A Brief Survey of the Languages of the Neelam Valley

iA legal brief visual sense of the phraseologys of the Neelam vale Khawaja A. Rehman1 The Neelam vale, formerly cognise as Drawa, is set(p) at an altitude of 4000 to 7500 feet. provided, the mountain peaks just a rent the vale range up to 17,000 feet. The heart and soul length of the valley is ab bug out atomic number 53 hundred fifty kilometers and accord to the census of 1998 the universe was 120,661 with 84 separate settle ments (online census physical composition). In 2005, it was precondition the status of a distinct and has been cognise since then as District Neelam with 2 tehsils Sharda and Athmuqam.Previously, it was subdivision of Muzaffarabad District with its furnish at Athmuqam. Before agencyition in 1947, the tehsil render of the argona was Titwal, now under Indian control, the argona was cognize as Drawa and the river rate of flow through the valley was called Kishan Ganga (Stein 1900). The name of the river subsequentlywards partition has been cha nged to Neelam and the name of the territory to Neelam vale. The explicate Neelam move ups from the name of a colony on the rectify argot of the river nigh 12 kilometers upstream from Athmuqam.More e genuinelyplace, at that plant argon similarly deuce an early(a)(prenominal)wise small colonys known as Neelam in the region. The river Neelam originates from Indian administered Kashmir and enters Pakistani administered Kashmir, known as Azad Kashmir, at Tau entirelyt. beyond this point it is electrostatic meanred to as Kishan Ganga. The universe of discourse lives on two sides of the Neelam or Kishan Ganga River. A few villages on the leftfield vernacular of the Neelam valley fall under Indian control This region re chief(prenominal)s a relatively uncharted territory on the lingual map.The Linguistic Survey of India (edited by Grier parole in the early 20th century) does non contain substantive information on the wrangles of the valley, and ne truly does one find often information about the bea in the more new literature (Schmidt 1981, 2002, Koul 2004, betray and Koul 2002, Radloff 1999, Grimes 2000, OLeary 1992). The accompaniment that the extraction of defend runs right through the valley is one obvious cerebrate as to why the field of honor is s basistily accessible to lookers presently. heretofore, earlier partition the atomic number 18a was inaccessible due to nonexistence of road link In this account, I present a brief overview of the intercommunicate communicating varieties babble out in the Neelam vale based on recent question as well as my go through as a resident of the argona. These varieties imply forms of lectures that be verbalize widely elsewhere, such(prenominal) as Hindko, Gojri, Shina (Guresi and Chilasi), Kashmiri, and rase sheepskin coat, except too the earlier distinct deviseing of the village of Kundal Shahi, turn up near the Neelam district headquarters, Athmuqam (Rehman & Baart 2005) ..Hindko . The Hindko mental lexicon communicate in the Neelam valley is comm solitary(prenominal) known as Parmi , by the communities former(a) than the Kashmiries and PArim by the Kashmiries and approximatelytimes Hindko or Pahari as well. The reciprocation Parmi or PArim is derived from the Kashmiri intelligence operation ApArim from the nigh an otherwise(prenominal) side Historically communicate the Hindko public speaking communities lived in the highlands of the Kashmir vale and these highlanders were readererred to by the Kashmiries as apArim.. Afterwards the do of this word would take been extended to their nomenclature as well.The word pArim for Hindko is withal go for in Indian administered Kashmir as the expression I found in a Kashmiri comedy plattered in Srinagar. The use of Hindko has never been rolled before in whatsoever part of Kashmir. In traditiona be givenic linguistic literature the Hindko wording utter in Kashmir is referred to as Pahari In 2004, I recorded a word list, used as part of the Sociolinguistic Survey of Yankee Pakistan, from eight divers(prenominal) locations in the Neelam valley. I analyzed the word list in collaboration with Dr.Joan Baart, who has been working on the verbiages of Northern Pakistan for the finishing 13 years. The outline of the word list showed that the contour spoken in the Neelam valley was closer to the variation of the Kaghan Valley than that of the Murree Hills. In traditional literature, the language spoken in the Murree Hills is classified as Pahari and that of spoken in the Kaghan Valley as Hindko. The conclusion was overly confirmed in informal discussions with the Hindko speakers as well as the Hindko speakers from the Kaghan Valley and Mansehra.This proves that the Northern phrasal idiom of Hindko is excessively spoken in Azad Kashmir and my hypothesis is that aforementioned(prenominal) classification is in like manner spoken on the other side of aviation of co ntrol. in that location be many villages in Indian administered Kashmir along the line of control, at a infinite of only few yards from the villages of Azad Kashmir. The Line of Control actually divides just about villages in the Neelam Valley. Linguistically speaking, it may be interest to look into the speech differences that strike evolved during the abide 58 years among nigh villages falsehood on either side of the Line of control.It is worth distinguishing two populations of native Hindko speakers in the Neelam Valley ethnical Hindko speakers and the Hindko speakers of other ethnicities. gibe to the oral histories Hindko speakers came from Mansehra and the Kaghan Valley, which parallels the Neelam Valley where as the non-ethnic Hindko speakers came from either the Valley of Kashmir or other move of southwesterly Asia. In spite of the fact that close of the collections originally speaking languages other than Hindko consider switch overed to Hindko, they retain a pissed ethnic consciousness, identifying along ethnic quite a than linguistic linesThe change of Hindko spoken in the Neelam valley genuinely interestingly retains, hostile other varieties of Hindko, Pahari and Punjabi, the old Indo-Aryan delicate aspirated stops /bh/, /dh/, /Dh/, /gh/, in the initial positions. However my present look into shows that a bump is tone ending on actually chop-chop. The reason existence that the frequent pertain with the Hindko speakers of other varieties of Hindko, Punjabi and Pahari speakers, is a major cause of this change. The shift is quite evident along the wayside and in main townspeoples, where the influx of the extracurricularrs is very frequent.The colonizations away from the main road and foster up stream from Dudnial, show stiff retention of this feature. The influence of the Punjabi is non only restricted to the Phonology plainly too at syntax level. The dative and accusative marker kUo f traditional Hindko is being re based by the nuu of Punjabi. Hindko is the predominant language of the Neelam Valley. It is the main lingua franca. Speakers of other languages are commonly proficient in Hindko except some women in a few Kashmiri and Shina speaking villages.It is also encroaching upon the languages of smaller assemblages. Virtually all members of the other language communities are bilingualistist in Hindko. A process of language shift to Hindko is going on in many of these communities. In some of these communities this process started relatively recently, patch in others it has been going on a slap-up deal long. . Kashmiri Kashmiri is the second big(p)st language of the area. it is spoken by the ethnic Kashmiries. However many kashmiries hurl switched to Hindko in the break two centuries.The villages where Kasmiri is spoken exclusively as a contract applauder embroil Halmat, Sardari, ShunDdas, Tehjian, Malik Seri and Khawaja Seri. Among these the former trine are adjacent to each ot her at the standoffishness of about 193 kilometers from Muzaffarabad, the chapiter city of Azad Kashmir. And if we go further up the stream we come to Nekro, where legal age are Kashmiri get drink tongue speakers with a few families of Shina speakers. The village Nekro is adjacent to Karimabad, formerly known as Sutti, where Guresi Shina is spoken as a sustain tongue.The residents of these villages are less proficient in Hindko than other Kashmiri speakers of the region. They usually pick to use Urdu with the Hindko speakers. The latter two villages Malik Seri and Khawaja Seri are adjacent to each other and ordinarily known as Khawaja Seri save the receipts department of the state lists them separately. These villages are bout 130 kilometers from Muzaffarabad. Tehjian, another Kashmiri speaking village, is about seven kilometers further down stream from Khawaja Seri approximately all individuals of these villages are bilingual in Hindko.Apart from these at that place a re some six other villages where Kashmiri is the language of majority base. The change of Kashmiri spoken in the Neelam Valley is closer to the variety spoken in northern Kashmir especially that of the Kupwara District, of Indian administered Kashmir rather than that of Muzaffarabad city. Although the Kashmiri spoken in Muzaffarabad is graspable to the Kashmiries of the Neelam Valley, they can understand the variety of Srinagar disclose than that of Muzaffarabad. The Kashmiri spoken in the Neelam Valley has retained some archaic features.For example, Nealam Valey Kashmiri has daram maj woman and daram boi friend, which are hardly found in other varieties of Kashmiri. The word daram is probably derived from the Sanskrit word dharma. Moreover, my research reveals that the Neelam Valley patois of Kashmiri retains the third mortal plural subject agreement affix ukh more consistently than other dialects.. Speakers of the Srinagar dialect accept this usage, however it is not in co mmon use, suggesting that it is an archaism. It also shares the retroflex pettifoggery /R/ with the variety of Kupwara, which is an alveolar hustle in the variety of Srinagar.A historically very important town located five kilometers upstream from Khawaja Seri and Malik Seri, known as Shardi or Sharda, is headquarters of the tehsil of the same name. . A marvelous Hindu/ Buddhist temple is still standing and ruins of a great civilization are still visible. The stick had been a privy of learning for a long time and it is likely that the Sharda record actual to write the languages of the region. The script was developed some 1200years back and was popular in most parts of the South Asia and was named after Sharda (Deambonline).No substantial research has been carried out so far in Sharda. It is very much likely that the script would have been developed in Sharda as this place had been a very famous seat of learning (Stein 1900) Before partition the place was frequented by the Hi ndus from different parts of India and was consider sacred. Kundal Shahi Kundal Shahi is a village that is located in the Neelam valley 74 kilometers upstream from Muzaffarabad, the capital city of Azad Kashmir, and seven kilometers from the district headquarters Athmuqam. The Kundal Shahi anguage is spoken by an ethnic group, called Qureshi. They assoil up the majority of the Kundal Shahi village. in that respect are some other states, but they do not speak it as their yield tongue (Rehman and Baart 2005). The people telephone call to have migrated from a town called Tajjar, presently in the Indian part of Kashmir some three centuries back. No other variety of the language is known. A first publication on the language, A First Look at the Language of Kundal Shahi in Azad Kashmir appeared in march 2005 (Rehman &. Baart 2005) The tribe comprises approximately 1,500 to 2,000 people(ibid).In recent years a process of language shift has been taking place to Hindko. Almost all mem bers of the federation are bilingual in Hindko and are very rapidly shifting to Hindko. Gojri Third bombasticst ethnic group in Neelam valley is Gojars. Basically at that place are two types of Gojars colonised Gojars and nomads or Bakarwals. Settled Gojars Local folktales indicate that the colonised Gojars are the earliest settlers of Neelam valley. They are believed to have migrated to the Neelam Valley to find summer pastures for their goats and sheep and piecemeal settled down permanently.These Gojars no longer assemble sheep and goats on a large scale. Their villages, Marnat, Kharigam, Kuttan and Ashkot, are scattered all over the Neelam valley. The interesting thing about these Gojars is that the majority have abandoned their get down tongue and adopted Hindko. However, there are still a few settlements among the Gojars who speak their mother tongue at least at home. The settled Gojars hardly use Gojri in bazaars and other public places in summit of speakers of other languages. The Bakarwals The Bakerwals goatherds are those Gojars who still raise goats and sheep.They are not permanent residents of the Neelam Valley, but come during the summer with their animals, especially goats, sheep and mules (for carrying load). They go to high pastures for the summer and sometimes even travel to the Northern Areas and the Kaghan Valley. These people usually go to the Punjab plains and lower parts of Azad Kashmir during the winters. They use the Gojri language in their daily confabulation and show a strong drift for language maintenance, reducing the probability of. Language shift among these people in the utterly term.The come in population of these nomadic Gojars is not operable. However, according to the crude estimate of the Wildlife segment of Azad Kashmir, the summer of 2005 saw a total of 150,000 goats and sheep traveling into the Neelam Valley (personal communication with Manzoor a topical anesthetic official) Shina Although the Gojars are t he third largest ethnic group in the Neelam Valley, third largest language spoken is Shina. Though Shina is only spoken in three villages, there are two clearly different varieties of Shina, Guresi Shina and Chilasi Shina. Guresi ShinaGuresi shina is spoken in Taubutt, the last village of the Neelam valley and its adjacent village Karimabad (Sutti) Taubutt is about 215 kilometers from Muzaffarabad. some(prenominal) villages are on the right bank of the river Neelam. The language is local anaestheticly known as ShiNa and some times Dardi. Total population of these two villages was 1332 in 1998 and majority among them are Lone by tribe. Most of the Shina speakers of the area are bilingual in Kashmiri. They use Kashmiri with their neighboring Kashmiries. They have also borrowed many Kashmiri nomenclature. Their Hindko intelligibility is very unretentive and with Hindko speakers they usually use Urdu.Moreover, they dont consider themselves grouped in any way with the Shina speakers of Phulwei. On the other generate they are culturally closer to the Kashmiri speakers of Halmat and Sardari and associate themselves with these people rather than Phulweites. There are intermarriages between the neighboring Kashmiri communities and there is no record of intermarrying with the Shina speakers of Phulwei. harmonize to my informants the mutual intelligibility with the people of Phulwei is very unretentive and their language is different in vocabulary and pronunciation.They claim to have relatives on the other side of the line of control and also claim that their variety is similar to the variety spoken in the Gures valley of Indian part of Kashmir. However when I compared some words with the Guresi Shina collected on the other side (Schimdt 2000) I found most of the words quite different These Shina speakers also claim that they can communicate intimately with the people from Qamri a town in the northern areas without any difficulty and their variety is quite clos er to theirs. Chilasi ShinaPhulwei a large village with many sub villages, locally known as Mozas, is at the distance of 180 kilometers from Muzaffarabad Total population of the village was according to 1998 census 2912. My flow rate research shows that the in the beginning, about some two centuries back, the first group of these shin speakers settled at Pain Seri (meaning lower plain). This group included four brothers who had migrated from Nait, a town in Chilas, owing to some family feud. mass of the people claim to belong to alone(predicate) tribe, have assumed local titles.Clans aliveness in this village include Kachray, Nasray, Butt, swell and Rajput etc. The majority belong to Kachray and both Kachray and Nasray claim to belong to Lone clan. It is very interesting that in Taubutt and Karimabad the same tribe is in majority. Grierson (1915) claims by using alternative information, that in Nait , Chilas some people speak Guresi Shina. However neither any research (Schimdt 2002, Carla 1992, 1999) reports such kind of variety and the variety spoken by the people of Phulwei also negates the statement of Grierson. My respondents belonged to all groups and all claimed to have come from Nait.Their mutual intelligibility with those of from Nait is far split than the shins of Taubutt and Sutti/ Karimabad. They have their close relations in Chilas and frequently travel to Chilas. However for the last gild years the intermarrying with these people has been terminated. This boycott is a result of feud, which claimed many lives on either side some nine years back. The people in the Neelam Valley are normally very quiet but the people of Phulwei are known for their feuds and fights all over the region. They themselves also defy the fact.One of my informants told me that there are very frequent murders and narrated that his grand father had attached seven murders, his father three and his son killed a man. Locally these people are known as Dards and they thems elves call the Hindko speakers Gojars regardless of their ethnic group. They have no record of intermarrying with the people of Karimabad/ Sutti or Taubutt. However there are some instances of their intermarrying with the local Hindko Speakers. fit to them the Shina or Dardi spoken in Taubutt and Karimabad is not standard variety and refer to it as kachi half-bakedIn the village there are few Hindko speaking households but they are bilingual in Shina Pashto Dhaki and Changnar are two villages of Neelam valley, where Pashto is the mother tongue of all residents. The speakers of the language refer to their language as Pukhto/Pakhto. The population of these two villages, according to1998 census, was 1087 with 170 households. The people claim that some two centuries back their forefathers migrated from Swat, a region in Northern Pakistan, and settled in Dhaki and few others, among these, settled in Kashmir valley as well.The main reason, according to the oral history for choosing the place, was its conducive and flush environment for raising livestock. Dhaki is at about two hours walking distance from the left bank of the river Neelam and later some, among these, shifted to another nigh village Changnar. Both villages are right on the Line of Control, separating Indian part of Kashmir from that of Azad Kashmir. Almost all male members of the group are bilingual in Hindko. or so of the females of the group can understand Hindko but most of them are not bilingual in Hindko.The reason being that the men have very frequent contact with the Hindko speaking population where as the women are less likely to travel outside these villages and have no Hindko speaking community nearby. During the last fifteen years sweep border firing between the Indo-Pak military personnel has caused large scale migration from these villages and this migration has led to the language loss at large scale. It forget be very interesting to document the degree of this loss The Pashto spo ken by the population is quite different from other varieties of Pashto and is a dialect on its own right.These Pashto speakers can communicate with the Pashto speakers from outside but they cant understand them fully. My current research shows that they have assimilated many Hindko words into their Pashto, and also have kept some archaic words of Pashto, which are no longer used by the other Pashto speakers in Pakistan. . No linguistic literature has mentioned the existence of Pashto in any part of Kashmir (Grierson 1921, Hallberg 1992, Personal communication with Hook and Koul. To my Knowledge this is only settlement in both parts of Kashmir who speaks Pashto.In the Neelam Valley, apart from these Pashto speakers, there are some other groups who claim to be ethnic Pathans, but have simply shifted to Hindko long time ago. Locally these groups are still known as Pathans and they also refer themselves as Pathan. Present division of legislature and minister in the footlocker of Aza d Jammu and Kashmir, from the District Neelam, also belongs to the same group. . oddment Apart from these local languages Urdu and side of meat are also used. These languages are medium of instruction.No indigenous language is taught in schools. No standard orthography is available for these local languages. However, Some Kashmiri literatures, especially rime books, published before partition, are available at some houses. Lots of borrowings from Urdu and English are obvious in these local languages. This is a preliminary overview of the languages of the Neelam Valley. The aim of this sketch is to introduce this linguistically rich but undiscovered area to the outer homo and invite scholars to carry out linguistic research in the region.And also piddle awareness about the languages loss among the speakers of these languages References Barbara F. Grimes, Ed, 2000 ordinal edition) Ethnologue peck1, Languages of the world SIL International, Dallas, Texas, USA. (http//www. ethno logue. com/web. asp) Deambi, B. K. Kaul. The Sharada ScriptOrigin and Development. in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh linguistic predicament Eds. P. N. Pushp and K. Warikoo Himalayan look and Cultural Foundation Har-Anand Publications onlinehttp//www. koshur. org/Linguistic/3. hypertext mark-up language Federal bureaue of sensus online http//www. isepak. com/Forms/VillageListMUZAFFARABAD. pdf. Grierson, George. 1915. Linguistic survey of India, volume 8,part 2, 150-190. Calcutta Hallberg, Daniel G. and Calinda E. Hallberg. 1999. 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Originally published London constable, 1900 1 The author is a PhD candidate at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan i Paper was presented at the 19th European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, Panel 31 Linguistics in Lesser-known languages in South Asia, 27-30 June 2006, Leiden, The Netherlands. http//213. 207. 98. 217/index. php? q= pommel/56