Pashayi
Language · official in 1 country
Pashayi, also spelled Pashai, had no known written form before 2003. The name covers a group of Indo-Aryan languages in four varieties that share only about 30% of their vocabulary and cannot be understood across the group. Afghanistan's 2004 constitution makes Pashayi official in the areas where a majority speaks it.
The language on record
- Script
- Arabic
- Family
- Indo-Aryan (Dardic)
- Official in
- 1 country
Where Pashayi is official
Afghanistan, in six northeastern provinces where Pashayi speakers live. The constitution grants the language official status wherever they form the majority.
Official beside Pashayi
About Pashayi
Where the Pashayi varieties are spoken
The Pashayi people live in parts of Kapisa, Laghman, Nangarhar, Nuristan and Kunar provinces and in Surobi district of Kabul province. Their speech falls into four varieties that are mutually unintelligible. The Northeastern variety includes the Aret, Chalas, Kandak, Korangal and Kurdar dialects. The Northwestern variety has sixteen named dialects, among them Gulbahar, Najil and Pachagan. Southeastern Pashayi includes Laghmani and the Darai Nur dialects, and Southwestern the Ishpi, Isken and Tagau dialects.
Pashai is classed with the Dardic languages. It is spoken next to the Nuristani group, and the two are in contact.
When Pashayi was first written down
No written form is known before 2003. A grammar followed as a doctoral dissertation in 2014.
The sound system is shifting. The retroflex sounds [ʂ] and [ʐ] are heard mostly from older speakers, and younger ones say [ʃ] and [ʒ] in their place. [f] and [q] turn up only in loanwords and among speakers of Dari, and [h] is a separate sound only in the Amla dialect. Masica reported in 1991 that some dialects have /θ/.
An estimate for 2020 put Pashayi speakers at 1% of Afghanistan's population.
Common questions
Questions about Pashayi
Can speakers of different Pashayi varieties understand one another?
Not across the four main varieties. They share only about 30% of their vocabulary and are counted as mutually unintelligible, though the dialects inside each variety are closer.
Is Pashayi a Nuristani language?
No. Pashai is Indo-Aryan and classed with the Dardic languages. It is spoken next to Nuristan, and the two groups are in contact, but Nuristani forms a separate branch of Indo-Iranian.