Khowar language


Khowar, also known as Chitrali, is an Indo-Aryan language of the Dardic group spoken in northern Pakistan.
"Kho" means the people of Chitral, "War" means language. It is spoken by the Kho people in the whole of Chitral, as well as in Ghizer District of Gilgit-Baltistan, in Punyal and in parts of Upper Swat.
Speakers of Khowar have also migrated heavily to Pakistan's major urban centres with Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi, having significant populations. It is spoken as a second language in the rest of Gilgit and Hunza. There are believed to be small numbers of Khowar speakers in Afghanistan, China and Tajikistan.

Names

The native name of the language is Khō-wār, meaning "language" of the Kho people. During the British Raj it was known to the English as Chitrālī or Qāshqārī. Among the Pathans and Badakshis it is known as Kashkār. Another name, used by Leitner in 1880, is Arnyiá or Arniya, derived from the Shina language name for the part of the Yasin where Khowar is spoken.

History

noted that "Khowar, in many respects the most archaic of all modern Indian languages, retaining a great part of Sanskrit case inflexion, and retaining many words in a nearly Sanskritic form."

Phonology

Khowar has a variety of dialects, which may vary phonemically. The following tables lay out the basic phonology of Khowar.

Vowels

FrontCentralBack
Close
Mid
Open

Khowar may also have nasalized vowels and a series of long vowels,,,, and. Sources are inconsistent on whether length is phonemic, with one author stating "vowel-length is observed mainly as a substitute one. The vowel-length of phonological value is noted far more rarely." Unlike the neighboring and related Kalasha language, Khowar does not have retroflex vowels.

Consonants

The phonemic status of is unclear in the sources

Tone

Khowar, like many Dardic languages, has either phonemic tone or stress distinctions.

Writing system

Since the early twentieth century Khowar has been written in the Khowar alphabet, which is based on the Urdu alphabet and uses the Nasta'liq script. Prior to that, the language was carried on through oral tradition. Today Urdu and English are the official languages and the only major literary usage of Khowar is in both poetry and prose composition. Khowar has also been occasionally written in a version of the Roman script called Roman Khowar since the 1960s.

Dialects

Television channels

TV ChannelGenreFoundedOfficial Website
Khyber News TV News and current affairs http://www.khybernews.tv/
AVT Khyber TV Entertainment http://www.avtkhyber.tv/
K2 TV Entertainment, news and current affairs http://www.kay2.tv/
Zeal News News and Current Affairs2016http://www.khowar.zealnews.tv

Radio

These are not dedicated Khowar channels but play most programmes in Khowar.
Radio ChannelGenreFoundedOfficial Website
Radio Pakistan Chitral FM93Entertainmenthttp://www.radio.gov.pk/
Radio Pakistan PeshawarEntertainmenthttp://www.radio.gov.pk/
Radio Pakistan GilgitEntertainmenthttp://www.radio.gov.pk/
FM97 ChitralEntertainmenthttp://www.hotfm.com.pk

Newspapers

NewspaperCityFoundedOfficial Website
Chitral Vision Karachi, Chitral, Pakistan https://www.chitralvision.com
Chitral Today http://chitraltoday.net

Additional references

″https://www.chitraltoday.net/2015/06/cultural-diversity-of-chitral/#:~:text=Chitral%20is%20also%20the%20most,lived%20together%20peacefully%20for%20centuries.