Pahari, or Pahadi (पहाड़ी پہاڑی pahari' of the hills/mountains; English: /pəˈhɑːri/) is an ambiguous term that has been used for a variety of languages, dialects and language groups, most of which are found in the lower Himalayas.
Most commonly, it refers to:
·
Pahari-Pothwari, the predominant
language of Pakistan-administered Azad Kashmir and neighbouring areas of Punjab
and Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir
·
individual Western Pahari languages spoken
primarily in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, with some languages in the
south-eastern parts of Indian Jammu and Kashmir,
·
Northern Indo-Aryan languages, in the
linguistics literature often referred to as "Pahari languages", a
proposed group that includes the Indo-Aryan languages of Nepal and the Indian
states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.
Less commonly, Pahari may be:
·
a term used by Dogri speakers of
the plains to refer to the Dogri varieties spoken at higher elevations, in
Indian Jammu and Kashmir
·
a local name for a variety of Bilaspuri spoken in a certain hilly area
of Indian Punjab
·
a name nowadays used only in rural
areas to refer to the Nepali language
·
a local name for a Bhili dialect of
Eastern Gujarat.
Pahari (पहरी paharī) refers to:
·
Pahari language (Sino-Tibetan), a Tibeto-Burman
language spoken by a few thousand people in central Nepal.
Of similar origin is the name Paharia,
which is used for several languages of east-central India: see Paharia
language (disambiguation).
Phonological Analysis of Pahari Language
Mian
Karim Ullah Qureshi Karnahi
Ex-Incharge
of Pahari Section Jammu and Kashmir Academy of art, Culture and Languages
Srinagar.
Abstract
Pahari
language is Placed by linguists in sub-group of a main group of Indo-Aryan dynasty of languages, named as “Pishacha or Dardi”, further dividing in three
main
groups known as Eastern pahari being spoken in Nepal, Central Pahari being
spoken in Garhwal and Daradoon area and Western Pahari being spoken in Western Jammu
& Kashmir, besides several parts of Himachal Pardesh in India. Pahari is
second big language of Jammu & Kashmir after Kashmiri and is one of 18
Pakistani languages included in Ph.D. and M.Phil. courses started by the
“Department of Pakistani Languages” of Allama Iqbal Open university, Islamabad
for the last nine years. Pahari is known as "Pahari" because of its
speakers residing in whole Himalayan range of mountains (Pahar in Urdu
&Pahari) from Kashmir to Nepal. Its specific group, we have to dealt with
for its Phonological analysis is "Western Pahari" being spoken in Jammu
& Kashmir State, about which the Grierson has said:" Western Pahari
consists of great number of dialects varying almost from hill to hill."
According to Grierson and his followers the Pahari belongs to Khasha tribes,
today known as "Khakhas" who after migrating from their original land
Eastern Europe, stayed hundreds of years in Eastern Iran and then again
migrating from there, they entered Subcontinent and spread all over in Kashmir,
Gilgit Baltistan (Dardistan), from where they continued their journey along
Hamalian range and reached to Nepal. Pahari like many other Indo-Aryan
languages has adopted Urdu script, usually known and called as Persian script,
but the sound system of Pahari being different and larger than that of Urdu,
needs more and some special signs called alphabets, especially to write
retroflex nazal sounds, some other typical local sounds and 17 semi-aspirates. Discovery
of sings for aforesaid Pahari sounds, especially for semi-aspirates has not
only brought a revolution in the sound system of Pahari, but also has increased
the number of its consonants to 66 and vowels to 19, whereas the number of
consonants and vowels in Urdu is 39 and 10 respectively. Paper entitled
“Phonological Analysis of Pahari Language,” though not outstandingly, but
satisfactorily deals with the sound system of Pahari Language.
Gojri and Kashmiri has adopted Urdu script generally known as Persian script. Pahari also like other Indo-Aryan regional languages of Jammu & Kashmir has adopted this script. All the languages being read and written in adopted scripts have remained always in danger, because the adopted script is a serpent for a language.
But it
is impossible for Pahari scholar’s and linguists to drop this, because of
the availability of a lot of classic and religious literature of Pahari in this
script. Urdu script, the foundation of which stands on Semitic, Arabic, Persian
and Dravidian sounds and alphabets, has gradually been reached to its present
form. Though a number of Urdu linguists hold different views, but according to
majority, the phonetic system of Urdu comprised on 39 consonants, whereas the
number of Pahari consonants including 39 of Urdu reaches to 66.
Very
little research work has been conducted on the linguistics in Pahari.
Dr.Nasrullah Khan Nasir is the 1st man who has done a
remarkable work with respect to Pahari Phonetics and Phonology, whereas across
the cease-fire line Mr. Asif Shah has recently produced a book of linguistic
grammar under the Linguistics deals with spoken language and a spoken language
is
notdependent on any type of signs or shapes (being called "haroof- e-ahajji" in Urdu,
Pahari & some other Indo-Aryan languages, especially those being written in
Persian script),whereas the signs usually called alphabets are dependent on
spoken sounds, termed as phonemes in the terminology of linguistics. influence
of Noam Chomsky.
Pahari
under the influence of its script has not only lost the real pronunciation of several
sounds, especially being written in Arabic alphabets, such as (hala:l) (hara:m) and (hala:li), (hara:mi)etc. Meanings of these Pahari words in English respectively are legal, illegal, legitimate son and
illegitimate son.
The actual pronunciationof these words is (laha:l), (raha:m), (laha:li) and
gò
(rahami). Similaryly thereare some local words such as (Pharli), which mean a cow, a goat or any femaleanimal that has passed her period of giving milk. Four more similar words are: (Birli),(parli), (pharlah) and (pharl). English meaning of these words is: Creeping plant,a wild women, an un-balanced wooden board and balance lessness of a wooden board. This sound exists in Mesuri Urdu & Gojjri also but, in aforesaid languages this is being written by putting phoneme (toey) in phoneme (la:m) and in International Phonetic Alphabets (IPA) it has been written in the capital letter shape of English phoneme [L], [5] whereas in Pahari this sound has been modified by putting English phoneme V-like, (being called (UltiJazam) in Urdu) on retroflex phoneme (aray) following the rule adopted by Urdu writers and linguists in words (Cha:nd), (ma:nd) and (pha:nd) etc. to reduce the weight of the voice of nazal sound of phoneme (noon).
Conclusion
Making a phonological analysis of Pahari language is not fully possible in a small paper and the author feels no hesitation to accept that it would have been made in more detail, but has tried his best to introduce his language and its phonetic system to this gathering of learned scholars and linguists. Anyhow, it seems proper to mention that M.Phil paper of the author entitled “Pahari Aur Urdu AikTaqabali Jaaezah”, published by “National Language Authority Pakistan” carries full detail, with regards to the sound system of Pahari Language. Dr.Zia-ur-rehman of National Defence University, Islamabad۔
References
[1] Phonological Analysis of Pahari Language by renowned author and linguistic of Pahari Mian Karimullah Qureshi Karnahi. the Paper is readf out in The 2nd Kashmir International Conference on Linguistics, on May 04-05, 2015, Department of English, The University of Azad Jammu & Kashmir Muzaffarabad
[2] G.A Grierson “Linguistic survey of
India”, Vol. IX, Part IV, Motilal Banarsi Dass, Delhi, Varanasi, Patna, P, 374
[3] Phonetics and Phonolgy of English, by: Sardar Fayyaz-ul-Hasan, Attique PrintingPress,
Muzaffarabad, 2000, pp.34-35۔
[4] reference
from wikipedia.org
