Gawri language


Gawri, also known as Kalami, Kalam Kohistani and Bashkarik, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Gawri people in Swat Kohistan region in the upper Swat District and in the upper Panjkora river valley of Upper Dir District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Gawri and Torwali are collectively classified as "Swat Kohistani".

Classification

According to its genealogical classification, 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, Indus Kohistani, Bateri, Chilisso, and Gawro. Together with a range of other north-western Indo-Aryan mountain languages, these languages are sometimes collectively referred to as ‘Dardic languages.

Geographic distribution

Gawri is one of about thirty languages that are spoken in the mountain areas of northern Pakistan. It is predominantly spoken in the valleys of Kalam, Usho and Utror in the Upper Swat District, and the six towns of Barikot, Rajkot, Biar, Kalkot, Thal, and Lamuti, as well as the Kumrat Valley, in the Upper Dir District.
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 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, or as Garwi or Gawri. 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. Collectively, the two Gawri-speaking communities comprise over 200,000 people.

Alphabet

Gawri uses the Arabic script. The Gawri alphabet has 43 letters: all 39 letters of the Urdu alphabet plus 4 additional letters. One feature of the Gawri alphabet not found in Urdu is that it places the letterھ as the last letter of the alphabet, preceded by ے. All the 4 additional letters used in Gawri are also found in Gawar-Bati language.
Letterابپتٹثجچڄڅحخدڈذرڑزژسشݭص
Transliteration∅/ā/ǟbptṭsjčĉchxdḍzrṛzžsšṣs
IPA, ,
Nameاٞلِف بے پے تے ٹے ثے جِیم چے ڄے بَڑِی حے خے دَال ڈَال ذَال رے ڑے زے ژے سِین شِین ݭِین صوَاد -
Letterضطظعغفقکگلݪمنںوہءیےھ---
Transliterationztzʼğfqkglłmn˜w/ū/ōhʼy/ī/ēē-h---
IPA, , , , ---
Nameضوَاد طوے ظوے عٞن غین فے قَاف کٞاف گٞاف لٞام ݪٞام مِیم نُون نُون غُنّہ وَاؤ چھوٹِی حے ءٞمزَہ چھوٹِی یے بَڑِی یے دُوچٞشمِی ہے
  • تھ
  • ٹھ
  • چھ
  • ڄھ
  • څھ
  • کھ
The sounds /k/ and /g/ are palatalized before Front vowels.
There are 3 digraphs with the letter ن:
  • نڈ pronounced /ɳɖ/
  • نڑ : pronounced /ɽ/
  • نگ : pronounced /ŋ/ and palatalized before front vowels.

    Vowels

Gawri language has 12 vowels. They are:
  • /a/
  • /aː/
  • /æ/
  • /æː/
  • /i/
  • /iː/
  • /u/
  • /uː/
  • /e/
  • /eː/
  • /o/
  • /oː/
8 of these vowels have the same orthography as in Urdu. The vowel ä is written with a Zabar with two dots and the long version ǟ as ٞا.
Short e and o are represented by و, ی or ے followed by ۡ.
Unlike in Urdu where vowel diacritics are optional, in Gawri they are mandatory.

Tones

Gawri is a tonal language. It has 6 tones:
  • level tone: unmarked.
  • High tone: represented by ٝ, romanized with acute accent.
  • High Falling tone: represented by ٛ, romanized with circumflex.
  • low falling tone: represented by ٔ, romanized with Caron.
  • Low tone: represented by ۧ, romanized with grave accent.
  • Rising tone: represented by ٚ, romanized with ◌̚.

    Phonology

Vowels

and nasalization are probably contrastive for all vowels.

Consonants

occur mainly in loanwords. tend to be replaced by, respectively.
After the front vowels, the velars are palatalized:.

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.
WordMeaning
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.
WordMeaning
gā‘went’
gāt'has gone’
gās̆‘had gone’