Hindko Language edit the Wikipedia entry

ODP's article on hindko language ^h

Hindko هندکو
Pronunciation:	[Hindkoŭ]
Spoken in:	Pakistan, India
Region:	South Asia (Indian subcontinent)
Total speakers:	approx. 2.2 - 4 million[1][2]
Language family:	Indo-European  Indo-Iranian   Indo-Aryan    Northwestern zone     Lahnda      Hindko
Writing system:	Nasta'liq script
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	—
ISO 639-3:	hnd
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Hindko (هندکو /Hindkoŭ/), Hindku, or Peshawari (پشاوری) is an ancient Indo-Aryan language spoken by Hindkowans (Punjabi Pathans) in Pakistan.^[3] The literal meaning of the word "Hindko" is "Indian Mountains", or more specifically as "Mountains of the Indus country". The word "Hind" is the Persianised reference to the regions associated with the Indus River immediately to the east of Persia and "Ko" means mountains^[4]. The word Hindko has also been interpreted to mean the language of India.^[5] The term is also found in Greek references to the mountainous region in eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan as Καύκασος Ινδικός (Caucasus Indicus). The language is spoken in the areas of the North West Frontier Province (including Hazara), Punjab and Kashmir by an estimated 2.2 to 4 million people.^[1][2]

There is no generic name for these people because they belong to diverse ethnicities and tend to identify themselves by the larger families or castes. However the people of the largest group in the districts of Haripur, Abbottabad and Mansehra are sometimes recognised collectively as Hazarawal, named after the defunct Hazara Division that comprised of these districts. In Peshawar city they are referred to as "Kharay" meaning City-dwellers or Hindkowans.

History and Origin

During the pre-Buddhist era in present day Pakistan, the language of the masses was refined by the ancient grammarian Pāṇini, who set the rules of a structurally rigorous language called Sanskrit which was used principally for scriptures (analogous to Latin in the Western world). Meanwhile, the vernacular language of the masses, Prakrit developed into many tongues and dialects which spread over the northern parts of South Asia. Hindko is believed to be closely related to Prakrit. Due to the geographic isolation of the regions, it has undergone very little grammatical corruption, but has borrowed considerable vocabulary from its neighbours, in particular Pashto. It shows close affinity to Punjabi and the Lahnda sub-group of Indo-Aryan tongues and can be sub-divided into a northern and southern dialect (the southern dialect spoken in Pakistani Punjab shows some similarity with Siraiki as opposed to Punjabi). This language is very similar to the Mirpuri dialect of Potohari and Hindko and Mirpuri speakers can understand each other very well.

Speakers

The largest geographically contiguous group of Hindko speakers is concentrated in the districts of state {{amb]] Abbottabad, Haripur, Mansehra, Attock and Kaghan valley of Pakistan, while there are a substantial number of geographically isolated speakers of Hindko in cities like Peshawar, Mardan and Kohat.

People here tend to associate themselves with the larger families instead of a language (or caste as it used to be called). The Qureshi(Arabians), for example, have a great history of bravery and are known as lords of the Hazara Division. Other tribes are Awan, Tanoli, Tareen, Jadoon, Abbasi, Karlal, Tahirkheli etc. People who speak Hindko are referred to by some academics as Punjabi Pathans probably because of the many Pashtun tribes, for example Jadoons,Tanolis and Tahirkhelis, who settled in places like Hazara, adopted Hindko as their first language and gained political power in these areas during the British rule, and also because of many ethnic Pushtun people who speak Hinkdo as their first language in Peshawar and Kohat. The Hindko speaking people living in major cities Peshawar, Kohat, Mardan are bilingual in Pashto and Hindko. Similarly many Pashto speaking people in districts like Abbottabad and Mansehra (especially in Agror Valley and northern Tanawal) have become bilingual in Pashto and Hindko.

The NWFP Imperial Gazetteer (1905) refers to the language as Hindko. More than one interpretation has been offered for the term Hindko. Some associate it with Hindustan (as the word may have been used during the medieval Muslim period in the Indian subcontinent), others with the Indus River which is of course the etymological source of all these terms. Farigh Bukhari and South Asian language expert and historian Christopher Shackle believe that Hindko was a generic term applied to the Indo-Aryan dialect continuum in the northwest frontier territories and adjacent district of Attock in the Punjab province to differentiate it from Pashto.

Linguists classify the language into the Indic subgroup of Indo-European languages and consider it to be one of the Indo-Iranian languages of the area. An estimated 2.4 per cent of the total population of Pakistan speak Hindko as their mother tongue, with more rural than urban households reporting Hindko as their household language.

Demographics

The speakers of Hindko live primarily in six districts: Mansehra, Abbottabad, Haripur, Peshawar, Nowshera and Kohat in NWFP, Attock and Rawalpindi in Punjab and parts of Kashmir; Jonathan Addleton states that "Hindko is the linguistic majority in the NWFP, represented in nearly one-fifth of the province's total households." In Abbottabad District 92 per cent of households reported speaking Hindko, in Mansehra District 47 per cent, in Peshawar District 7 per cent, and in Kohat District 10 per cent (1986). Testing of inherent intelligibility among Hindko dialects through the use of recorded tests has shown that there is a northern (Hazara) dialect group and a southern group. The southern dialects are more widely understood throughout the dialect network than are the northern dialects. The dialects of rural Peshawar and Talagang are the most widely understood of the dialects tested. The dialect of Balakot is the least widely understood.

In most Hindko-speaking areas, speakers of Pashto live in the same or neighbouring communities (although this is less true in Abbottabad and Kaghan Valley than elsewhere). In the mixed areas, many people speak both languages. The relationship between Hindko and Pashto is not one of stable bilingualism. In the northeast, Hindko is the dominant language both in terms of domain of usage and in terms of the number of speakers, whereas in the southwest, Pashto seems to be advancing in those same areas.

Hindko is also spoken by some Pathans who moved to northern India after the partition. Some of the most famous of these Indian Hindko speakers include Bollywood actors, Dilip Kumar and Prithviraj Kapoor^[6].

The Gandhara Hindko Board has published the first dictionary of the language and its launching ceremony was held on March 16, 2003. According to a press release, Sultan Sakoon, a prominent Hindku poet, has compiled the dictionary.

References

1974: Phonlogy of Verbal Phrase in Hindko,Dr Elahi Bkahsh Akhtar Awan published by Idara-e-Farogh-e-Hindko Peshawar in 1992. 2004: Hindko Sautiyat,Dr E.B.A. Awan, published by Gandhara Hindko Board Peshawar in 2004. 2005: Hindko Land a thesis presented by Dr E.B.A. Awan at the World Hindko Conference at Peshawar in 2005.

• 1980: "Hindko in Kohat and Peshawar." Bulletin of SOAS, 1980, 482-510
• 1978: "Rival linguistic identities in Pakistan Panjab." Rule, protest, identity: aspects of modern South Asia (ed. P. Robb & D. Taylor), 213-34. London: Curzon
• 1986: Addleton, Jonathan S., "The Importance of Regional Languages in Pakistan," al'Mushir, Vol. 28, No. 2 (1986), pp. 55-80.

See also

• Hindkowans

External links

• Hindko Page