Pashayi languages

Pashayi or Pashai (پشه اې ژبه) is a group of Indo-Aryan languages spoken by the Pashai people in parts of Kapisa, Laghman, Nangarhar, Nuristan, Kunar and Kabul (Surobi District) provinces in Northeastern Afghanistan.^[2]

Pashayi
Pashai
زبان پشه‌ای Zabân Pašhây
Pashayi in Nastaliq
Native to	Afghanistan
Ethnicity	Pashayi people
Native speakers	400,000 (2000–2011)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Dardic Pashayi
Writing system	Persian alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Variously: aee – Northeastern glh – Northwestern psi – Southeastern psh – Southwestern
Glottolog	pash1270
Linguasphere	59-AAA-a
Linguistic map of Afghanistan; Pashayi is spoken in the purple area in the east.

The Pashayi languages had no known written form prior to 2003.^[3] There are four mutually unintelligible varieties, with only about a 30% lexical similarity:^[1]

• Northeastern: Aret, Chalas (Chilas), Kandak, Korangal, Kurdar dialects
• Northwestern: Alasai, Bolaghain, Gulbahar, Kohnadeh, Laurowan, Najil, Nangarach, Pachagan, Pandau, Parazhghan, Pashagar, Sanjan, Shamakot, Shutul, Uzbin, Wadau dialects
• Southeastern: Damench, Laghmani, Sum, Upper and Lower Darai Nur, Wegali dialects
• Southwestern: Ishpi, Isken, Tagau dialects

A grammar of the language was written as a doctoral dissertation in 2014.^[4]

Phonology

Consonants

Pashayi consonants^[4]: 70

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Palato- alveolar	Retroflex	Dorsal	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		ɳ	ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t̪		ʈ	k
	voiced	b	d̪		ɖ	ɡ
Affricate	voiceless			t͡ʃ
	voiced			d͡ʒ
Fricative	voiceless		s	ʃ	(ʂ)	x	(h)
	voiced		z	ʒ	(ʐ)	ɣ
	lateral		ɬ
Rhotic	tap		ɾ		ɽ
	trill		r
Approximant	lateral		l
	central	ʋ ~ w				j

• [h] is only phonemic in the Amla dialect.
• Sounds [f] and [q] can also occur, but only in loanwords and among Dari speakers.
• [ʂ] is more commonly heard among older speakers, but is lost among younger speakers, and is heard as a postalveolar [ʃ].
• [ʐ] is more commonly heard among older speakers, but is lost among younger speakers, and is heard as a postalveolar [ʒ].
• /ʋ/ is heard before front vowels /i e/. When occurring before or after central or back vowels /a u o/, it is heard as [w].
• According to Masica (1991) some dialects have a /θ/.

Vowels

Pashayi vowels^[4]: 91

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e eː		o oː
Low		a aː

• Only mid or low vowels have lengthened equivalents.
• /e/ can be heard as [ɛ] and /a/ can be heard as [ə] or [æ], in certain environments.^[4]

Further reading

• Lamuwal, Abd-El-Malek; Baker, Adam (2013). "Southeastern Pashayi". Illustrations of the IPA. Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 43 (2): 243–246. doi:10.1017/S0025100313000133, with supplementary sound recordings.

References

1. Northeastern at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
   Northwestern at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
   Southeastern at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
   Southwestern at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
2. Masica, Colin P. (1991). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 440.
3. Yun, Ju-Hong (2003). Pashai Language Development Project: Promoting Pashai language, literacy and community development (PDF). Conference on language development, language revitalization and multilingual education in minority communities in Asia. 6–8 November 2003. Bangkok, Thailand. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 November 2018. Retrieved 5 November 2018.
4. Lehr, Rachel (2014). A Descriptive Grammar of Pashai: The Language and Speech Community of Darrai Nur (PhD thesis). University of Chicago. ISBN 978-1-321-22417-7. ProQuest 1620321674.