Gawri language

"Gawri" redirects here. Not to be confused with Gauri, Gavri, the Gawari language of India, or the Gawar-Bati language of Chitral.

Gawri (ګاوری), also known as Kalami (کالامي), or Bashkarik, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Swat Kohistan (also called Kalam) region in the upper Swat District and in the upper Panjkora river valley of Upper Dir District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

Gawri
Kalami, Bashkarik, Kohistani
کالامي ګاوری Gāwrī, Kālāmī
Native to	Pakistan
Region	Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
Ethnicity	Kalami people^[1]
Native speakers	100,000 (2004)^[2]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Dardic Kohistani Gawri
Writing system	Arabic script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	gwc
Glottolog	kala1373
ELP	Kalami
Linguasphere	59-AAC-c
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Classification

According to its genealogical classification (Strand, 1973:302 and 2004), Gawri 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 Swat 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.^[3]

Geographic distribution

Gawri is one of about thirty languages that are spoken in the mountain areas of northern Pakistan. 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.

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i	u
Mid	e	o
Open	a	ɑ

Length (/ː/) and nasalization (/ ̃/) are probably contrastive for all vowels.

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	ɳ		ŋ
Stop	voiceless	p	t	ʈ		k	(q)
	voiced	b	d	ɖ		ɡ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	ʈʰ		kʰ
Affricate	plain		ts	tʂ	tʃ
	aspirated		tsʰ	tʂʰ	tʃʰ
	voiced				dʒ
Fricative	voiceless	(f)	s	ʂ	ʃ	x		h
	voiced		z			ɣ
Lateral	voiceless		ɬ
	voiced		l
Approximant					j	w
Flap			ɾ	ɽ

/q f z x ɣ/ occur mainly in loanwords. /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].

Tone

Gawri has contrastive tones.

Grammar

Syntax

The default sentence order is SOV, but this can be changed for emphasis.

Morphology

Approximately 50% of Gawri words can not be broken down to smaller morphological forms. Of the other half, most words are made up of about two to three morphemes. This language implements many modifications to the stem as opposed to using distinct morpheme additions. For example, many plural words are formed by changing the stem of words as opposed to modifying with a plural morpheme.^[4]

	Word	Meaning
masc. sg.	yant	‘is coming’
masc. pl.	yänt	'are coming’
fem.	yent	‘is coming, are coming’

Words can also be modified by suffixes and prefixes.

Word	Meaning
gā	‘went’
gāt	'has gone’
gās̆	‘had gone’

See also

• Indus Kohistani language

References

1. "The past and present of Gawri language".
2. Gawri at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
3. Tone and song in Kalam Kohistani 2007-03-05 at the Wayback Machine
4. Baart, J. L. (1999). A sketch of Kalam Kohistani grammar. Studies in Languages of Northern Pakistan. Islamabad: National Institute of Pakistan Studies Quaid-i-Azam University.

Further reading

• Baart, Joan L.G. (2004). "Constrastive tone in Kalam Kohistani". Linguistic Discovery. 2 (2). doi:10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.265.
• Baart, Joan and Muhammad Zaman Sagar. 2020. THE GAWRI LANGUAGE OF KALAM AND DIR KOHISTAN. Online access
• Zaman, S. M., & Baart, J. L. (2004). Gaawri zaban-o-adab (Inmal Haq Javed ed.). Islamabad: Department of Pakistani Languages, Allama Iqbal Open University.
• Stahl, J. L. (1988). Multilingualism in Kalam Kohistan.
• Rensch, C. R., Decker, S. J., & Hallberg, D. G. (1992). Patterns of languages use among the Kohistanis of the Swat Valley. Languages of Kohistan. Islamabad, Pakistan: National Institute of Pakistan Studies Quaid-i-Azam University.
• Lothers, M. D. (1996). Deixis in Kalam Kohistani narrative discourse.
• Barth, F., & Morgenstierne, G. (1954). Vocabularies and specimens of some S.E. Dardic dialects. Oslo: Universitets forleget
• Baart, J.L. (2006). Report on local names and uses of plants in Kalam Kohistan. FLI Language and Culture Series, Anthropology.

External links

 

Gawri language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

• Gawri Community Development Programme, contains various materials in and about the language
• A Sketch of Kalam Kohistani Grammar
• Names of Plants in Kalam Kohistani (Pakistan)
• The Gawri Language of Kalam and Dir Kohistani
• Kalam Kohistani Texts
• Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh
• LAPSyD Online page for Kalami
• Endangered Languages Project