Gawar-Bati language
Gawar-Bati or Narsati is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Chitral region of northern Pakistan, and across the border in Afghanistan. It is also known as Aranduyiwar in Chitral because it is spoken in Arandu, which is the last village in lower Chitral and is also across the border from Berkot in Afghanistan. There are about 9,000 speakers of Gawar-Bati, with 1,500 in Pakistan, and 7,500 in Afghanistan. The name Gawar-Bati means "speech of the Gawar",[2] a people detailed by the Cacopardos in their study of the Hindu Kush.[3]
Gawar-Bati | |
---|---|
Narsati | |
Native to | Pakistan, Afghanistan |
Region | Chitral, Kunar Province |
Native speakers | 36,000 (2017–2021)[1] |
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.[4]
Phonology
The following tables set out the phonology of the Gawar-Bati language:[5]
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:[6]
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
- Gawar-Bati at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- Decker, Kendall D. (1992). Languages of Chitral. Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan, volume 5. Islamabad, Pakistan: National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University. pp. 153–154. ISBN 978-969-8023-15-7.
- Cacopardo, Alberto M.; Cacopardo, Augusto S. (2001). Gates of Peristan: History, Religion and Society in the Hindu Kush. Rome, Italy: IsIAO. pp. 227–248. OCLC 50292664.
- Bashir, Elena (2007). Jain, Danesh; Cardona, George (eds.). The Indo-Aryan languages. 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.
- Edelman, D. I. (1983). The Dardic and Nuristani Languages. Moscow: Institut vostokovedenii︠a︡ (Akademii︠a︡ nauk SSSR). p. 139.
- http://fli-online.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Gawarbati-Alif-Be11-Feburary-2016.pdf
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