Kundal Shahi (کنڈل شاہی, Kunḍal Šāhī) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by about 700 people in the Kundal Shahi village of Neelam Valley in Azad Kashmir, Pakistan.[2] It is an endangered language and its speakers are shifting to Hindko.[3]
Phonology
The following tables set out the phonology of Kundal Shahi.[4]
Vowels
Kundal Shahi is unusual amongst Dardic languages in that it has front rounded vowels.[5]
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | unrounded | rounded | |
| Close | i iː | y yː | u uː | |
| Close-Mid | e eː | øː | ə | o oː |
| Open-Mid | ɛ ɛː | ʌ | ɔ ɔː | |
| Open | a aː | |||
Consonants
Like Kashmiri, Kundal Shahi is unusual amongst Dardic languages in that it lacks retroflex fricatives and affricates.[5]
| Labial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɳ | (ŋ) | |||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t | ʈ | tʃ | k | |
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | ʈʰ | tʃʰ | kʰ | ||
| voiced | b | d | ɖ | dʒ | ɡ | ||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʃ | x | h | |
| voiced | z | ||||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||
| Flap | ɾ | ɽ | |||||
| Approximant | j | w | |||||
Tone
Kundal Shahi, like many Dardic languages, has either phonemic tone or, as in Kundal Shahi, pitch accent.[6] Words may have only one accented mora, which is associated with high pitch; the remaining mora have a default or low pitch.[5]
Endangered
Kundal Shahi is severely endangered with less than 500 speakers, most of whom are over the age of 40.[7]
References
- ^ Kundal Shahi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ "Kundal Shahi". Ethnologue.
- ^ A. Rehman, Khawaja; L. G. Baart, Joan (2005). "A First Look at the Language of Kundal Shahi in Azad Kashmir" (PDF). SIL International.
- ^ Baart & Rehman 2005, pp. 10–13.
- ^ a b c Baart & Rehman 2005.
- ^ Baart 2003, pp. 3, 6.
- ^ "A first look at the language of Kundal Shahi in Azad Kashmir". 28 January 2013.
Bibliography
- Baart, Joan L. G. (2003), Tonal features in languages of northern Pakistan (PDF), National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University and Summer Institute of Linguistics, pp. 3, 6
- Baart, Joan L. G.; Rehman, Khawaja A. (2005). "A first look at the language of Kundal Shahi in Azad Kashmir". SIL Electronic Working Papers.
Further reading
- Rehman, Khawaja A. (2011). "Ergativity In Kundal Shahi, Kashmiri And Hindko". In Mark Turin; Bettina Zeisler (eds.). Himalayan languages and linguistics: studies in phonology, semantics, morphology and syntax. Brill's Tibetan studies library, Languages of the greater Himalayan region. Leiden: Brill. pp. 219–234. ISBN 978-90-04-19448-9.
- Rehman, Khawaja A. (2011). Language Shift In the Neelam Valley: A Case Study of the Kundal Shahi Language (PhD). Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.