Khowar is classified as a Dardic language. It is spoken by 400,000 people in Chitral in Northwest Pakistan, in Yasin Valley and Gupis in neighboring Gilgit, and in parts of Upper Swat. It is spoken as a second language in the rest of Gilgit and Hunza. There are believed to be a small number of Khowar speakers in Afghanistan, China, India, Tajikistan and Istanbul. The Dardic languages form a subfamily of the Indo-Iranian languages. ... Chitral, or Chitrāl, is the name of a town (35° 53 N; 71° 48 E), valley, river, district, and former princely state in the Malakand Division of the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan. ... North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) is geographically the smallest of the four provinces of Pakistan. ... Yasin Valley is a high mountain valley in the Hindu Kush mountains, in the northwest region of Gilgit in northern Pakistan. ... Gilgit is a region in the Northern Areas of Pakistan, bordering the Chinese region of Xinjiang. ... Swat is presently a district, but historically a Muslim princely state, in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. ... Gilgit is a region in the Northern Areas of Pakistan, bordering the Chinese region of Xinjiang. ... This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Shows the Location of the Province İstanbul Istanbul (Turkish: İstanbul; a contraction of Greek εις την πολιν into the city, the former Constantinople, Κωνσταντινούπολις) is the largest city in Turkey, and arguably the most important. ...

Khowar is clearly an Indo-European Language, as demonstrated by the following: The Indo-European languages include some 443 (SIL estimate) languages and dialects, including most of the major language families of Europe, as well as many languages of Southwest and South Asia, which belong to a single superfamily. ...

I am = asum
You are = asus
He/She is = asur
We Are = asusi
You Are = asumi
They are = asuni

Like all the other Dardic languages, Khowar is an Indo-Aryan language, but unlike most Indo-Aryan languages which are derived from Sanskrit Khowar is derived from Old Indo-Aryan. Khowar has also been influenced by Iranic languages to a greater degree than other Dardic languages.

The Norwegian Linguist Georg Morgenstierne wrote that Chitral is the area of the greatest linguistic diversity in the world. Although Khowar is the predominant language of Chitral, more than ten other languages are spoken here. These include Kalasha, Phalura, Dameli, Gawar-Bati, Nuristani, Yidgha, Burushaski, Gujar, Wakhi, Kyrgyz, Persian and Pashto. Since many of these languages have no written form, letters are usually written in Urdu or Persian. The following is a list of linguists, those who study linguistics. ... Chitral, or Chitrāl, is the name of a town (35° 53 N; 71° 48 E), valley, river, district, and former princely state in the Malakand Division of the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan. ... A Kalasha girl in everyday traditional dress The Kalash people live in three isolated mountain valleys, Bumboret, Rumbur and Birir, which are located at 35° 44′ 09″ N, 71° 46′ 04″ E. The Kalash people speak the Kalasha language. ... Phalura, also known as Palula and as Ashretiwar, is spoken by 7,000 to 15,000 people in Ashret and Biori Valleys, in the Chitral District of the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan. ... Dameli is a language spoken by less than 5,000 people in the remote valley of Damil-Nisar, in the Chitral District of the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan. ... Gawar-Bati is known in Chitral as Aranduyiwar, because it is spoken in Village Arandu, which is the last village in the bottom of Chitral and is across the Kunar River from Berkot in Afghanistan. ... The Nuristani are an ethnic/religious group in the Nurestan Province of Afghanistan. ... Yidgha is a Pamir Language spoken in the Upper Lutkuh Valley of Chitral, west of Garam Chishma in Pakistan. ... Burushaski (Other names are Burushaski, Brushas, Brushias) is a language isolate spoken by some 50,000_60,000 people in the Hunza, Nagir, Yasin, and some parts of Gilgit valleys in northern Pakistan. ... Migrants in one of the several migratory waves that brought Indo-Europeans into South-Asia. ... The Wakhi Tajiki language is an Iranian language in the subbranch of Southeastern Iranian languages (see Pamir languages). ... Kyrgyz or Kirghiz (Кыргыз тили) is a Northwestern Turkic language, and, together with Russian, an official language of Kyrgyzstan. ... Persian (فارسی = Fârsi . ... Pashto (پښتو; also known as Afghan, Pushto, Pashto, Pashtoe, Pashtu, and Pukhto) is the language spoken by the ethnic Afghan otherwise known as the Pashtun people who inhabit Afghanistan and the Western provinces of Pakistan. ... Urdu (اردو) is an Indo-European language of the Indo-Aryan family which developed under Persian influence in the Indian subcontinent during the time of the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire. ... Persian (فارسی = Fârsi . ...

Books

• Khowar English Dictionary (by Mohammad Ismail Sloan, 1981) (published in Pakistan) ISBN 188137307X

• Decker, Kendall D. (1992) Languages of Chitral 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.

Samuel Howard Sloan (b. ...

External links

• Khowar Word List

• Khowar Dictionary

• Dardic Languages of Chitral

• Kalasha Word List

• Nuristan: Hidden Land of the Hindu Kush

• Khowar, A Language of Pakistan