Urtsuniwar | |
---|---|
Urchuniwar | |
اُرچؕنوار | |
Native to | Pakistan |
Region | Urtsun Valley |
Ethnicity | Southern Kalash |
Native speakers | (2,900–5,700 cited 1992)[1] |
Perso-Arabic script (Nastaliq) | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | None (mis ) |
Urtsuniwar or Urchuniwar (اُرچؕنوار) is a dialect of Kalasha-mun spoken in the Urtsun Valley in Chitral, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.[2] The total number of speakers of this dialect are estimated to be around 2,900–5,700 peoples.[2]
It has been debated whether Urtsuniwar is a different language or a dialect of Kalasha-mun. Urtsuniwar and Kalasha are mutually intelligible by 70%.[3] Urtsuniwar also shares some similarity with Ushojo language.[4]
The Kafirs of Urtsun were one of the last pagans of Afghanistan-Pakistan to convert to Islam in the mid 1900s.The last Urtsun Kafir was Mranzi who had married a Biriu valley Kalasha & moved out of the valley in 1940 just as the conversion to Islam was completed .[5] [6] They renamed their language Kalasha-mun to Urtsuniwar and later borrowed heavily from Khowar and changed their identity.[7] Later, Urtsuniwar started to diverge into a distinct dialect of Kalasha-mun.
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