
| ant | pililak, pilílak | pipīla, pippīlika | ; |
| son | put, putr | putra | ; |
| long | driga, dríga | dīrgha | ; |
| eight | asht, aṣṭ | aṣṭā | ; |
| broken | china, čhína | chinna | 'to snatch' |
| kill | nash | nash, naś, naśyati | '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):
- Preservation of intervocalic /m/ (reduced to a nasalized /w/ or /v/ in late MIA elsewhere), e.g. Kal. grom, Kho. gram "village"
- Non-deletion of intervocalic /t/, preserved as /l/ or /w/ in Kalasha, /r/ in Khowar (deleted in middle MIA elsewhere), e.g. Kho. brār "brother"
- Preservation of the distinction between all three OIA sibilants (dental /s/, palatal /ś/, retroflex /ṣ/); in most of the subcontinent, these three had already merged before 200 BC (early MIA)
- Preservation of sibilant + consonant, stop + /r/ clusters (lost by early MIA in most other places):
- Kal. aṣṭ, Kho. oṣṭ "eight"
- Kho. kren- "buy"
- Preservation of /ts/ in Kalasha (reinterpreted as a single phoneme)
- Direct preservation of many OIA case endings as so-called "layer 1" case endings (as opposed to newer "layer 2" case endings, typically tacked onto a layer-1 oblique case):
- Nominative
- Oblique (Animate): Pl. Kal. -an, Kho. -an
- Genitive: Kal. -as (sg.), -an (pl.); Kho. -o (sg.), -an, -ān (pl.)
- Dative: Kal. -a, Kho. -a
- Instrumental: Kal. -an, Kho. -en
- Ablative: Kal. -au, Kho. -ār
- Locative: Kal. -ai, Kho. -i
- Preservation of more than one verbal conjugation (e.g. Kho. mār-īm "I kill" vs. bri-um "I die")
- Preservation of OIA distinction between "primary" (non-past) and "secondary" (past) endings and of a past-tense "augment" in a-, both lost entirely elsewhere: Kal. pim "I drink", apis "I drank"; kārim "I do", akāris "I did"
- Preservation of a verbal preterite tense (see examples above), with normal nominative/accusative marking and normal verbal agreement, as opposed to the ergative-type past tenses with nominal-type agreement elsewhere in NIA (originally based on a participial passive construction)
References
Bibliography
- {{Cite book| title = Topics in Kalasha Syntax: An Areal and Typological Perspective | last1 = Bashir | first1 = Elena L.|author1-link=Elena Bashir | publisher = (Ph.D. dissertation) University of Michigan | date = 1988
- {{Cite book| title = Gates of Peristan: History, Religion, and Society in the Hindu Kush | last1 = Cacopardo | first1 = Alberto M. | last2 = Cacopardo | first2 = Augusto S. | publisher = Instituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente | location = Rome | date = 2001
- {{Cite book| title = Languages of Chitral | last1 = Decker | first1 = Kendall D. | volume = 5 | pages = 257 | publisher = National Institute of Pakistani Studies | series = Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan | date = 1992 | isbn = 969-8023-15-1
- {{Cite book| title = Atlas linguistique des parlers dardes et kafirs | last = Fussman | first = Gerard | author-link = Gérard Fussman | volume = (two volumes)
- {{Cite book| title = Synchronic and Diachronic Aspects of Himalayan Linguistics | last = Heegård | first = Jan | author2 = Mørch, Ida Elisabeth | chapter = Retroflex vowels and other peculiarities in Kalasha sound system | publisher = Mouton | location = The Hague | editor1 = Anju Saxena | editor2 = Jadranka Gvozdanovic | series = Selected Proceedings of the 7th Himalayan Languages Symposium held in Uppsala, Sweden | date = March 2004
- {{Cite journal |last=Heegård Petersen |first=Jan |date=30 September 2015 |title=Kalasha texts – With introductory grammar |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03740463.2015.1069049 |journal=Acta Linguistica Hafniensia |language=en |volume=47 |issue=sup1 |pages=1–275 |doi=10.1080/03740463.2015.1069049 |s2cid=218660179 |issn=0374-0463 |url-access=subscription
- {{Cite book| title = Religions of the Hindu Kush | last = Jettmar | first = Karl | date = 1985 | publisher = Aris & Phillips | isbn = 0-85668-163-6
- {{Citation| title = Retroflex harmony in Kalasha: Agreement or spreading? | last1 = Kochetov | first1 = Alexei | last2 = Arsenault | first2 = Paul | publisher = Cornell University | year = 2008 | volume = 39 | series = NELS | url = http://individual.utoronto.ca/arsenault/files/nels39_hndt_kalasha.pdf | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110622042626/http://individual.utoronto.ca/arsenault/files/nels39_hndt_kalasha.pdf | archive-date = 2011-06-22
- {{Cite book| title = Report on a Linguistic Mission to Afghanistan | last = Morgenstierne | first = Georg | author-link = Georg Morgenstierne | publisher = Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning | location = Oslo | series = Serie C I-2 | date = 1926 | isbn = 0-923891-09-9
- {{Cite book| title = The Kalasha Language & Notes on Kalasha | last = Morgenstierne | first = Georg | author-link = Georg Morgenstierne | volume = IV | location = Oslo | series = Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages | date = 1973 | isbn = 4871875245
- {{Cite book| title = The Kafirs of the Hindukush | author = Sir George Scott Robertson | date = 1896
- {{Cite journal| title = Notes on the Nûristânî and Dardic Languages | last = Strand | first = Richard F. | author-link = Richard Strand | volume = 93 | pages = 297–305 | journal = Journal of the American Oriental Society | number = 3 | date = 1973 | doi = 10.2307/599462 | jstor = 599462 }}
- {{Cite book| title = Gates of Peristan: History, Religion and Society in the Hindu Kush | last = Strand | first = Richard F. | author-link = Richard Strand | chapter = The Tongues of Peristân | publisher = Instituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente | location = Rome | editor1 = Alberto M. Cacopardo | editor2 = Augusto S. Cacopardo | pages = 251–259 | date = 2001
- {{Cite book| title = Kalasha dictionary—with English and Urdu | last1 = Trail | first1 = Ronald L. | last2 = Cooper | first2 = Gregory R. | volume = 7 | publisher = National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University and Summer Institute of Linguistics | location = Islamabad | series = Studies in Languages of Northern Pakistan | date = 1999 | isbn = 4871875237
References
- "Pakistan Bureau of Statistics – Data, Statistics, Decisions".
- https://www.pbs.gov.pk/sites/default/files/population/2023/tables/national/table_11.pdf
- 1998 Census Report of Pakistan. (2001). Population Census Organization, Statistics Division, Government of Pakistan.
- {{Harvsp. Heegård Petersen. 2015
- "Richard Strand's Nuristân Site: The Kalasha of Kalashüm".
- [[Georg Morgenstierne]]. Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages, Vol. IV: The Kalasha Language & Notes on Kalasha. Oslo 1973, p. 184, details pp. 195-237
- [[Gérard Fussman]]: 1972 Atlas linguistique des parlers dardes et kafirs. Publications de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient
- {{Harvsp. Kochetov. Arsenault. 2008
- {{Harvsp. Trail. Cooper. 1999
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