Kalami language
Encyclopedia
Kalami is a Dardic language
spoken in northern Pakistan
.
The language is also known as Gawri or Garwi (ɡaːwriː), but this name is considered pejorative
by some speakers.
. Kohistan is a Persian word that means ‘land of mountains’ and Kohistani can be translated as ‘mountain language’. As a matter of fact, there are several distinct languages in the area that are all popularly called Kohistani. The language under study in this paper is spoken in the upper parts of the valley of the Swat River
, in the
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan
. The name of the principal village of this area is Kalam
, and hence the area is known as Kalam Kohistan. In the older linguistic literature, the language of Kalam Kohistan is referred to as Bashkarik (Morgenstierne, 1940), or as Garwi or Gawri (Grierson, 1919; Barth & Morgenstierne, 1958). These names are hardly, if at all, known to the speakers of the language themselves, who normally just call their language Kohistani. However, very recently a number of intellectuals belonging to a local cultural society have started to call their language Gawri, a name that has old historical roots.
The same language is also spoken across the mountains to the West of Kalam Kohistan, in the upper reaches of the Panjkora
river valley of Upper Dir District
. When added together, the two Kalam-Kohistani-speaking communities comprised over 200,000 people.
Length
(/ː/) and nasalization
(/ ̃/) are probably contrastive for all vowels.
/q f z x ɣ/ occur mainly in loanword
s. /q f/ tend to be replaced by /x p/, respectively.
After the front vowels /i e a/, the velars /k ɡ ŋ/ are palatalized
: [kʲ ɡʲ ŋʲ].
: high level, high falling, delayed high falling, low level, low rising.
, but this can be changed for emphasis.
Dardic languages
The Dardic languages are a sub-group of the Indo-Aryan languages spoken in northern Pakistan, eastern Afghanistan, and the Indian region of Jammu and Kashmir...
spoken in northern Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
.
The language is also known as Gawri or Garwi (ɡaːwriː), but this name is considered pejorative
Pejorative
Pejoratives , including name slurs, are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts...
by some speakers.
Classification
According to its genealogical classification (Strand, 1973:302 and 2004), Kalam Kohistani belongs to the Kohistani subgroup of the north-western zone of Indo-Aryan languages, along with several closely related languages in its geographical vicinity: Torwali (in the Swat valley south of Kalam), Indus Kohistani, Bateri, Chilisso, and Gawro (the latter four east of Kalam in Indus Kohistan). Together with a range of other north-western Indo-Aryan mountain languages, these languages are sometimes collectively referred to as ‘Dardic’ languages.Geographic distribution
Kalam Kohistani (also called Gawri) is one of about thirty languages that are spoken in the mountain areas of northern PakistanPakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. Kohistan is a Persian word that means ‘land of mountains’ and Kohistani can be translated as ‘mountain language’. As a matter of fact, there are several distinct languages in the area that are all popularly called Kohistani. The language under study in this paper is spoken in the upper parts of the valley of the Swat River
Swat River
The Swat River is a river in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan. Its source is in the Hindukush Mountains, from where it flows through the Kalam Valley and Swat District...
, in the
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. The name of the principal village of this area is Kalam
Kalam valley
Kalam Valley is a valley along the upper reaches of the Swat River in Swat, in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.Kalam Valley is known for its waterfalls, lakes and lush green hills, and is a 270 km drive from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan...
, and hence the area is known as Kalam Kohistan. In the older linguistic literature, the language of Kalam Kohistan is referred to as Bashkarik (Morgenstierne, 1940), or as Garwi or Gawri (Grierson, 1919; Barth & Morgenstierne, 1958). These names are hardly, if at all, known to the speakers of the language themselves, who normally just call their language Kohistani. However, very recently a number of intellectuals belonging to a local cultural society have started to call their language Gawri, a name that has old historical roots.
The same language is also spoken across the mountains to the West of Kalam Kohistan, in the upper reaches of the Panjkora
Panjkora River
The Panjkora River is a river in northern Pakistan. It rises rises high in the Hindu Kush at lat. 35.45, flows south through Upper Dir and Lower Dir Districts and joins the Swat River near Chakdara, Malakand, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Its name is derived from the Persian for 'panj' and 'kora' ....
river valley of Upper Dir District
Upper Dir District
Upper Dir is one the 24 districts in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan. The district was formed in 1996, when Dir District was divided into Upper Dir and Lower Dir.-Location:...
. When added together, the two Kalam-Kohistani-speaking communities comprised over 200,000 people.
Vowels
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|
|---|---|---|
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
i | u |
| Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel... |
e | o |
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
a | ɑ |
Length
Vowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...
(/ː/) and nasalization
Nasalization
In phonetics, nasalization is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth...
(/ ̃/) are probably contrastive for all vowels.
Consonants
| Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... |
Dental | Retroflex Retroflex consonant A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ɳ | ŋ | ||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | ʈ | k | (q) | ||
| aspirated Aspiration (phonetics) In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ... |
pʰ | tʰ | ʈʰ | kʰ | ||||
| voiced | b | d | ɖ | ɡ | ||||
| Affricate | voiceless | ts | tʂ | tʃ | ||||
| aspirated Aspiration (phonetics) In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ... |
tsʰ | tʂʰ | tʃʰ | |||||
| voiced | dʒ | |||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | (f) | s | ʂ | ʃ | x | h | |
| voiced | z | ɣ | ||||||
| Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
voiceless | ɬ | ||||||
| Voiced | l | |||||||
| Flap Flap consonant In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:... |
ɾ | ɽ | ||||||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
j | w | ||||||
/q f z x ɣ/ occur mainly in loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s. /q f/ tend to be replaced by /x p/, respectively.
After the front vowels /i e a/, the velars /k ɡ ŋ/ are palatalized
Palatalization
In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
: [kʲ ɡʲ ŋʲ].
Tone
Kalami has 5 contrastive tonesTone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
: high level, high falling, delayed high falling, low level, low rising.
Syntax
The default sentence order is SOVSOV
SOV is an acronym for several terms:in organizations*Same Old Vanderbilt, usually refers to Vanderbilt Commodores football by their fans due to lack of success over the years*Stade Olympique Voironnais, a French rugby union club...
, but this can be changed for emphasis.