# Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (Third Edition)/Western and Central Asia

​Western and Central Asia
Hakim Elnazarov
The vast mountainous region of Central Asia, encompassing the Pamir, Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountain ranges, is host to numerous small ethnolinguistic groups, to the point that some scholars have classified it as an ‘ethnographic museum’. These groups have retained their distinctive linguistic and cultural diversity due to the geographically complex pattern of the mountainous terrain. The twentieth century brought the region into contact with the outside world, thus accelerating the process of change in all spheres of human existence. The culturally diverse groups have been increasingly intertwined with the globalized world, which has brought challenges to the cultural diversity of these mountainous communities along with opportunities for economic growth.
The genealogy of these mountain languages places them within the broader group of Indo-Iranian and Indo-Aryan languages. They have been classified as Eastern Iranian, Nuristani and Dardic language families within those groups. The exception is the Burushaski language spoken in Hunza-Nagar and Yasin area in Gilgit district of northern Pakistan that is known as a language isolate, that is, its membership in a linguistic phylum is not established.
The languages spoken in the region can all be classified as endangered to varying degrees. Extensive studies of these languages over the last century have largely concentrated on their documentation and description as part of ethnographic studies, which demonstrate the rich cultural traditions of the mountain communities. More recent initiatives are the development of multilingual dictionaries in some languages with numerous speakers. With the exception of a few sociolinguistic studies, there is a very limited literature on the endangerment of these languages. For the purposes of this chapter, I have relied on various sources, from sociolinguistic studies to ethnographic studies and official censuses of the host countries. Some sociological studies and reports on ​migration and economic developments also provide credible information on the dynamics of changes in demography and in the assimilation and integration of communities in the region.
Eastern Iranian languages
The Pamiri languages are sooken by diverse ethnic minority groups in the deep and narrow valleys of the Pamir mountain range and also in the Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountain ranges to the south-east of the Pamirs, a region known as the Pamiro-Hindu Kush ethnolinguistic region. The Pamiri languages include the Shughni-Rushani group of languages and the Wakhi, Ishkashimi and Yazgulyami languages. Most speakers of these languages live in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province of Tajikistan. Some linguists add the Munjan language, spoken by a minority group in northern Afghanistan, to this group. The Shughni- Rushani subgroup is further divided into closely related languages, including Shughni, Rushani, Bartangi, Sariqoli and a number of smaller dialects that are mutually comprehensible to the speakers of this group. Their degree of genetic closeness varies, but they all belong to the Eastern Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. Among the Pamiri languages, Shughni has the largest community of speakers, exceeding 100,000 people on both sides of the River Panj on the Tajikistan and Afghanistan border. The speakers live in the regional capital city Khorog and Shughnan district, including the Ghund and Roshtqala valleys. The language prevails among other Pamiri languages and serves as a lingua franca for most of the speakers of other Pamiri languages in the Badakhshan region.
Speakers of the Wakhi language, known as Wakhis, second to Shughni-speakers in terms of number, live in the far reaches of the Pamirs on the border of four countries – Tajikistan, China, Pakistan and Afghanistan. They inhabit Sarhad region – a valley along the Vakhandarya River in Afghanistan and along the upper reaches of the Panj River that forms the border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Wakhi-speakers are also settled in Chitral and the Northern Area of Pakistan in Yarkhun, Ishkoman, Hunza and Shimshal. Wakhi settlements are also found in Tashkorghan district of Xinjiang Province of China. The total number of Wakhi-speakers in four countries exceeds 70,000. The speakers of other Pamiri languages range from 20,000 (Rushanis) to fewer than 1,000. The severely endangered language among this group is Ishkashimi, spoken in a single village, Ryn, and closely associated with the Sanglechi language on the Afghan side.
Among other Eastern Iranian minority languages in Tajikistan are Yaghnobi and Parya. Yaghnobi is spoken by approximately 20,000 people in several localities in the Yaghnov valley near Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan. In spite of their close proximity to surrounding Tajik- speakers, Yaghnobis have preserved their unique culture and traditions. Examples of their written language, which is closely related to ancient Sogdian, still exist. The speakers of Parya (numbering around 7,000} are mostly scattered along the Hissor valley of western Tajikistan along the border with Uzbekistan. Some speakers of this language can also be found in Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. The Yaghnobi- and Parya-speakers exhibit high bilingual proficiency. There is, however, increasing penetration of Tajik vocabulary into these languages, which makes their chances of survival rather slim. A recent initiative to create a primer for the Yaghnobi language has not yet been realized.
The degree of endangerment of the Pamiri and other minority languages in Tajikistan varies, depending on the number of speakers and their social and cultural vitality. The common characteristic of their ​endangerment is the lack of a written script. Their usage is confined to the public domain without any official status. The official language of governance, formal education and public gatherings remains Tajik. The Constitution of Tajikistan recognizes the multiplicity of ethnic groups in the country. A special article in the state Law on Language Policy prescribes that the languages of the mountainous Badakhshan (Pamiri} area and the Yaghnobi language, as ancient Iranian languages, should be preserved and promoted (Article 1, part 3}. However, much remains to be done to promote these languages for educational purposes.
Turkic languages
The vast region of Central and western Asia is inhabited predominantly by Turkic-speaking peoples. With the exception of Tajikistan, other Central Asian countries including Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and, to the north-west, the south-eastern regions of the Russian Federation, are predominantly Turkic-soeaking. Their languages belong to the Turkic-Altaic family of languages. Centuries of coexistence and interaction with Iranian people have left traces in their linguistic composition. This is particularly evident in the case of Uzbekistan, where most of the population are bilingual, that is, they speak Tajik along with Uzbek. Uzbekistan has a number of endangered languages that actually belong to the Indo-Iranian branch. Bukharic, which has fewer than 10,000 speakers, is spoken in areas surrounding the historic city of Bukhara. Parya is another lranian-branch endangered language spoken in Uzbekistan, but most of its speakers live in neighbouring Tajikistan. Among the most endangered languages in the Turkic-speaking countries of Central Asia is probably Dungan, which belongs to Sino-Tibetan. It has several dialects, including the Gansi and Shaanxi dialects. The majority of its speakers (40,000) live in Kyrgyzstan. There are other endangered languages in this region, but they have more speakers in other countries, particularly in the Russian Federation.
The ethnic make-up of the Central Asian countries was diversified during the Soviet period, when the mobility of the population led to an influx of Slavic-speakers. Current state policies attempt to reinforce the position of the official language in all domains. Some countries such as Uzbekistan have replaced the Cyrillic script with Latin in order to reinforce the national identity. As a result, many minority groups in these countries are vulnerable.
Western Iranian languages
The Islamic Republic of Iran and Afghanistan are home to a number of endangered languages belonging to the Western Iranian branch of Indo-Iranian languages. Parachi and its close affiliate Ormuri, spoken in central Afghanistan near Kabul, have only a few thousand speakers left. Both are experiencing pressure from Dari and Pashtu, the official state languages. A similar situation prevails in the Islamic Republic of Iran, with its multicultural and multiethnic composition. A majority of the endangered languages there belong to wider groups in the vicinity such as Balochi, spoken in Pakistan, and Khalaj, a Turkic language also spoken in Azerbaijan and Turkey. There are, however, dozens of indigenous minority groups whose languages are experiencing various degrees of endangerment.
Most of them are spoken in the central areas of the Islamic Republic of Iran – they include Ashtiani, Gazi, Khunsari, Natanzi, Nayini, Sivandi, Soi and Vafsi. The number of speakers ranges between 20,000 and 7,000. However, there have been no systematic studies or documentation of these languages other than recordings of popular songs and folklore.
​There are a number of other endangered languages in the Islamic Republic of Iran, scattered mostly in the north-western area bordering Iraq – they include Hawrami, Dzhidi, Mandaic, Hulawla and Lishan Didan. The last two are believed to be extinct, while Mandaic has fewer than 300 speakers and is critically endangered. In the south, Koroshi, Lari and Bashkardi (which has affinities with Balochi) are also in danger of disappearing. Semnani, with its several dialects in the north-eastern province of Semnan, is also definitely endangered. Persian has been the language of literary tradition for these communities for centuries, and speakers are by and large bilingual. These vanishing languages are often treated as dialects of the country’s literary and official language, that is, Persian, and there do not seem to be many signs of attempts to revitalize and reinvigorate them.
Nuristani languages
Nuristani languages are spoken in Nuristan Province in north-east Afghanistan. Some speakers of these languages can also be found in neighbouring Pakistan along the Afghan border. The term Nuristan, ‘Land of Light’, was attached to these communities after their acceptance of Islam at the end of the nineteenth century. However, they continue to retain their linguistic affiliation according to their ancient communal and tribal names. These include Kati, Prasun, Waigali, Ashkun and Gambiri (or Tregami}. The largest community among this group consists of Kati-speakers, also known as Bashgali, who number close to 20,000. Prasun, Waigali and Ashkun each have approximately 2,000 speakers. Gambiri (or Tregami) has fewer than 1,009. It is sooken only in three villages in the Tregam valley of the lower Pech in Nuristan Province and is among the region’s severely endangered languages.
Nuristan Province was created in 2002 by the Interim Government of Afghanistan. This has enabled the Nuristani community to take ownership of their social and economic development, thereby strengthening their sense of identity. They use Dari and Pashtu as official languages. Recently the Ministry of Education of Afghanistan has taken an initiative to develop primers for some of the minority languages spoken in the country. Among them are Pamiri languages spoken within Afghanistan and the Nuristani languages. The orthographies will be based on the Persian script.
The prolonged war in Afghanistan led to a significant exodus of Afghan refugees to other parts of the world, especially Pakistan. The migration involved a large number of minority groups, in particular Nuristani-speakers. Not all of them have returned to their home country, and many have sought refuge elsewhere. Thus, there are pockets of Nuristani-speakers in Chitral in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province on the border with Afghanistan, where they appear to have set up permanent residence. The spread of the community outside its home makes it prone to faster assimilation and the loss of its original language.
Dardic languages
The Dardic languages are the largest and probably the least explored group of languages of the Central Asian mountainous region. There are several groups of Dardic languages spoken by communities scattered along the vast territories of northern Pakistan, eastern Afghanistan and Jammu and Kashmir in India. Apart from Kashmiri, the other languages are experiencing various levels of endangerment. Recent sociolinguistic surveys by the National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University and the Summer Institute of Linguistics (now, SIL International), ​Islamabad, provide insights into the endangerment and cultural vitality of these languages. G. Morgenstierne (1974) made a significant contribution to the study of the genetics of these languages and their classification. More research is needed to define their relation to other Indo-Aryan languages and their degrees of endangerment.
The Dardic languages have been clustered into five groups: the Kunar group, the Chitral cluster, and Kohistani, Shina and Kashmiri. Except for Kashmiri and Shina, they are all considered endangered. The Kunar languages – Gawar-Bati and Dameli, Pashayi, Shumashti and Ningalami (which also includes Grangali) – are mainly spoken in the southern Chitral district of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan and the Kunar valley of Afghanistan. The size of each group does not exceed 10,000 speakers, Gawar-Bati has the largest number (9,500}, while Ningalami is critically endangered. The Chitral languages are Khowar and Kalasha. The number of Khowar-speakers is the largest among the Dardic languages (over 200,000}, which makes it relatively safe. Kalasha is spoken in the Kalash valley in southern Chitral of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan. The approximately 5,000 Kalasha-speakers are the only remaining non-Muslim group in the region. The Kohistani group includes Kalami, Torwali, Kalkoti, Indus Kohistani, Bateri, Chilisso, Gowro, and a few other languages and dialects, some of which are mutually comprehensible. Gowro is spoken by fewer than 200 people in the Indus Kohistan and Kolai area. Speakers of other languages number a mere few thousand, except Bateri (29,000). The Shina cluster includes Domaaki, Phalura and Ushojo. Among these languages, Domaaki is sooken by fewer than 500 people in a handful of villages in the Gilgit and Hunza valleys. Phalura is sooken in a few villages in southern Chitral of Pakistan and the speakers of the Savi language are based in a village on the Kunar River in Afghanistan. Some Savi people were displaced due to the war in Afghanistan and took shelter in Pakistan. Speakers of Ushojo live in several scattered villages in the Bishigram valley of Swat Kohistan in Pakistan.
Most of the Dardic languages are under severe pressure from Pashtu, which is widely used as a second language. The majority of speakers are bilingual and are proficient in Urdu or Pashtu. The language of formal education in northern Pakistan is Urdu, but not all the minority groups have access to formal education. The community’s rich cultural traditions and folklore are transmitted orally from one generation to another. Isolation is prolonging the life of endangered languages, but communities have little opportunity to develop economically. Thus, many speakers of these languages are seeking to move to urban areas. The impact of this north-south migration in search of better job opportunities has made it difficult for families to preserve their mother tongue in an alien environment. With the upsurge in global means of communication and the expansion of infrastructure in the isolated northern regions of Pakistan, people’s mobility is likely to change the demography and linguistic make-up of the region.
Given the current geopolitical interests of the countries of Central and South Asia and the instability in some regions, the reinvigoration of endangered languages is unlikely to be a priority. The efforts of international organizations to increase awareness of endangered languages as part of human rights initiatives seem to be the best option in the current situation.