Gawri language

Gawri (گاؤری), also known as Kalami (کالامی), Kalam Kohistani^[4] and Bashkarik, is an Indo-Aryan language of Kohistani group spoken by Gawri people in the Swat Kohistan region of Upper Swat District and in the upper Panjkora river valley of Upper Dir District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Gawri and Torwali are collectively classified as "Swat Kohistani".^[5]

According to its genealogical classification (Strand, 1973:302 and 2004), Gawri belongs to the Kohistani subgroup of the north-western zone of Indo-Aryan languages, along with several closely related languages in its geographical vicinity: Torwali (in Swat, south of Kalam), Indus Kohistani, Bateri, Chilisso, and Gawro (the latter four east of Kalam in Indus Kohistan). Together with a range of other north-western Indo-Aryan mountain languages, these languages are sometimes collectively referred to as ‘Dardic languages.^[6]

Gawri is one of about thirty languages that are spoken in the mountain areas of northern Pakistan. It is predominantly spoken in the valleys of Kalam, Usho and Utror in the Upper Swat District, and the six towns of Barikot, Rajkot, Biar, Kalkot, Thal, and Lamuti in the Kumrat Valley of the Upper Dir District.^[7]

Kohistan is a Persian word that means ‘land of mountains’ and Kohistani can be translated as ‘mountain language’. As a matter of fact, there are several distinct languages in the area that are all popularly called Kohistani. In the older linguistic literature, the language of Kalam Kohistan is referred to as Bashkarik (Morgenstierne, 1940), or as Garwi or Gawri (Grierson, 1919; Barth & Morgenstierne, 1958). These names are hardly, if at all, known to the speakers of the language themselves, who normally just call their language Kohistani. However, very recently a number of intellectuals belonging to a local cultural society have started to call their language Gawri, a name that has old historical roots.

Collectively, the two Gawri-speaking communities comprise 141,560 people as of 2025 estimates, of whom 35% are younger than the age of 15.^[2]

Gawri uses the Arabic script. The Gawri alphabet has 43 letters: all 39 letters of the Urdu alphabet plus 4 additional letters. One feature of the Gawri alphabet not found in Urdu is that it places the letterھ as the last letter of the alphabet, preceded by ے. All the 4 additional letters used in Gawri are also found in Gawar-Bati language.

There are 7 Aspirated consonants represented by digraphs with the letter ھ:

• پھ (ph)
• تھ (th)
• ٹھ (ṭh)
• چھ (čh)
• ڄھ (ĉh)
• څھ (ch)
• کھ (kh)

The sounds /k/ and /g/ are palatalized before Front vowels. There are 3 digraphs with the letter ن:

• نڈ (nḍ) pronounced /ɳɖ/
• نڑ (nṛ): pronounced /ɽ/
• نگ (ng): pronounced /ŋ/ and palatalized before front vowels.^[8]

Gawri language has 12 vowels (6 short and 6 long). They are:

• /a/ (a)
• /aː/ (ā)
• /æ/ (ä)
• /æː/ (ǟ)
• /i/ (i)
• /iː/ (ī)
• /u/ (u)
• /uː/ (ū)
• /e/ (e)
• /eː/ (ē)
• /o/ (o)
• /oː/ (ō)

8 of these vowels (a, ā, i, ī, u, ū, ē, ō) have the same orthography as in Urdu. The vowel ä (/æ/) is written with a Zabar with two dots (ٞ) and the long version ǟ as ٞا (آٞ at the beginning of a word).

Short e and o are represented by و, ی or ے followed by ۡ.

Unlike in Urdu where vowel diacritics are optional, in Gawri they are mandatory.

Gawri is a tonal language. It has 6 tones:

• level tone: unmarked.
• High tone: represented by ٝ, romanized with acute accent.
• High Falling tone: represented by ٛ, romanized with circumflex.
• low falling tone: represented by ٔ, romanized with Caron.
• Low tone: represented by ۧ, romanized with grave accent.
• Rising tone: represented by ٚ, romanized with ◌̚.

Length (/ː/) and nasalization (/ ̃/) are probably contrastive for all vowels.

/q f z x ɣ/ occur mainly in loanwords. /q f/ tend to be replaced by /x p/, respectively.

After the front vowels /i e a/, the velars /k ɡ ŋ/ are palatalized: [kʲ ɡʲ ŋʲ].

Gawri has contrastive tones.

The default sentence order is SOV, but this can be changed for emphasis.

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding missing information. (June 2008)

Approximately 50% of Gawri words can not be broken down to smaller morphological forms. Of the other half, most words are made up of about two to three morphemes. This language implements many modifications to the stem as opposed to using distinct morpheme additions. For example, many plural words are formed by changing the stem of words as opposed to modifying with a plural morpheme.^[9]

Words can also be modified by suffixes and prefixes.

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding missing information. (April 2016)

• Indus Kohistani language

• Baart, Joan L.G. (2004). "Constrastive tone in Kalam Kohistani". Linguistic Discovery. 2 (2). doi:10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.265.
• Baart, Joan and Muhammad Zaman Sagar. 2020. THE GAWRI LANGUAGE OF KALAM AND DIR KOHISTAN. Online access
• Zaman, S. M., & Baart, J. L. (2004). Gaawri zaban-o-adab (Inmal Haq Javed ed.). Islamabad: Department of Pakistani Languages, Allama Iqbal Open University.
• Stahl, J. L. (1988). Multilingualism in Kalam Kohistan.
• Rensch, C. R., Decker, S. J., & Hallberg, D. G. (1992). Patterns of languages use among the Kohistanis of the Swat Valley. Languages of Kohistan. Islamabad, Pakistan: National Institute of Pakistan Studies Quaid-i-Azam University.
• Lothers, M. D. (1996). Deixis in Kalam Kohistani narrative discourse.
• Barth, F., & Morgenstierne, G. (1954). Vocabularies and specimens of some S.E. Dardic dialects. Oslo: Universitets forleget
• Baart, J.L. (2006). Report on local names and uses of plants in Kalam Kohistan. FLI Language and Culture Series, Anthropology.
• Sagar, Muhammad Zaman; Malone, Susan (2025). "Establishing Multilingual Education Programs in Non-Dominant Language Communities". In Premsrirat, Suwilai; Hirsh, David (eds.). Mother Tongue-Based Multilingual Education in the Asia-Pacific Region. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. ISBN 978-1-80041-974-2.

Gawri language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

• Gawri Community Development Programme, contains various materials in and about the language
• The Gawri Language of Kalam and Dir Kohistan
• Tone and song in Kalam Kohistani
• A Sketch of Kalam Kohistani Grammar
• Names of Plants in Kalam Kohistani (Pakistan)
• The Gawri Language of Kalam and Dir Kohistani
• Kalam Kohistani Texts
• Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh
• LAPSyD Online page for Kalami
• SOCIOLINGUISTIC SURVEY OF NORTHERN PAKISTAN
• Endangered Languages Project