Gawar-Bati language

Not to be confused with the Gawri language of Kohistan, the Gawari language of India, or the Gawar language of Cameroon.

Gawar-Bati or Narsati is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Kunar Province of eastern Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan. It is also known as Kohistani in Kunar. Gawar-Bati has an estimated 75,000 speakers, of whom 50,000 are in Kunar and 25,000 in Chitral, Pakistan.

Gawar-Bati
Narsati
Native to	Afghanistan, Pakistan
Region	Kunar,province , Chitral
Native speakers	75,000 (2017–2024)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Dardic Kunar Gawar-Bati
Language codes
ISO 639-3	gwt
Glottolog	gawa1247
ELP	Gawar-Bati

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

1. Gawar-Bati at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. 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.
3. Edelman, D. I. (1983). The Dardic and Nuristani Languages. Moscow: Institut vostokovedenii︠a︡ (Akademii︠a︡ nauk SSSR). p. 139.
4. 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