Dardic languages

Dardic
Hindu-Kush Indo-Aryan
Geographic
distribution		Northern Pakistan (Gilgit-Baltistan, northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Azad Kashmir)
Northwestern India (Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh)
Northeastern Afghanistan (Kapisa, Kunar, Laghman, Nangarhar, Nuristan)
Linguistic classificationIndo-European
Subdivisions
Language codes
GlottologNone
dard1244  (Eastern Dardic)
Dardic languages by Georg Morgenstierne
(Note: Nuristani languages such as Kamkata-vari (Kati), Kalasha-ala (Waigali), etc. are now separated)

The Dardic languages (also Dardu or Pisaca),[1] or Hindu-Kush Indo-Aryan languages,[2][3][4][5] are a group of several Indo-Aryan languages spoken in northern Pakistan, northwestern India and parts of northeastern Afghanistan.[6] This region has sometimes been referred to as Dardistan.[7]

Rather than close linguistic or ethnic relationships, the original term Dardic was a geographical concept, denoting the northwesternmost group of Indo-Aryan languages.[8] There is no ethnic unity among the speakers of these languages nor can the languages be traced to a single ancestor.[9][10][11][6] After further research, the term "Eastern Dardic" is now a legitimate grouping of languages that excludes some languages in the Dardistan region that are now considered to be part of different language families.[12]

The extinct Gandhari language, used by the Gandhara civilization, from circa 1500 BCE, was Dardic in nature.[13] Linguistic evidence has linked Gandhari with some living Dardic languages, particularly Torwali and other Kohistani languages.[14][15][16] There is limited evidence that the Kohistani languages are descended from Gandhari.

  1. ^ "Dardic languages". Encyclopædia Britannica.
  2. ^ Liljegren, Henrik (1 March 2017). "Profiling Indo-Aryan in the Hindukush-Karakoram: A preliminary study of micro-typological patterns". Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics. 4 (1): 107–156. doi:10.1515/jsall-2017-0004. ISSN 2196-078X. S2CID 132833118. On the one hand, it is obvious that these languages form a continuum together with the main Indo-Aryan languages of the northwestern Subcontinent, with a gradually increased clustering of more prototypical Hindukush-Karakoram features toward the central – but in relation to the rest of Indo-Aryan more peripheral – parts of this region. On the other hand, these languages also show a high degree of diversity, with individual languages taking part in various subareal configurations or transit zones that are represented in the region, further complicating any attempts at defining them collectively in more exact, or exclusive, areal terms. We must therefore bear in mind that any collective reference to these languages, be it Hindukush Indo-Aryan or any other term, will have to be interpreted as a highly gradient notion, acknowledging the apparent lack of any complete list of innovations, let alone retentions, that would cover more than a subset of them.
  3. ^ Garbo, Francesca Di; Olsson, Bruno; Wälchli, Bernhard (2019). Grammatical gender and linguistic complexity II: World-wide comparative studies. Language Science Press. p. 8. ISBN 978-3-96110-180-1.
  4. ^ Saxena, Anju (12 May 2011). Himalayan Languages: Past and Present. Walter de Gruyter. p. 35. ISBN 978-3-11-089887-3.
  5. ^ Liljegren, Henrik (26 February 2016). A grammar of Palula. Language Science Press. pp. 13–14. ISBN 978-3-946234-31-9.
  6. ^ a b Strand, Richard F. (13 December 2013). "Dardic and Nūristānī languages". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John Abdallah; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam - Three 2013-4. Brill. pp. 101–103. ISBN 978-90-04-25269-1. The seventeen Dardic languages constitute a geographic group of the northwestern-most Indo-Aryan languages. They fall into several small phylogenetic groups of Indo-Aryan, but together they show no common phonological innovations that demonstrate that they share any phylogenetic unity as a "Dardic branch" of the Indo-Aryan languages.
  7. ^ Kellens, Jean. "DARDESTĀN". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Archived from the original on 5 December 2017. Retrieved 6 April 2022.
  8. ^ Prakāśaṃ, Vennelakaṇṭi (2008). Encyclopaedia of the Linguistic Sciences: Issues and Theories. Allied Publishers. pp. 142–147. ISBN 978-81-8424-279-9. Dardic languages contain absolutely no features which cannot be derived from old [Indo-Aryan language]. They have simply retained a number of striking archasisms, which had already disappeared in most Prakrit dialects... There is not a single common feature distinguishing Dardic, as a whole, from the rest of the [Indo-Aryan] languages... Dardic is simply a convenient term to denote a bundle of aberrant [Indo-Aryan] hill-languages which, in their relative isolation, accented in many cases by the invasion of Pathan tribes, have been in varying degrees sheltered against the expand influence of [Indo-Aryan] Midland (Madhyadesha) innovations, being left free to develop on their own.
  9. ^ Jain, Danesh; Cardona, George (26 July 2007). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Routledge. p. 822. ISBN 978-1-135-79711-9. The designation "Dardic" implies neither ethnic unity among the speakers of these languages nor that they can all be traced to a single stammbaum-model node.
  10. ^ Verbeke, Saartje (20 November 2017). Argument structure in Kashmiri: Form and function of pronominal suffixation. BRILL. p. 2. ISBN 978-90-04-34678-9. Nowadays, the term "Dardic" is used as an areal term that refers to a number of Indo-Aryan languages, without claiming anything specific about their mutual relatedness.
  11. ^ Mock, John. "Dards, Dardistan, and Dardic: an Ethnographic, Geographic, and Linguistic Conundrum". www.mockandoneil.com. Retrieved 25 February 2022.
  12. ^ "Glottolog 4.8 - Eastern Dardic".
  13. ^ Kuzʹmina, Elena Efimovna (2007). The Origin of the Indo-Iranians. BRILL. p. 318. ISBN 978-90-04-16054-5.
  14. ^ Dani, Ahmad Hasan (2001). History of Northern Areas of Pakistan: Upto 2000 A.D. Sang-e-Meel Publications. pp. 64–67. ISBN 978-969-35-1231-1.
  15. ^ Saxena, Anju (12 May 2011). Himalayan Languages: Past and Present. Walter de Gruyter. p. 35. ISBN 978-3-11-089887-3.
  16. ^ Liljegren, Henrik (26 February 2016). A grammar of Palula. Language Science Press. pp. 13–14. ISBN 978-3-946234-31-9. Palula belongs to a group of Indo-Aryan (IA) languages spoken in the Hindukush region that are often referred to as "Dardic" languages... It has been and is still disputed to what extent this primarily geographically defined grouping has any real classificatory validity... On the one hand, Strand suggests that the term should be discarded altogether, holding that there is no justification whatsoever for any such grouping (in addition to the term itself having a problematic history of use), and prefers to make a finer classification of these languages into smaller genealogical groups directly under the IA heading, a classification we shall return to shortly... Zoller identifies the Dardic languages as the modern successors of the Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA) language Gandhari (also Gandhari Prakrit), but along with Bashir, Zoller concludes that the family tree model alone will not explain all the historical developments.