Buruixaski (بروشسکی - burū́šaskī) és una llengua aïllada[1] parlada a les zones on viu el poble buruixo, és a dir a les valls de Hunza, Nagar, Yasin, Ishkoman-Barjungle i algunes zones de Gilgit al nord del Pakistan i també per uns 300 buruixos que viuen a Srinagar, Índia.[2][3] Altres noms per a la llengua són Brugaski, Kanjut (Kunjoot), Verchikwār, Boorishki, Brushas (Brushias) i Miśa:ski.
El buruixaski és un idioma parlat. De vegades s'escriu amb l'alfabet utilitzat per l'urdú, una versió de l'alfabet persa, però l'ortografia no ha estat fixada. Nasir al-Din Nasir Hunzai ha escrit poesies en buruixaski utilitzant l'alfabet urdú.
El buruixaski té cinc vocals /i e a o u/. Diverses contraccions resulten en vocals llargues; les vocals tenses tenen la tendència de ser més llargues i menys "obertes" que les no tenses. ([i e a o u] oposades a [ɪ ɛ ʌ ɔ ʊ]).
Les consonants recollides per Berger (1998) es mostren a continuació en la seva transcripció i AFI:
Aquest fonema té diverses pronunciacions, totes d'elles sons lingüísticament rars. Les descripcions varien.
Anderson, Gregory D. S. 1997. Burushaski Morphology. Pages 1021–1041 in volume 2 of Morphologies of Asia and Africa, ed. by Alan Kaye. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.
Anderson, Gregory D. S. 1999. M. Witzel's "South Asian Substrate Languages" from a Burushaski Perspective. Mother Tongue (Special Issue, October 1999).
Anderson, Gregory D. S. forthcoming b. Burushaski. In Language Islands: Isolates and Microfamilies of Eurasia, ed. by D.A. Abondolo. London: Curzon Press.
Backstrom, Peter C. Burushaski in Backstrom and Radloff (eds.), Languages of northern areas, Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan, 2. Islamabad, National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Qaid-i-Azam University and Summer Institute of Linguistics (1992), 31-54.
Bashir, Elena. 2000. A Thematic Survey of Burushaski Research. History of Language 6.1: 1–14.
Berger, Hermann. 1956. Mittelmeerische Kulturpflanzennamen aus dem Burušaski [Names of Mediterranean cultured plants from B.]. Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft 9: 4-33.
Berger, Hermann. 1959. Die Burušaski-Lehnwörter in der Zigeunersprache [The B. loanwords in the Gypsy language]. Indo-Iranian Journal 3.1: 17-43.
Berger, Hermann. 1974. Das Yasin-Burushaski (Werchikwar). Volume 3 of Neuindische Studien, ed. by Hermann Berger, Lothar Lutze and Günther Sontheimer. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.
Berger, Hermann. 1998. Die Burushaski-Sprache von Hunza und Nager [The B. language of H. and N.]. Three volumes: Grammatik [grammar], Texte mit Übersetzungen [texts with translations], Wörterbuch [dictionary]. Altogether Volume 13 of Neuindische Studien (ed. by Hermann Berger, Heidrun Brückner and Lothar Lutze). Wiesbaden: Otto Harassowitz.
Casule, Ilija. 2010. Burushaski as an Indo-European language. Languages of the World 38. Múnic: Lincom.
Casule, Ilija. 2003. Evidence for the Indo-European laryngeals in Burushaski and its genetic affiliation with Indo-European. The Journal of Indo-European Studies 31:1-2, pp 21-86.
van Driem, George. 2001. Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region, containing an Introduction to the Symbiotic Theory of Language (2 vols.). Leiden: Brill.
Greenberg, Joseph H., and Merritt Ruhlen. 1992. Linguistic Origins of Native Americans. Scientific American 267(5): 94–99.
Lorimer, D. L. R. 1935–1938. The Burushaski Language (3 vols.). Oslo: Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning.
Morgenstierne, Georg. 1945. Notes on Burushaski Phonology. Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap 13: 61–95.
Munshi, Sadaf. 2006. Jammu and Kashmir Burushaski: Language, language contact, and change. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation. Austin: University of Texas at Austin, Department of Linguistics.
van Skyhawk, Hugh. 2003. Burushaski-Texte aus Hispar. Materialien zum Verständnis einer archaischen Bergkultur in Nordpakistan. Beiträge zur Indologie 38. ISBN 3-447-04645-7.
Starostin, Sergei A. 1996. Comments on the Basque-Dene-Caucasian Comparisons. Mother Tongue 2: 101–109.
Tiffou, Étienne. 1993. Hunza Proverbs. University of Calgary Press. ISBN 1-895176-29-8
Tiffou, Étienne. 1999. Parlons Bourouchaski. Paris: L'Harmattan. ISBN 2-7384-7967-7
Tiffou, Étienne. 2000. Current Research in Burushaski: A Survey. History of Language 6(1): 15–20.
Tikkanen, Bertil. 1988. On Burushaski and other ancient substrata in northwest South Asia. Studia Orientalia 64: 303–325.
Varma, Siddheshwar. 1941. Studies in Burushaski Dialectology. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, Letters 7: 133–173.
Witzel, Michael. 1999. Early Sources for South Asian Substrate Languages. Mother Tongue (Special Issue, October 1999): 1–70