Yidgha language
 | This articlerelies largely or entirely on asingle source.(May 2024) |
| Yidgha | |
|---|---|
| یدغا | |
 | |
| Native to | Chitral District,Pakistan |
| Ethnicity | Yidgha |
Native speakers | 6,000 (2020)[1] |
| Arabic script(Nastaʿlīq)[1] | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ydg |
| Glottolog | yidg1240 |
| ELP | Yidgha |
| Linguasphere | 58-ABD-bb |
TheYidghalanguage (یدغا زڤون) is anEastern Iranianlanguage of thePamir groupspoken in the upperLotkohValley (Tehsil Lotkoh) ofChitralin theKhyber Pakhtunkhwaprovince ofPakistan.Yidgha is similar to theMunji languagespoken on the Afghan side of the border.
The Garam Chashma area became important during theSoviet invasion of Afghanistanbecause the Soviets were unable to stop the flow of arms and men back and forth across theDorah Passthat separates Chitral fromBadakshanin Afghanistan. Almost the entire Munji-speaking population of Afghanistan fled across the border to Chitral during the War in Afghanistan.
Name
[edit]According toGeorg Morgenstierne(1931), the nameYidghaprobably derives from*(h)ind(a,i)-ka-,likely referring to the part of the Munji tribe that settled on the "Indian" or "Indo-Aryan" side near the Lotkoh Valley.[2]Ľubomír Novák (2013) revises the reconstruction as*hindū̆-ka-ka-,with the same assumption.[3]
Study
[edit]The Yidgha language has not been given serious study by linguists, except that it is mentioned byGeorg Morgenstierne(1926),Kendall Decker(1992) andBadshah Munir Bukhari(2005). A 280-page joint description of Yidgha andMunji(descriptive and historical phonetics and grammar, glossary with etymologies where possible) is given byMorgenstierne(1938).
Norwegian linguist Georg Morgenstierne wrote that Chitral is the area of the greatest linguistic diversity in the world.[1]AlthoughKhowaris the predominant language of Chitral, more than ten other languages are spoken here. These includeKalasha-mun,Palula,Dameli,Gawar-Bati,Nuristani,Yidgha,Burushaski,Wakhi,Kyrgyz,the Madaglashti dialect ofPersian,andPashto.Since many of these languages have no written form, letters are usually written inUrdu.
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^abYidghaatEthnologue(26th ed., 2023)
- ^Morgenstierne 1931.
- ^Novák 2013.
Further reading
[edit]- Decker, Kendall D. (1992).Languages of Chitral.ISBN969-8023-15-1.
- Morgenstierne, Georg (1926) Report on a Linguistic Mission to Afghanistan.Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning,Serie C I-2. Oslo.ISBN0-923891-09-9
- Morgenstierne, Georg(1931). "The NameMunjānand Some Other Names of Places and Peoples in the Hindu Kush ".Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London.6(2): 439–444.doi:10.1017/S0041977X00092934.JSTOR607674.
- Morgenstierne, Georg (1938) Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages II (Yidgha-Munji, Sanglechi-Ishkashmi and Wakhi).Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning,Serie B: XXXV. Oslo.
- Novák, Ľubomír (2013).Problem of Archaism and Innovation in the Eastern Iranian Languages(Thesis).Charles University.Retrieved14 November2023.