- Source: Torwali language
Torwali (Torwali: توروالی), also known as Bahrain Kohistani, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Torwali people, and concentrated in the Bahrain and Chail areas in the Swat Kohistan region of the Swat District in northern Pakistan. The Torwali language is said to have originated from the pre-Muslim communities of Swat. It is the closest modern Indo-Aryan language still spoken today to Niya, a dialect of Gāndhārī, a Middle Indo-Aryan language spoken in the ancient region of Gandhara. Torwali and Gawri languages are collectively classified as "Swat Kohistani".
The words "Kohistan" and Kohistani are generic terms. Kohistan in Persian and in Urdu means as "land of mountains" whereas "Kohistani" refers to 'language spoken in the land mountains" or 'people of the mountains. Joan Baart is the only author who used the term "Bahrain Kohistani" for the Torwali language. Ethnologue, twenty seventh edition suggests Kohistani, Torwalak, Torwalik and Turvali as alterative names for the language while Torwali as an autonym for it.
Torwali is an endangered language: it is characterised as "definitely endangered" by UNESCO's Atlas of Endangered Languages, and as "vulnerable" by the Catalogue of Endangered Languages. There have been efforts to revitalize the language since 2004, and mother tongue community schools have been established by Idara Baraye Taleem-o-Taraqi (Institute for Education and Development) (IBT).
Phonology
Although descriptions of Torwali phonology have appeared in the literature, some questions still remain unanswered.
= Vowels
=Edelman's analysis, which was based on Grierson and Morgenstierne, shows nasal counterparts to at least /e o a/ and also found a series of central (reduced?) vowels, transcribed as: ⟨ä⟩, ⟨ü⟩, ⟨ö⟩.
Lunsford had some difficulty determining vowel phonemes and suggested there may be retracted vowels with limited distribution: /ɨ/ (which may be [i̙]), /e̙/, /ə̙/. Retracted or retroflex vowels are also found in Kalash-mondr.
= Consonants
=The phonemic status of the breathy voiced series is debatable.
Sounds with particularly uncertain status are marked with a superscript question mark.
Alphabet
The Torwali language does not have a fixed orthography. The existing and widely used Torwali Character set was proposed by Inam Ullah, who proposed representations for unique sounds in Torwali language which later received official designations from the Unicode with the support of University of Chicago in 2005.
The Torwali orthography was developed by Idara Baraye Taleem wa Taraqi (IBT) i.e. institute for education and development from 2005-2008 wherein text books for children were developed along with the Alphabet book and primer in Torwali under the Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education program by the abovementioned organization.
References
Bibliography
Biddulph, John (1880). "Tribes of the Hindukush".
Grierson, George Abraham (1929). Torwali: An Account of a Dardic Language of the Swat Kohistan. Asian Educational Services. ISBN 978-81-206-1605-9.
Ullah, Inam (2004). "Lexical database of the Torwali Dictionary", paper presented at the Asia Lexicography Conference, Chiangmai, Thailand, May 24–26.
Endangered Languages Project; http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/3501/guide
SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/zubairtorwali/sets/manjoora-torwali-melodies
Library of Congress https://books.google.com/books?id=JHLalS4Jp1oC&dq=Torwali&pg=PA7522
Jalal Uddin https://paperswithcode.com/paper/a-step-towards-torwali-machine-translation-an
Torwali, Zubair (2015). Muffled voices: longing for a pluralist & peaceful Pakistan. Multi Line Publications. ISBN 978-969-8985-06-6.
Ahmad, Aftab (2015) Torvālī Urdū, angrezī lug̲h̲at = Torwali-Urdu-English dictionary https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/243822077
External links
An online source, the website of IBT where efforts of revitalizing the Torwali language can be found along with resources in and about the Torwali language:
https://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/torwali/ A digital Torwali-English dictionary with audio
https://182.180.102.251:8081/otd/HomePage.aspx/ Online Torwali-Urdu Dictionary (Center for Language Engineering at UET, Lahore Pakistan)
https://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/doc/src/00851-EN.doc (UNESCO Register of Good Practices in Language Preservation)
Jalal Uddin https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W19-6802
http://torwaliresearchforums.org/ A website providing information about Torwali language and computational developments made in Torwali language. Jalaluddin
https://web.archive.org/web/20151208134056/http://torwali.base.pk/ A website providing information about the Torwali language and the history of the Torwali people. Includes photos, classification, etc.
https://www.torwali.org a website managed by the Swat based organization Idara Baraye Taleem-o-Taraqi (IBT) i.e institute for education and development, that works for the integrated development of the ethno-linguistic communities of Pakistan including the Torwalis.
https://torwali.omeka.net/ An Endangered Language Project created by Amber Khan for English 318 at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Ahmad, Aftab (2016) Reversing language loss through identity based educational planning—the case of the Torwali language . http://www.lc.mahidol.ac.th/mleconf/2016/Documents/PresentedFiles/Parallel%20VI/T3-9/5C-Aftab%20Ahmad.pdf
Kata Kunci Pencarian:
- Bahasa Torwali
- Bahasa Badeshi
- Kelompok etnik di Pakistan
- Bahasa di Pakistan
- Abjad Urdu
- Rumpun bahasa Dardik
- Rumpun bahasa Iran
- Bahasa Gāndhārī
- Bahasa Persia Pertengahan
- Rumpun bahasa Skithia
- Torwali language
- Torwali people
- Zubair Torwali
- Badeshi
- Torwali
- Swati language (disambiguation)
- Voiceless retroflex plosive
- Voiced retroflex plosive
- Punjabi language
- Voiceless retroflex affricate
