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Torwali language

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Torwali
توروالی
Torwali written in Perso-Arabic in Nastaliq style.
RegionSwat District
EthnicityTorwali people
Native speakers
130,000 (2020)[1]
Arabic script (primarily Nastaliq)
Language codes
ISO 639-3trw
Glottologtorw1241
ELPTorwali
Torwali is a minor language of Pakistan which is mainly spoken by Torwali nation of Central Swat District, it is given a space in this map.
Bahrain, the main town of the Torwali community

Torwali (Torwali: توروالی),[2] also known as Bahrain Kohistani,[3] is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Torwali people, and concentrated in the Bahrain and Chail areas in the Swat Kohistan region of the Swat District in northern Pakistan.[4][5][6][7] The Torwali language is said to have originated from the pre-Muslim communities of Swat.[8] It is the closest modern Indo-Aryan language still spoken today to Niya, a dialect of Gāndhārī, a Middle Indo-Aryan language spoken in the ancient region of Gandhara.[9][10] Torwali and Gawri languages are collectively classified as "Swat Kohistani".[11]

The words "Kohistan" and Kohistani are generic terms. Kohistan in Persian and in Urdu means as "land of mountains" whereas "Kohistani" refers to 'language spoken in the land mountains" or 'people of the mountains.[12] Joan Baart is the only author who used the term "Bahrain Kohistani" for the Torwali language. Ethnologue, twenty seventh edition suggests Kohistani, Torwalak, Torwalik and Turvali as alterative names for the language while Torwali as an autonym for it.[2]

Torwali is an endangered language: it is characterised as "definitely endangered" by UNESCO's Atlas of Endangered Languages,[13] and as "vulnerable" by the Catalogue of Endangered Languages.[14] There have been efforts to revitalize the language since 2004, and mother tongue community schools have been established by Idara Baraye Taleem-o-Taraqi (Institute for Education and Development) (IBT).[15]

Phonology

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Although descriptions of Torwali phonology have appeared in the literature, some questions still remain unanswered.[16][17]

Vowels

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Vowels According to Edelman[16]
Front Central Back
Close i iː u uː
Mid e eː o oː
Open a aː

Edelman's analysis, which was based on Grierson and Morgenstierne, shows nasal counterparts to at least /e o a/ and also found a series of central (reduced?) vowels, transcribed as: ⟨ä⟩, ⟨ü⟩, ⟨ö⟩.[16]

Vowels According to Lunsford[17]
Front Central Back
Close i ĩ (ɨ̙) u ũ
Mid e ẽ (e̙) ə (ə̙) o õ
Open æ æ̃ a ã

Lunsford had some difficulty determining vowel phonemes and suggested there may be retracted vowels with limited distribution: /ɨ/ (which may be [i̙]), /e̙/, /ə̙/.[17] Retracted or retroflex vowels are also found in Kalash-mondr.[18]

Consonants

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The phonemic status of the breathy voiced series is debatable.

Sounds with particularly uncertain status are marked with a superscript question mark.

Labial Coronal Retroflex Post-alv./
Palatal 		Velar Glottal
Nasal m n (ɳ) ŋ
Stop p
pʰ		 b
bʱ 		t
tʰ		 d
dʱ 		ʈ
ʈʰ		 ɖ
ɖʱ 		k
kʰ		 g
ɡʱ
Affricate ts
 		 ʈʂ
ʈʂʰ		 ɖʐ
  		tʃ
tʃʰ		 dʒ
 
Fricative
(Lateral) 		s z ʂ ʐ ʃ ʒ x ɣ h
(t)ɬ?
Approximant
(Lateral) 		j w
l
Rhotic r ɽ?

Alphabet

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The Torwali language does not have a fixed orthography. The existing and widely used Torwali Character set was proposed by Inam Ullah, who proposed representations for unique sounds in Torwali language which later received official designations from the Unicode with the support of University of Chicago in 2005.[19]

The Torwali orthography was developed by Idara Baraye Taleem wa Taraqi (IBT) i.e. institute for education and development from 2005-2008 wherein text books for children were developed along with the Alphabet book and primer in Torwali under the Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education program by the abovementioned organization.[20]

References

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  1. ^ Torwali at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023) Closed access icon
  2. ^ a b Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D. (2024). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (27 ed.). Dallas: SIL International.
  3. ^ Baart, Joan L. G. (1997). The Sounds and Tones of Kalam Kohistani: With Wordlist and Texts. National Institute of Pakistan Studies. p. 1. ISBN 978-969-8023-03-4.
  4. ^ Kreutzmann, Hermann (2005). "Linguistic diversity in space and time: A survey in the Eastern Hindukush and Karakoram". Himalayan Linguistics. 4. Center for Development Studies, Free University of Berlin: 7.
  5. ^ Torwali, Zubair (2016). "Reversing Language Loss through an Identity Based Educational Planning: The Case of Torwali language" (PDF). Eurasian Journal of Humanities. 1 (2): 24.
  6. ^ Biddulph, John (1880). Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh (PDF). Graz, Austria: 1971 edition Akadmeische Druck u Verlagasasntalt. p. 69.
  7. ^ Barth, Fredrik (1956). Indus and Swat Kohistan: an Ethnographic Survey. Oslo. p. 52.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) The Pathans call them, and all other Muhammadans of Indian descent in the Hindu Kush valleys, Kohistanis.
  8. ^ Torwali, Zubair (4 March 2019). "Revitalization of Torwali poetry and music". We Mountains – Regional Website of North Pakistan. IBT. Retrieved 5 March 2019.
  9. ^ Burrow, T. (1936). "The Dialectical Position of the Niya Prakrit". Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London. 8 (2/3): 419–435. ISSN 1356-1898. JSTOR 608051. ... It might be going too far to say that Torwali is the direct lineal descendant of the Niya Prakrit, but there is no doubt that out of all the modern languages it shows the closest resemblance to it. A glance at the map in the Linguistic Survey of India shows that the area at present covered by "Kohistani" is the nearest to that area round Peshawar, where, as stated above, there is most reason to believe was the original home of the Niya Prakrit. That conclusion, which was reached for other reasons, is thus confirmed by the distribution of the modern dialects.
  10. ^ Salomon, Richard (1998-12-10). Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan Languages. Oxford University Press. p. 79. ISBN 978-0-19-535666-3.
  11. ^ Rensch, Calvin Ross; Decker, Sandra J.; Hallberg, Daniel G. (1992). Languages of Kohistan. Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan. Vol. 1. National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University. p. xiii. ISBN 969-8023-11-9.
  12. ^ Baart, Joan L. G. (1997). The sounds and tones of Kalam Kohistani: with wordlist and texts. Studies in languages of Northern Pakistan. National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Summer Institute of Linguistics (United Kingdom). Islamabad : United Kingdom: National Institute of Pakistan Studies ; Summer Institute of Linguistics. ISBN 978-969-8023-03-4.
  13. ^ Torwali, Zubair (2016). "Reversing Language Loss through an Identity Based Educational Planning: The Case of Torwali language" (PDF). Eurasian Journal of Humanities. 1 (2): 24.
  14. ^ Hammarström, Harald. "Torwali". Glottolog. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
  15. ^ Liljegren, Henrik (2018). "Supporting and Sustaining Language Vitality in Northern Pakistan". The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization. pp. 427–437. doi:10.4324/9781315561271-54. ISBN 978-1-315-56127-1.
  16. ^ a b c Èdel'man, Džoj Iosifovna (1983). The Dardic and Nuristani languages. Nauka. OCLC 1014554012.[page needed]
  17. ^ a b c Lunsford, Wayne A. (2001). An overview of linguistic structures in Torwali, a language of Northern Pakistan (PDF) (Thesis). pp. 26–30. OCLC 48846858.
  18. ^ Kochetov, Alexei; Arsenault, Paul (2008), Retroflex harmony in Kalasha: Agreement or spreading? (PDF), NELS, vol. 39, Cornell University, p. 4
  19. ^ Ullah, Inam (2005). "Inam Ullah's A digital Torwali-English dictionary with audio" (PDF).
  20. ^ Torwali, Zubair (2019). "Early Writing in Torwali in Pakistan". Teaching Writing to Children in Indigenous Languages. London, New York: Routledge. p. 50. ISBN 9781351049672.

Bibliography

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Torwali language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

An online source, the website of IBT where efforts of revitalizing the Torwali language can be found along with resources in and about the Torwali language:

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