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Languages of Chitral

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Chitral is the northernmost district in Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province and is a former Princely State. Despite being in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Chitral is not a Pashtun Area.[citation needed] Chitral shares much of its history and culture with the neighboring Hindu-Kush territories of Gilgit-Baltistan, a region sometimes called "Peristan" because of the common belief in fairies (peri) inhabiting the high mountains.

Languages

Kohwari, is the main spoken language. Acording to the research of Rehmat Aziz, Director Kohwari Academy most of the minority languages are Dardic including; Arniya,Shina, Kashmiri, Kalasha, Gawar Bati,Kohwari,Dameli,Pashayi,Shina,Kohistani, and Palula.

Iranian languages spoken by immigrant groups in Chitral include groups such as Afghans (it's various ethnic groups) includes; Farsi,Pushtun,Munji, Yidgha,Tajik,Wakhi,Kyrgyz and Uzbek.

The Norwegian Linguist Georg Morgenstierne wrote that Chitral is the area of the greatest linguistic diversity in the world. Although Khowar is the predominant language of Chitral, more than ten other languages are spoken here. These include Kalasha-mun, Palula, Dameli, Gawar-Bati, Nuristani, Yidgha, Burushaski, Gujar, Wakhi, Kyrgyz, Persian and Pashto. Since many of these languages have no written form, letters are usually written in Urdu or Persian.

Refrences