Pashayi languages

Pashayi
Native to	Afghanistan
Ethnicity	Pashayi people
Native speakers	400,000 (2000–2011)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Dardic Pashayi
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Variously: aee – Northeastern glh – Northwestern psi – Southeastern psh – Southwestern
Glottolog	pash1270[2]
Linguasphere	59-AAA-a

Pashayi or Pashai (sometimes referred to colloquially in neighbouring languages as "Shari") is a group of languages spoken by the Pashai people in parts of Kapisa, Laghman, Nuristan, Kunar, and Nangarhar Provinces in Northeastern Afghanistan. It belongs to the Dardic branch of the Indo-Aryan languages.^[3] Most speakers are bilingual in Pashto with a literacy rate of about 25%, with the Pashayi languages having no written form prior to 2003.^[4] There are four mutually unintelligible varieties, with only about a 30% lexical similarity:^[1]

• Northeastern: Aret, Chalas (Chilas), Kandak, Korangal, Kurdar dialects
• Northwestern: Alasai, Bolaghain, Gulbahar, Kohnadeh, Laurowan, Najil, Nangarach, Pachagan, Pandau, Parazhghan, Pashagar, Sanjan, Shamakot, Shutul, Uzbin, Wadau dialects
• Southeastern: Damench, Laghmani, Sum, and Upper and Lower Darai Nur dialects
• Southwestern: Ishpi, Isken, Tagau dialects

A grammar of the language was written as a doctoral dissertation in 2014.^[5]

References

1. Northeastern at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
   Northwestern at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
   Southeastern at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
   Southwestern at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Pashayi". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
3. Masica, Colin P. (1991). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 440.
4. Yun, Ju-Hong (2003). "Pashai Language Development Project: Promoting Pashai language, literacy and community development" (PDF).
5. Lehr, Rachel. 2014. A descriptive grammar of Pashai: The language and speech of a community of Darrai Nur. Phd dissertation, University of Chicago.