Pamir
Language · official in 1 country
Pamir names an areal group of Eastern Iranian languages spoken in the Pamir Mountains, mostly along the Panj River and its tributaries. Western scholars once called them the Ghalchah languages. Afghanistan's constitution, which calls them Pamiri, makes them official in the areas where a majority speaks them.
The language on record
- Script
- Not recorded
- Family
- Eastern Iranian
- Official in
- 1 country
Where Pamir is official
Afghanistan is the only country on record. Tajikistan's Gorno-Badakhshan, where the same languages are spoken, carries no such status on this list.
Official beside Pamir
About Pamir
What holds the Pamir group together
Geography more than descent. No shared feature has been shown that would make the Pamir languages a single subgroup of Iranian. Ethnologue lists them with Pashto as Southeastern Iranian; Encyclopaedia Iranica puts both in a North-Eastern branch. Four groups are counted as reliable: Shughni and Yazghulami with Sarikoli, Munji with Yidgha, Ishkashimi with its related dialects, and Wakhi. All place the verb last. Václav Blažek suggested in 2019 that they share a substratum resembling Burushaski, the isolate spoken to the south in Pakistan.
Which Pamir languages Afghanistan has
They are spoken mainly in Badakhshan Province in the northeast. The survey of Afghanistan's languages lists Shughni, Munji, Ishkashimi and Wakhi under Pamiri. Munji had about 5,300 speakers in 2008, in the Mamalgha and Munjan valleys of Kuran wa Munjan district. Munji and Yidgha share one sound change with the old Bactrian language, *ð becoming /l/, that the other three groups lack. Sanglechi, spoken on the Afghan side, has no written form, and Sarghulami, once spoken in Badakhshan, is extinct.
Why Pamir speakers write in Persian
The great majority of speakers in Tajikistan and Afghanistan use Persian as their literary language, a Western Iranian language rather than a relative in their own branch. Yazghulami, spoken by about 4,000 people in 1994, has no established writing system. The group was counted at roughly 100,000 speakers in 1990 and is classed as endangered.
Vanji shows the risk. It was spoken in the Vanj valley of what is now Tajikistan until the Bukharan Emirate annexed the region in the 19th century, and by the end of that century Tajik Persian had replaced it.
Common questions
Questions about Pamir
How many languages count as Pamir?
Four groups: Shughni-Yazghulami, which includes Sarikoli and Rushani; Munji and Yidgha; Sanglechi-Ishkashimi; and Wakhi. No shared feature makes them one subgroup, so the grouping is by region.
Where is Sarikoli spoken?
Beyond the Sarikol Range, in the Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County of Xinjiang in China, which makes it the easternmost living Iranian language. It had about 20,000 speakers there in 1982.
Are the Pamir languages endangered?
Yes. The group had roughly 100,000 speakers in 1990, most of whom also write in Persian.