Introduction

Chapter 1 Introduction

There are two main objectives of this study. The first is to provide a structural description of a lesser-known regional variety of Burushaski spoken in Srinagar, the summer capital of the Indian-administered state of Jammu & Kashmir (see Map 1 and Map 2). The description provides a comprehensive and systematic account of various structural features in terms of the phonol- ogy, morphology, lexicon and syntax of Srinagar Burushaski (This variety of Burushaski has been referred to as “Jammu & Kashmir Burushaski” in Munshi 2010). The second objective of the study is to provide a description and analysis of some major changes in Srinagar Burushaski, and the differences between this and the other regional dialects based on the contemporary spoken language samples. Despite being a relatively small speech community, the Burushos (speakers of the Burushaski language) that the author discovered in Srinagar about 16 years ago in 2002, constitute a sociolinguistic community that fulfills all contemporary definitions of a “speech community”. These Burushos have lived in Srinagar for a long time, speaking a language which different Kashmiris would know by different and often incorrect names. Since they lost contact, more than a century ago, with their parent community in what is now Pakistan, their language has undergone several changes which make this variety of Burushaski systematically different from the dialects of Burushaski spoken in Hunza, Nagar and Yasin valleys in Pakistan.1 The impetus for conducting a study on the Burushaski language in the valley of Kashmir came from the realization that the community, admittedly invisible (roughly 300 or more speakers) with- in the broader Kashmiri society of about 5 million speakers, has succeeded in maintaining a separate identity – social and linguistic, over a long period of time. Having lived in Srinagar for over a century and being an integral part of the Kashmiri society, especially in the social hierarchy of the Shi’ite Muslims of the valley, the Srinagar Burushos have withstood the pressures of linguistic assimilation and successfully overcome the danger of language loss to this date. Whether and how long this trend will continue is a question for future investigation.

1 Note that Nagar is sometimes spelt as “Nagir”, “Nager” or “Nagyr” in the literature.

1.1 Background

1.1.1 Demographic and Ethnographic Information Burushaski is mainly spoken in the Hunza, Nagar, and Yasin valleys in Pakistan. Hunza, Nagar and Yasin valleys are located in the Gilgit-Baltistan (formerly known as “Northern Areas”) region and are situated north of Gilgit in northern Pakistan (see Map 3 and Map 4) – a region stretching between South and Central Asia. There are no official figures available on the total number of Burushaski speakers in Pakistan. Based on the government census figures of 1981, Backstrom (1992) had estimated the total number of Burushaski speakers in all areas of Pakistan then to be 55,000–60,000 (i.e., 18–22,000 in Hunza, slightly more than that in Nagar, and about 15,000 or more in Yasin; Backstrom 1992: 36–37). Similar figures were given by Anderson (1997: 1022), i.e., approx- imately 50–60,000 Burushos. The Ethnologue (Simon & Fennig ed., 2017) re- ports about 96,800 speakers of Burushaski in Pakistan in the year 2004. Based on personal communication with the native speakers of different dialects of Burushaski, this study estimates the total number of Burushaski speakers in different regions of Pakistan to be around 100,000 or more. A few thousand have migrated to cities such as Gilgit, Islamabad and Karachi seeking employ- ment and educational opportunities. There are distinct differences in terms of vocabulary, morpho-syntax and pronunciation between the Yasin variety (sometimes referred to as “Werchikwar”) on the one hand, and the Hunza and Nagar varieties on the other.2 The latter two have been claimed to be sub-dialects of one variety (see Varma 1941: 133–157). Yasin is geographically separated from the other dialects by many miles of rugged mountainous terrain. The different dialects are mu- tually intelligible to varying degrees. According to a native speaker of Hunza Burushaski, “if two people, speaking Yasin and Hunza dialects [in Gilgit city], wish to communicate using their distinct varieties, they can easily communicate. But, that is very rare. They either switch to one of the two dialects for communication or they use Urdu.” (Piar Karim, p.c.). This implies a degree of bidialectal proficiency in at least some speakers who live in the city. Lexical similarity between Nagar and Hunza dialects, according to the Ethnologue (Simon & Fennig ed., 2017), is 91 %–94 %, between Yasin and Hunza it is 67 %–72 %, and between Yasin and Nagar 66 %–71 %. In fact some people

2 The Yasin variety is strongly influenced by Khowar. The name “Werchikwar” is originally from Khowar warčikwar [warčikwar] which breaks down into warč- = ‘Burush’ (or the Burusho people) plus the Khowar suffixes -ik- ‘place of’ + -war ‘language’, as also in khowar < /kho-+- war/ ‘the language of Kho’ (see Anderson 1997: 1021).