Pahari Kinnauri language

Pahari Kinnauri, or Kinnauri Pahari (Takri: 𑚊𑚮𑚝𑚵𑚤𑚯 𑚞𑚩𑚭𑚪𑚯), is the only Indo-Aryan language among the nine languages spoken in the Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh. It is also called Oras Boli (Takri: 𑚈𑚤𑚭𑚨 𑚠𑚴𑚥𑚯). It is spoken by the scheduled caste communities of Kinnaur district, Himachal Pradesh; the language used to be commonly known as 'Kinnauri tribal language', but this is now considered a derogatory term. It is not clear how distinct it is from other Western Pahari languages.

Pahari Kinnauri
Indo Aryan Kinnauri
पहाड़ी किनौरी ओरास बोली Oras Boli
Kinnauri Pahari and Oras Boli written in Takri Script.
Native to	India
Region	Himachal Pradesh
Ethnicity	Scheduled castes of Kinnaur district
Native speakers	(6,300 cited 1998 survey)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Northern Western Pahari (Himachali) Pahari Kinnauri
Writing system	Takri, Devanagari
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kjo
Glottolog	hari1246

Script

The native script of the language is a variety of Takri script.

a specimen in Kinnauri language using Takri

Status

The language is also commonly called Pahari or Himachali. The language has no official status and is recorded under Kinnauri or Pahari.^[2] According to the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the language is of definitely endangered category, i.e. many Kinnauri Pahari children are not learning Kinnauri Pahari as their mother tongue any longer. One of the reason is he favoritism towards Hindi by the Indian Government.

A demand for the inclusion of 'Pahari (Himachali)' under the Eight Schedule of the Constitution, which is supposed to represent multiple Pahari languages of Himachal Pradesh, was made in the year 2010 by the state's Vidhan Sabha.^[3] There has been no positive progress on this matter since then, despite small organisations making efforts to save the language.^[4] Due to political interest, the language is currently recorded as a dialect of Hindi, even when having a poor mutual intelligibility with it. As of now, there is no proposal to grant any status to Kinnauri.