Northeastern Katë dialect


Northeastern Katë is a dialect of the Katë language spoken by the Kata in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It also includes the so-called Shekhani dialect spoken in Chitral district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.
There are several subdialects spoken in the upper Landai Sin Valley. It is also spoken in Chitral District, in Gobor and the upper Bumboret Valley in Pakistan.

Innovations

According to Halfmann, the primary innovations of the Northeastern dialect include secondary vowel length from monophthongization of vowel + v, a progressive suffix -t-, and epenthesis of original *tr and *dr clusters.

Orthography

In August 2022, Pakistani linguist, Rehmat Aziz Chitrali proposed a keyboard to Khowar Academy, Chitral.

History

Speakers of Eastern Katë dialects migrated from Kamdesh in Nuristan in modern-day Afghanistan to Lutkuh Valley in Chitrali Princely State in British Raj during the 19th century. Most speakers in Pakistan speak either Pashto or Khowar as a second language. Many native speakers often marry the minority Pashtuns in the area.

Phonology

Consonants

  • Sounds /ʒ ɽ ɣ/ occur from neighboring languages. /f x/ are borrowed from loanwords mainly from Khowar or Yidgha.
  • /ʈ/ can also be heard as an allophone .
  • is heard as an allophone of /i/.
  • /v/ can also be heard as bilabial or a labial approximant .

    Vowels

  • Mid /ə/ can be heard as a close central .

    Vocabulary

Pronouns

Numbers

  1. e, ev
  2. dyu
  3. tëre
  4. štëvó
  5. puč
  6. ṣu
  7. sut
  8. uṣṭ
  9. nu
  10. duċ
  11. yaníċ
  12. diċ
  13. tëríċ
  14. šturéċ
  15. pčiċ
  16. ṣeċ
  17. stiċ
  18. ṣṭiċ
  19. neċ
  20. ''vëċë́''