Foreword
This text collection could not have come about without the collaboration of the storytellers. I thank Rabijan (Guru, Biriu; Text 1), Erfan (Guru, Biriu; Text 2), Ghulam Sikander Khan (Thessaloniki, Greece, and Kraka, Mumoret; Text 3), Kalamder Khan (Kraka, Mumoret; Text 4), Sayed Khan (Kraka, Mumoret; Text 5), Sher John (Kraka, Mumoret; Text 6) and Babi (Kraka/Anish, Mumoret; Text 7) for their willingness to letting their narratives be analysed by a linguist.
Other native speakers who have also let their narratives be recorded and transcribed, but who for reasons of limitation cannot be represented in this publication, are Nabaig (Kraka, Mumoret), Sonjak (Kraka, Mumoret), Zar Mas Gul (Batthet, Rukmu), Walmoc Khan (Bio, Biriu), Durdana (Kraka, Mumoret), Mirzamas (Kraka, Mumoret), Lazim Khan (Kraka, Mumoret), and Abdul Alim (Guru, Biriu). I hope to be able to publish their narratives in the nearest future.
The contribution from my three co-workers Nabaig, Ghulam Sikander Khan and Taj Khan is invaluable. Without their efforts and knowledge of the culture, religion, history and language of the Kalasha, the transcription and translation processes would have been much slower, and the quality of the text analysis would have been significantly poorer. Nabaig has also contributed with collection of Texts 9.4 and 9.5, as well as other texts that for space reasons could not be included in this publication.
The fieldwork in 1995–1997 and 2004–2006 where many of the texts were recorded and transcribed would not have come about without the financial support from His Royal Highness Crownprince Frederiks’ Fundation, Per Slomann’s Scholarship, The Faculty of Humanities (University of Copenhagen), The Danish Research Council for the Humanities (Now Research Council for Culture and Communication). The fieldwork, which was conducted with my wife Ida E. Mørch in 1995–1997, could not have been succesful without the support and hospitality of the many Kalasha we interacted with. Our special thanks go to Ingineer Khan, Zar Mas Gul, Rabijan, Erfan, Abdul Khaleq, Anees Umar, Sonjak, Qazi Ustur, and Mirzamas, but bo shukriya sawin hatya.
I am also grateful to Elena Bashir, University of Chicago, for always being willing to share with me her knowledge of Kalasha, Khowar and many other languages of Pakistan. A thank also goes to Mytte Fentz for discussions about Kalasha culture and tradition and about practical and ethical aspects of doing fieldword. Also thank you to Svend Castenfeldt for the enormous amount of photocopies of inspiring text samples and other literature that he has provided me with since 1995.
My thanks also go to the late Danish linguist Jørgen Rischel (1938–2005) for his inspiring teaching, his introduction to practical fieldwork in Chitral in the summer of 1995, and his scientific approach to empirical linguistic data and for teaching us always to be humble towards the linguistic knowledge of native speakers.
I am grateful to Ditte Boeg Thomsen, Marc Volhart and editor Eva Skafte Jensen for comments and constructive criticism of earlier versions of this publication and to René Malchow for help with illustrations. Of course, I alone take full responsibility for errors and shortcomings.
I am also grateful to my wife Ida E. Mørch for her inspiring feedback and for her patience with my mental and physical absence in the final, hectic period before deadline, and to my children, Karen Bibi and Halfdan for their patience with an at times absent-minded father. A special thanks to Karen for her assistance in the editorial proces.
Finally, I would like to thank the Viggo Brøndal and Wife’s Foundation and the Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, University of Copenhagen, for the generous economical support for this publication.
Jan Heegård Petersen
Copenhagen, June 2015
Abbreviations
Grammatical abbreviations
Abbreviations for data sources
The following abbreviations are used for the sources of the examples provided in the Grammar: B88 = Bashir (Citation1988a), M73 = Morgenstierne (Citation1973b), PP = Parkes (Citation1983), TC99 = Trail and Cooper (Citation1999). Abbreviations for informants are: Ba = Babi (Kraka, Mumoret), Fi = Filim (Kraka, Mumoret), GSK = Ghulam Sikander Khan (Kraka, Mumoret, and Thessaloniki, Greece), KK = Kalamder Khan (Brun, Mumoret), Na = Nabaig (Kraka, Mumoret), Sayed (Krak, Mumoret), Ta = Taj Khan (Kraka, Mumoret, and Thessaloniki, Greece), Ti = Tika Khan (Kraka, Mumoret). The abbreviations for the different types of data are: e = elicitation from wordlist, es = elicitation by use of experimental picture or video stimuli, Fn = author’s fieldnotes (usually from spontaneous conversation), na = narrative, te = text, Tm = text message or Facebook chat.
1. Introduction
1.1. Purpose of the publication
The main purpose of this publication is to document examples of oral literature in Kalasha, a threatened Indo-Aryan language with no history of literacy, spoken in the Hindu Kush Mountains of Pakistan. Other purposes are to provide grammatical analyses of Kalasha with fuller textual foundations and to contribute to our knowledge of the linguistic strategies used in different oral genres.
With just 3,000–5,000 speakers, Kalasha, or Kalashamon (‘Kalasha language’), is among the world’s many threatened languages. Until 2000, when a writing system for Kalasha was introduced into the speech community, Kalasha had been an exclusively oral language since early history. A number of speech genres have developed in the multi-faceted and culturally rich Kalasha society, including traditional genres such as poetry, songs, fables, and mythological stories. From a broader perspective on genres, these also include personal or conversational narratives in the Labovian sense (Labov and Waletzky Citation1967), reports and accounts, gossip, instructions, spontaneous conversation, etc. Because we, as linguists, are interested in how the grammar of a language is constructed, we should also be concerned with the context and discourse in which language is used. For this, a text corpus is necessary.
Research concerning the Kalasha language has been characterised by a strong tradition of using texts as the basis for linguistic analyses. Unfortunately, many of the texts that have been documented and transcribed are neither published nor easily accessible. Table presents an overview of these and of other text resources in Kalasha.
Table 1. Text resources in Kalasha.
The seven translated and grammatically annotated texts in this publication represent an increase in the number of publicly accessible texts in Kalasha. As is clear from Column 2, however, there is much greater potential for establishing a significant and accessible Kalasha corpus. It should be noted that such a corpus is not only an invaluable resource for linguists but that anthropologists and ethnographers can likewise use these texts for analyses of historical legends, creation myths, narrative themes, etc.
Many descriptions of the languages of the Hindu Kush region include elements of contact linguistics and areal affinities (see the survey in Section 3.2). This publication also makes extensive reference to grammatical phenomena and narrative structure in other languages in the Hindu Kush. Scholars of Hindu Kush languages have previously and in recent years published larger and smaller text samples, for example for the languages of Wakhi (Lorimer Citation1958), Pashai (Morgenstierne Citation1973a), Gilgiti Shina (Radloff and Shakil Citation1998), Kalam Kohistani (Baart and Sagar Citation2004), Shina of Indus Kohistan (Schmidt Citation2006; Schmidt and Kohistani Citation2008), Dameli (Perder Citation2013, 209–216) and Palula (Liljegren and Haider Citation2015).Footnote 1 It is my hope that the present publication will contribute to our knowledge of the text linguistic strategies in the Hindu Kush languages.
1.2. Structure of the book
The book begins in Chapter 2 with a presentation of the Kalasha people, their traditional way of life and religion, their history, and some general remarks on the speech community. Chapter 3 describes the genetic and areal linguistic setting. Chapter 4 resumes previous research on the Kalasha language. Chapter 5 contains a guide to the transcription praxis and a transcription key. Chapter 6 is an introductory grammar of Kalasha. Chapter 7 describes some of the characteristic linguistic features of the texts. The texts themselves are presented in Chapter 8. Each text is introduced with a remark on its themes and style, followed by a plain Kalasha version, a free English translation, and a grammatically glossed and annotated version. The texts have been slightly revised in the transcription and following editing. For example, false starts, interruptions, and utterances of hesitation are elided, and obvious grammatical mistakes have been altered.
2. The Kalasha people and the Kalasha language
2.1. The general setting
The Kalasha people live in three west-east running valleys of the larger Chitral valley in Northwest Pakistan: Rukmu, Mumoret, and Biriu (see Map and ).Footnote 2
The Kalasha speech community is divided into a population that adheres to an old, pre-Islamic religion and a population that has converted to Islam. In Rukmu, the northernmost of the valleys, a majority of the population is traditional Kalasha. In Mumoret, the largest of the valleys, the traditional Kalasha population remains in the majority, but there are also a large number of Muslims, either converted Kalasha (termed šek Footnote 3 in Kalasha), Muslim newcomers of the Kho tribe, members of the longstanding Muslim community in the village Kanderisar, or members of the Nuristani population from the village of Brumutul in neighbouring Nuristan in Afghanistan. In Biriu, the population is now composed of half traditional Kalasha and half converts. In the Jinjiret and Urtsun valleys, the population traditionally adhered to the Kalasha religion and way of life but converted to Islam three to four generations ago. There is an ongoing language shift to Khowar, the lingua franca of the region. However, Kalasha is still known and to some extent also spoken or understood by the adult population in these valleys (Cacopardo and Cacopardo Citation1991; Mørch and Heegaard Citation1997, 10–13). (In this book, the phrase ‘the Kalasha people’ refers to the Kalasha who have not converted to Islam.)
The precise number of Kalasha speakers is unknown. A demographic survey carried out in 2008 (Khan and Mela Athanasopoulou Citation2011) estimates 3,198 Kalasha in the Rukmu, Mumoret, and Biriu valleys.Footnote 4 This is somewhat less than the 5,000 estimated by Bashir (Citation2011) and Heegård Petersen (Citation2006a) and includes neither Kalasha-speaking converts in these valleys nor the number of people who speak – or may still speak – Kalasha in Jinjiret and in Utsund. The numbers of these possible Kalasha speakers remain unknown.
Bilingualism and multilingualism are dominant among the Kalasha. Most adults also understand and speak Khowar, although their proficiency in the language varies. People who work outside of the Kalasha valleys also often know some Pashto or Punjabi. Urdu and English are taught in schools and spoken by those who have received an education. Despite this significant exposure and the proficiency of other, ‘economically dominant’ languages, the Kalasha uphold a “functional transparency” (Bashir Citation2011, 26, following Pandharipande Citation2002). Kalasha “is used in all functions within the Kalasha-speaking community” (Bashir Citation2011, 26) while Khowar is used in interaction with Chitral-speaking and with Khowar-speaking neighbours in the valleys, Urdu is used in interactions with other Pakistanis, and English is used in interactions with other foreigners. In addition, people from the village of Kraka in Mumoret are reported to speak Kati in interaction with Kati people from the neighbouring village upstream.
2.2. Kalasha mode of life and religion
The Kalasha live in densely built-up villages.Footnote 5 Houses are typically built on top of each other up along the slope in order to preserve valuable ground for agriculture. In former times, this architecture may also have had a defensive purpose.
The Kalasha are traditionally pastoralists, especially of goats, and agriculturalists. Within the last 30 years, since the construction of dirt tracks into the valleys, a cash economy has arisen, which encompasses trade, tourism,Footnote 6 and management of enterprises as contractors for NGO projects. Traditional work is strictly divided between the sexes. Men take care of goats, produce cheese, construct irrigation channels, and plough and harvest the fields. Women are in charge of all types of housework and of the weeding and watering of fields.
This strict division of labour reflects important aspects of the religion: the division of the world into ‘pure’ (ónǰeṣṭa) and ‘impure’ (prágaṭa) spheres. According to traditional belief, if these two spheres are mixed, if the spheres are not properly respected, ‘pollution’ will occur, causing illness and bad times.Footnote 7 The ónǰeṣṭa sphere includes the gods, the high mountains, and their associated areas – wildlife, hunting, and pastoral life; altars and holy places; many of the high-elevation irrigation channels; and the goat stables and roofs of some of the highest situated houses in the villages. To the prágaṭa sphere belongs much of what is connected with or located in the lower portions of the valleys: the graveyards, the bašáli’s (buildings for menstruating and women in childbirth), and the Muslim world in general.
Kalasha religious belief is polytheistic and animistic. Until the end of the nineteenth century, the Kalasha shared this religion or a variety hereof with neighbouring peoples in North-East Afghanistan, and the whole non-Muslim area was known as Kafiristan, Land of Non-Believers (Biddulph Citation1880; Robertson Citation1896; Schomberg Citation1938). To this day, Muslims still refer to the Kalasha by the strongly derogatory term ‘Kafirs’. The religion is practised in daily life and during festivals such as the spring festival Žóši, the harvest festival Učháo, the wine festival Pụ̃ (only in Biriu), and the important winter solstice festival Čaumós. During these and on other occasions during the year, sacrifices and other religious rituals are made on mountainside altars, in village temples, or in the houses. Sacrifices may include walnuts, cheese, wine, goats, or cows. Other religious rituals may include dancing and singing or purification rituals.
2.3. The history of the Kalasha people
According to Kalasha oral tradition, Kalasha kings ruled over the whole of southern Chitral up to Reshun, 30 km north of Chitral town, as well as over parts of what is now eastern Nuristan. This kingdom came to an end when the Kho tribe invaded from the north, defeated the Kalasha rulers, and won supremacy over southern Chitral.
Since these past events and up until 1969, when the autonoumous principality of Chitral was obliged to relinquish power to the state of Pakistan, the non-Muslim Kalasha have been subordinate to and serfs of the ruling princes, the méhtars, in Chitral. As serfs of the ruling méhtars, the Kalasha have been ‘protected’ against Muslim missionary and (forced) conversion as well as attacks from other non-Muslim tribes in today’s Nuristan. On the one hand, the Kalasha people have retained their religion and cultural characteristics. On the other hand, they have as serfs been forced to deliver grain, flour, fruit, and livestock to the princes in Chitral as well as to serve the princes, for instance in the princes’ army (see Parkes Citation1983, 17; Cacopardo and Cacopardo Citation1991, 367, citing Ghufram Citation1962). The many years of serfdom and the surrounding Muslim population’s disparagement of the non-Islamic Kalasha faith have led to a generally degrading attitude towards the Kalasha. This remains evident even today, when the Kalasha are harassed by Muslim neighbours, shopkeepers in the bazaars, Pakistani authorities, and even former Kalasha who have converted.
Whereas anthropologists and ethnographers agree on the history of the Kalasha from the great period of 400–500 years ago, there is some disagreement as to the history of the Kalasha prior to that time. Parkes (Citation1983) as well as Cacopardo and Cadopardo (Citation1991) follow Morgenstierne’s assumption that Khowar and Kalasha “belong to the first wave of Indo-Aryan immigrants from the south” (Morgenstierne Citation1932, 51).Footnote 8 Another view, based on myths and legends of the Kalasha, is put forward by Siiger (Citation1956, 32–35) and Loude and Lièvre (Citation1987, 21–22, 189–191). According to these myths and legends, a legendary king, Shalak Shak, a general of Alexander the Great, is rewarded by his commander for his military effort and given the right to conquer Chitral valley. Shalak Shak does this, starting his conquest in the Tsiam homeland, and it is in Chitral that he and his four sons establish the first Kalasha settlements (Loude and Lièvre Citation1987, 21, 189–191).
This mythical connection to Alexander the Great and his (alleged) Greek army has given rise to a belief among some Kalasha themselves (Bazik Citation2011), neighbouring people, academic scholars (see Mela-Athanopoulous Citation2011), and in public debate in Greece that the Kalasha are descendants of Greek soldiers and thus ‘Greek’ in some sense. This belief is thoroughly refuted by Cacopardo (Citation2011), who documents that the beliefs concerning Greek descent are not present in the traditional myths and legends of the Kalasha and that the Kalasha were historically “an integral part of the pre-Islamic fabric of the Hindu Kush, and cannot be seen as intruders in the area” (Cacopardo Citation2011, 47).Footnote 9
2.4. Conversion and language death
Since Gurdon (Citation1904), it has been known to the academic world that there were Kalasha-speaking settlements along the Chitral River in the villages of Suwir, Kalkatak, and Lawi. In spite of this observation, these former Kalasha-speaking parts of Chitral attracted little attention from linguists and anthropologists until the anthropologists Alberto and Augusto Cacopardo’s fieldwork in the Jinjiret, Urtsun, and Shishi Kuh valleys and in the villages Lawi, Kalkatak, Suwir, Broz, Naghar, and Gromel (see Map ). The ethnographic characteristics and the recollected history of the people in this area is documented in Cacopardo and Cacopardo (Citation1991). Cacopardo and Cacopardo assume that a large wave of conversion took place in the Shishi Kuh valley and the southern part of Chitral valley around the years of Pakistan’s independence in 1947. Another wave of conversion took place in Utsund and Jinjiret around 1970 (Cacopardo and Cacopardo Citation1991). These waves of conversion had drastic linguistic consequences as the converts adopted Khowar, the lingua franca of Chitral, as their first language and transmitted it as a mother tongue to their children. The village Kalkatak was an exception in this respect since its population shifted to Palula, another Indo-Aryan language.Footnote 10
Mørch (Citation2000a) has pointed out that the process of language shift from Kalasha to Khowar has been gradual and slower in some places than elsewhere but that it is steady and ongoing. In Utsund and Jinjiret, children are no longer learning Kalasha. The same is true in Biriu: Although a significant portion of the village’s population adheres to the traditional Kalasha lifestyle, the converts have begun using Khowar.
2.5. Present dialects
The former larger Kalasha-speaking area in Southern Chitral was probably linguistically heterogeneous. Based on linguistic observations by Morgenstierne (Citation1973b), anthropological research by Cacopardo and Cacopardo (Citation1991), and on fieldwork carried out by the present author alongside Ida E. Mørch and the late Danish linguist Jørgen Rischel, Mørch and Heegard Petersen (Citation1997, 62–65) propose a division of Kalasha into three major dialect areas. The five valleys of Rukmu, Mumoret, Biriu, Jinjiret, and Utsund constitute two main dialect areas. Southern Kalasha is spoken in Utsund, and Northern Kalasha is spoken in the four other valleys. There are two varieties of Northern Kalasha. One is constituted by Jinjiret and Biriu and the other by Rukmu and Mumuret. The two varieties are mutually intelligible, differing only by a few phonemic features and lexical diversities. Northern and Southern Kalasha are not mutually intelligible.Footnote 11 It is the variety spoken in Rukmu and Mumoret that has been the subject of this study. The third and heterogenous dialect area encompasses the former Kalasha-speaking settlements in the main Chitral valley, Lawi, Suwir, Kalkatak, and Gromel as well as the villages of Uzurbekande and Birga in the Shishi Kuh valley. According to the data presented by Mørch and Heegaard Petersen, this dialect has cross-sectioning isoglosses, dividing each locality into a distinct ‘sub-dialect’. Taken as a whole, however, the Eastern dialect differs systematically from Northern and Southern Kalasha, for example, in its lack of retroflex vowels (see Grammar, Section 6.2).Footnote 12
2.6. The future of Kalasha
With just 3,000–5,000 speakers (see Section 2.1), the Kalasha language seems vulnerable. Individual conversions to Islam are frequent among the present Kalasha community, and re-conversion back to the Kalasha religion is punished by death by the Muslim community. If the process of conversion to Islam were to increase, as occurred in the conversion waves of the recent past, this would probably result in rapid language death, assuming that language shift continues to go hand in hand with religion shift. The threat from Islam is, however, not the only a threat to the Kalasha speech community. As Bashir (Citation2011, 26–28) points out, ecological factors such deforestation of the mountain slopes and use of fields for houses and hotels to accommodate an increasing (Muslim) population and tourism may have a negative linguistic effect. Many central cultural and religious concepts are linked to the nature surrounding the Kalasha speech community, and if these are destroyed or no longer accessible, the uniqueness of being Kalasha may dissolve, and the motivation for upholding the specific religion and traditional way of living may decrease.
That being said, the current threat to the Kalasha way of life has led to increased awareness among the Kalasha of their unique culture and religion and of the need to preserve them (Bashir Citation2011, 27). This is particularly the case among the growing number of educated and enterprising young Kalasha, many of whom receive employment in the increasing number of Kalasha primary schools. Some Kalasha individuals are involved in various projects aimed at preserving the unique Kalasha way of life. Such projects are sometimes supported by the Pakistani government or by NGOs from outside Pakistan (for an overview, see Heegård and Khan, Citationforthcoming). One important initiative was begun in the 1990s, with the introduction of a Kalasha primary school from first to fourth grade. This focus on Kalasha-based basic education has met with some success. Today, there are nine schools in the three Kalasha valleys, and a large number of young Kalasha have been educated as teachers (Heegård and Khan, Citationforthcoming). Another project involves the development of a Latin-based alphabet for the Kalasha language (Cooper Citation2005). The alphabet is meant to be the mode for archiving traditional legends, narratives, and religious myths. It is a widespread belief among the Kalasha that teaching children and others how to write the language will help preserve it and strengthen ethnic self-awareness. There is also a tendency among the young, educated Kalasha to use the Kalasha language in electronic communication, for instance in chat rooms, on Facebook, and in e-mails (Heegård and Khan, Citationforthcoming). With this support and motivation, the development of a written norm for the Kalasha language has the potential to become a success (see also Bashir Citation2011, 33–34), though as also pointed out by Heegård and Khan (Citationforthcoming), it is essential that the Kalasha themselves use the writing and thereby establish a literacy culture.
3. The linguistic setting
3.1. Genetic affiliation and the ‘Dardic’ question
Kalasha is an Indo-European language in the Indo-Aryan subfamily and as such belongs to the group of New Indo-Aryan languages (Masica Citation1991, 2–23). Kalasha is among those Indo-Aryan languages spoken in the Hindu Kush that are often referred to as ‘Dardic’. The terms ‘Dard’, ‘Dardic’, and ‘Dardistan’ have been used with a number of different denotations by a number scholars. Going back to Leitner’s (Citation1880, Citation1893) use of ‘Dardistan’ and ‘Dardic’, it has long been and remains disputed whether and to what extent ‘Dardic’ has classificatorial validity.Footnote 13 The influential presentation by Grierson (Citation1919) considered Dardic to a genetic sub-group, also including the languages that today are known as the ‘Nuristani’ languagesFootnote 14 and that had a distinct genetic position from Indo-Aryan on the one hand and Iranian on the other (Grierson Citation1919, 1–8).
Following Georg Morgenstierne’s pioneering work in the Hindu Kush language area, Grierson’s hitherto-accepted genetic classification was rejected. Morgenstierne sees Kalasha as “a purely Indian language” (Morgenstierne Citation1932, 51), and he points to a number of phonological, grammatical, and lexical features that indicate a close historical relationship to neighbouring Indo-Aryan Khowar. He also notes a number of phonemic and lexical similarities to Nuristani Kati, which “are quite natural, considering the long period of close contact between the two tribes [Kalasha and Kati, JH]” (Morgenstierne Citation1932, 52). Morgenstierne classifies the Nuristani languages as an Indo-European sub-group of its own, side by side with the Iranian and Indo-Aryan sub-groups (Morgenstierne Citation1961, 139; see also Morgenstierne Citation1974). He further questions whether Dardic can be called a genetic sub-group:
There is not a single common feature distinguishing Dardic, as a whole, from the rest of the IA languages … Dardic is simply a convenient term to denote a bundle of aberrant IA hill languages, which in their relative isolation … have been in a varying degree sheltered against the expanding influences of IA Midland (Madhyadesa) innovations, being left free to develop on their own. (Morgenstierne Citation1961, 139)
Morgenstierne’s position is endorsed by Fussman (Citation1972) and Strand (Citation1973, Citation2001). Strand (Citation2001) further refines the internal genetic grouping of Dardic languages, and in agreement with Morgenstierne (Citation1973b), he places Khowar and Kalasha together in a sub-group.Footnote 15
Morgenstierne’s definition of ‘Dardic’ as an umbrella term for isolated Indo-Aryan languages situated in the Hindu Kush range is also that used by Bashir (Citation2003), who calls attention to the fact that Dardic languages have influenced one another by mutual contact throughout their history:
The designation ‘Dardic’ implies neither ethnic unity among the speakers of these languages nor that they can all be traced to a single stammbaum-model node … The similarities of the Dardic languages today are due to differentially shared retentions, innovations affecting various subsets of these languages, and contact (areal) developments. (Bashir Citation2003, 822)
Bashir points out that the Dardic languages as a whole underwent fewer major Middle Indo-Aryan phonological and morphological developments than the Indo-Aryan languages in the plain sub-continent of India and Pakistan. For example, most of the Dardic languages have retained the Old Indo-Aryan three-sibilant system, s, ṣ, ś, which is reduced to one- or two-sibilant systems in other Indo-Aryan languages (Bashir Citation2003, 822). Bashir’s grouping of the Northwest Indo-Aryan languages is replicated in Figure .
Figure 1. The Dardic, or ‘Northwest Indo-Aryan’, languages, following Bashir (Citation2003, 824–825).
Map 1. Pakistan with surrounding countries and Chitral District framed. Scale: 1:133,333,333. Source: maps.google.com
Map 2. Southern Chitral Valley and Kalasha valleys and villages. Black pins indicate Kalasha-speaking villages, grey pins former Kalasha-speaking villages. Rhombuses indicate Kati-speaking villages. Scale: 1:120,000. Source: maps.google.com
With Zoller (Citation2005), the question of whether Dardic constitutes a genetic sub-group of Indo-Aryan is once again opened. According to Zoller, the Dardic languages are modern successors of Middle Indo-Aryan Gāndhārī. He admits, however, that a classical stammbaum classification alone cannot explain the internal relationships between the Dardic languages. Zoller suggests that the history of the Dardic languages is to be understood using Dixon’s punctuated equilibrium model (Dixon Citation1997, 67ff), according to which an “initial punctuation” that created the Proto-Dardic languages was followed “by long equilibrium periods,” which “were ... punctuated time and again, leading, for instance, to the different Kohistani languages,” and “resulted in a continuous diffusion of linguistic features” (Zoller Citation2005, 12). This again has resulted in (a) “frequently not identical” language boundaries and (b) the distinction between “a central (or progressive) from a peripheral (or conservative) area” (ibid.).
Since this may evoke doubt as to what is meant by ‘Dardic languages’, I shall follow Liljegren (Citation2008, 31) and refer to these languages as ‘Hindu Kush Indo-Aryan’ (HKIA) languages, recognising that these languages share a number of historical developments but leaving it open to question whether they are a distinct genetic sub-branch of Indo-Aryan.
3.2. The Hindu Kush language area
The Hindu Kush region is inhabited by many peoples, each with their own linguistic and cultural characteristics. In Morgenstierne’s words, the region is “one of the most polyglot in Asia” (Morgenstierne Citation1961). Apart from the Nuristani and HKIA languages, one must include as areal neighbours to Kalasha the isolate Burushaski in the northeast of the region, Iranian languages such as Pashto and Farsi to the west and the south, Tibeto-Burman Balti in the eastern part of the Hindu Kush, the Iranian Pamir languages and Iranian Yidgha and Munji to the north, and the Turkic languages of Kyrgyzstan. Besides these languages, Urdu (IA) is also spoken in the area as the language of administration and is taught in schools. English is also taught in schools and is used by people who interact with foreigners. Through studies of the Koran, many people furthermore learn to read Classic Arabic. None of the lesser-known languages mentioned here have an established written culture.
Throughout history, there has been mutual cultural and religious contact between the peoples of the Hindu Kush area in general, despite the narrow, difficult-to-access valleys, which have formed natural barriers for the specific language communities. It is to be expected that the historical contacts have also effected the linguistic structure of the languages in the Hindu Kush in general.
The long period of contact between Kalasha and Khowar (Sections 2.3–2.4) has led to convergence or shared innovations in the grammars of these two languages (Bashir Citation1988a, 31, Citation1988b, Citation2011, 14–21). Many changes in Kalasha’s lexicon, phrasal structures, and syntactic patterns can be attributed to influence from Khowar (Bashir Citation1988a, Citation2011, 24–25). The long period of contact with Nuristani languages to the west has also left traces in Kalasha, both in terms of loan words and shared structural development (see, for example, Heegård and Mørch (Citation2004) for a discussion of the development of retroflex vowels in Kalasha and Di Carlo (Citation2011) for comments on that discussion and a discussion of the development of the kinship suffix paradigm in Kalash (Grammar, Section 6.3.7)). Other changes in Kalasha have Persian or English roots and are transmitted either through contact with the Persian-influenced Nuristani languages or through Urdu.
Kalasha and Khowar also share linguistic features and convergence phenomena that are common in the larger Hindu Kush area and that have attracted the attention of scholars of South Asian languages. For example, Tikkanen (Citation1999) discuss the spread of retroflexion, and Baart (Citation2003, 132–144) discusses the development of tonal systems in Hindu Kush languages. Bashir (Citation1988a, 400–421, Citation2003, 823) has pointed out that many languages in the wider Hindu Kush region, including the Turkic and Iranian languages on the northern and western fringes of the Hindu Kush, share, for example, grammaticalisation of evidentiality; left-branching structures; complementisers developed from the verb ‘say’; agglutinative morphology; causative-involuntative semantics; replacement of a gender system with an animate-inanimate distinction; infinitives in -k; prenominal relative clauses that employ no relative or indefinite pronominal element; development of tonal or accentual systems; and contrast between dental, palatal, and retroflex affricates and sibilants (Bashir Citation2003, 823). Bashir (Citation2010) also discusses the coding of mirativity as a possible areal trait. Recognition of these shared grammatical features has given rise to discussions of substratal influence, possibly related to the now genetically isolate Burushaski, see discussions by Tikkanen (Citation1988), CitationBashir (Citation1988a, 408, 420–421), and Heegård (Citation2012).
4. Previous lingustic research on the Kalasha language
The first report on the Kalasha language is Leitner (Citation1880), which contains a vocabulary and a brief grammatical sketch. Leitner’s work is summarised by Grierson (Citation1919) in Linguistic Survey of India (henceforth LSI). Grierson’s description of Kalasha includes overviews of verbal, nominal, and pronominal paradigms, of numerals, postpositions, and two glossed text specimens. One text specimen is a translation of the biblical ‘Parable of the Prodigal Son’, and the other a traditional narrative.
Morgenstierne’s fieldwork on Kalasha is presented in the extremely valuable and pioneering work The Kalasha Language (Morgenstierne Citation1973b). This publication contains a sketch of the grammar and sound system, with a wealth of historical observations. The section labelled ‘Vocabulary’ is a rich resource with regards to etymologies of indigenous words, loanwords, and possible cognates in other languages. The section labelled ‘Texts’ offers specimens of a number of prayers and a few mythical stories and fables.
After Morgenstierne’s fieldwork in the 1920s, nearly 60 years would pass before linguists again turned their interest towards Kalasha.Footnote 16 A small group of linguists affiliated with SIL International (formerly Summer Institute of Linguistics) provide an analysis of a narrative (Trail and Hale Citation1995), a brief sketch of case-marking (Trail Citation1996), and the Kalasha Dictionary – with English and Urdu (Trail and Cooper Citation1999). Greg Cooper is also the leading linguist behind the Kalasha orthography, described in detail in Cooper (Citation2005, Citation2011).
The American linguist Elena Bashir’s work on Kalasha has resulted in an unpublished PhD thesis, Topics in Kalasha Syntax: An Areal and Typological Perspective (Bashir Citation1988a)Footnote 17 and a number of ‘spin-off’ articles from the thesis: Bashir (Citation1988b, Citation1990, Citation1993, Citation1996). Bashir (Citation2003) presents a sketch of Kalasha grammar, summarising what had been written concerning Kalasha up until that point.
Ida E. Mørch’s and the present author’s work on Kalasha has resulted in a detailed description of the sound system (Mørch and Heegaard Citation1997), including a historical approach to the retroflex vowels (see Grammar, Section 6.2.2) and a dialectal sketch. Mørch (Citation1995) presents an acoustic study of plain, nasalised, and retroflex vowels. Heegaard (Citation1998) examines intriguing vowel length patterns. Heegaard (Citation1996) and Heegård (Citation2000) evaluate the linguistic and language-political aspects of an alphabet project launched by a local Kalasha school teacher. Mørch (Citation2000a) provides a report on language vitality in those parts of Southern Chitral where Kalasha was believed by the outside world to have been long forgotten but where it is still known – ‘remembered’ – by a small number of speakers, especially women. Mørch (Citation2000b) sketches the use of some of the ‘absolute adverbs’ (‘upstream’, ‘downhill’, etc., see Grammar, Section 6.7.1.2) in ordinary orientation among the Kalasha. Heegård and Mørch (Citation2004) summarise some of the complex aspects of the sound system. Heegård (Citation2005, Citation2014) and Heegård Petersen Citation2006a, Citation2006b) makes a detailed examination of the case system as established by case endings and postpositions (see Grammar, Sections 6.3.5, 6.7.2 and 6.8). Heegård (Citation2012) analyses the genitive-oblique endings from a historical perspective. Heegård and Nabaig (Citationforthcoming) offer an example of an analysis of a Kalasha narrative, along the lines of those presented in the present publication.
With Pierpaolo Di Carlo’s dissertation I Kalasha del Hindu-Kush. Riserche linguistiche e antropologiche (Di Carlo Citation2009), we have the only linguistic description of the Biriu variety of Northern Kalasha. In contrast, all of the aforementioned works focus on the Rukmu-Mumoret variety of Northern Kalasha. Di Carlo’s dissertation contains an introduction to the grammar of the language, a description of the Pụ̃ the wine festival, and a number of glossed texts, mainly songs and poetic praise speeches from the Pụ̃ festival. These also comprise the data for Di Carlo’s analysis of the discourse markers -o and ta (Di Carlo Citation2010).
The many anthropologists who have conducted research on the Kalasha have likewise brought lingustic data to light. Topper (Citation1977), Loude and Lièvre (Citation1987), Maggi (Citation2001), and Fentz (Citation2010)) offer valuable and informative glossaries, primarily with words for cultural and religious concepts. Parkes (Citation1983, Citation1990) also presents a rich trove of lexical items, but unfortunately the large collection of traditional stories referred to and collected by Parkes is inaccessible to other researchers. Cacopardo (Citation2010) undertakes a religious analysis of two mythical texts.
5. Transcription guide
The Kalasha texts are rendered in the Kalasha orthography (in bold type face), a phonemic transcription (normal type face), an English morpheme-by-morpheme gloss (normal type face), and a source-near English translation (in italics). In order to make the English translation more transparent and grammatical, words in parentheses are added even though their lexemic equivalents are not expressed in Kalasha. Short explanatory and disambiguating comments are written with ‘(: )’. The English versions of the texts that are given before the grammatically annotated versions are more freely translated and lack parentheses, but they in most places retain elements of the information structure and Kalasha syntax. For example, afterthought constructions (see Chapter 7.6) are indicated by commas before the ‘afterthought element’.
The transcription system for Kalasha in the Grammar as well as the introduction chapters 2–4 largely corresponds with what Masica calls ‘Standard Orientalist’ (Citation1991, xv), with which most South Asianists will be familiar. The one exception is that nasal vowels are consistently written with a superscript tilde and the lamino-velar lateral /ɫ̪/ as ɫ. Stress is marked by an acute accent on the stressed syllable. See Table below for a guide to the different mode of representing Kalasha.
Table 2. The Kalasha alphabet (in plain type), with corresponding phonemes and ‘Standard Orientalist’ representation (in italics).
The Kalasha writing system was developed by Australian linguist Greg Cooper. The writing system, which is based on Roman script, was chosen as the means of representing the Kalasha language in writing by an assembly of village elders, school teachers, and college students in Islamabad 2000, with Greg Cooper as a linguistic consultant (Cooper Citation2005, 117–121). Among the aspects discussed at that meeting were socio-political factors such as script familiarity and learning curves, script as an art form, associations with other languages, pedagogical factors, and the writing system’s suitability to the Kalasha sound inventory (Cooper Citation2005, 121–124). The alphabet is strictly phonemical, following an analysis of vowels + nasal consonants before stops and affricates as an underlying nasal vowel. The phonemic principle provides a very large inventory of vowels and consonants, with diacritics being used with letters representing retroflex and nasalised sounds. Aspirated consonants are written as digraphs. The letters ‘y’ /j/ and ‘j’ /ʥ/ as well as the letter combination ‘sh’ /ɕ/ may be regarded as influences from English. Stress is not marked in the Kalasha orthography. In the phonemic transcription, stress is marked with ‘ ˈ ’.
The alphabet is taught in the Kalasha primary schools and often used in e-mail correspondence and elsewhere in computer-mediated communication.Footnote 18 There is some variation in actual use concerning writing case endings as separate words or attached to their stems,Footnote 19 for example moc as or mocas ‘man-obl.sg’, perhaps reflecting an Urdu praxis in which the genitive morpheme ki is an independent word. In addition, there is variation in writing the /u/ and /i/ phonemes after a vowel with a vowel letter, u and i, or with a consonant letter, w and y, probably because these phonemes may be pronounced as a vowel, [u] and [i] respectively, or as a glide, [w] and [j] respectively. In the present publication’s Kalasha orthography, all suffixes are written together with their stems, following normal linguistics practice. This differs from how the Kalasha write their language in computer-mediated communication, where there seems to be a tendency to write /u/ and /i/ as w and y after /a/ but as u and i after the other vowels. This tendency has been systematised in this publication, with the consequence that /u/, when representing the 3rd singular present/future tense, is written w in maaw ‘say-p/f.3s’ but u in čitiu ‘think-p/f.3s’.
The sources for the examples given throughout the publication are abbreviated as follows: “PP” = Peter Parkes (Citation1983), “B88” = Elena Bashir (Citation1988a), “M” = Morgenstierne (Citation1973b), “Fn” = this author’s fieldnotes, “te” = example from a text, “e” = example elicited from wordlist or questionnaire, “s” = example from spontaneous speech, “es” = example elicited by use of experimental stimuli (drawings, video clips, ..) and “tm” = example from text message or Facebook. The abbreviations “GSK”, “Na”, “Ta”, “Ti” and “Fi” refer to language consultants.
6. Grammar
6.1. Introduction to a sketch grammar of Kalasha
This sketch grammar of Kalasha serves two purposes: (1) It gives the reader an idea of the basic grammatical mechanisms in Kalasha, and (2) it supports and provides the analytical background for the grammatical annotation and comments to the texts.
The grammar incorporates the presentation by Bashir (Citation2003, 850–857) of Kalasha in her chapter on the Dardic languages in Cardona and Jain (Citation2003). Bashir’s dissertation and other work on the verbal morphology and syntax in Kalasha (Bashir Citation1988a, Citation1988b, Citation1990, Citation1996) have served as the primary sources for those chapters that deal with these aspects. Heegård Petersen’s work on the nominal morphology and adpositions (Heegård Petersen Citation2006a, Citation2006b, Heegård Citation2014) provides the primary contribution to those chapters that cover these areas of the grammar, and Mørch and Heegaard Petersen’s (Citation1997) and Heegård and Mørch's (Citation2004) phonetic and phonological analyses provide the main input to the presentation of the phonology. For all analyses that include lexical semantics, Ron Trail and Greg Cooper’s dictionary of Kalasha (Trail and Cooper Citation1999) has served as a useful reference work and source of inspiration. Pierpaolo Di Carlo’s grammatical sketch of the Biriu variety of Kalasha (Di Carlo Citation2009, 60–190) has also served as an inspiration. The sketch grammar also draws on a number of observations by Georg Morgenstierne (Morgenstierne Citation1973b, 183–238).
Since the main purpose of the grammar is to introduce the basic grammatical structures of Kalasha, the various and sometimes conflicting analyses in the works mentioned above have been ignored. These different perspectives and analyses deserve more attention, discussion, studies, and data, but limitations of space and scope preclude such discussions from being included in this presentation.
The areal-linguistic perspective has also been ignored for the same reasons. The areal-linguistic perspective on the so-called Dardic languages (see Section 3.1) and other languages of the Hindu Kush or the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent has attracted attention from many researchers for a number of decades.Footnote 20
In its structure, the grammatical sketch owes much to the presentations of northwestern Indo-Aryan languages in Liljegren’s grammar of Palula (Liljegren Citation2008) and Perder’s grammar of Dameli (Perder Citation2013). The present grammatical introduction has a separate chapter for phonology, each word class (understood in the traditional sense), and syntax. A traditionally marginal word class (or part of speech), discourse particles, is treated under Syntax, as is the use of (the few) conjunctions in Kalasha. Derivational, word class-forming processes are not covered in this grammar but are occasionally commented upon in the texts when relevant.
The transcription of Kalasha words in the grammar differs slightly from the transcription in the texts. Word citation in running text is given in italics, with a transcription standard reflecting the traditional means of rendering sounds in Indo-Aryan linguistics. Stress is marked with ′. For the rendering of phonemic structures and pronunciation, IPA symbols are used. See the transcription guide (Section 5) for letter-sound correspondences.
6.2. Phonology
6.2.1. Consonants
Kalasha consonants contrast along 6 places of articulation and 6 manners of articulation. The phonemes are shown in Table .
Table 3. Kalasha consonant inventory.
Table 4. Manifestations of /h/.
Table 5. Kalasha vowel phonemes.
Table 6. Morphonological patterns of voicing and aspiration in word-final segments.
Most phonemes have phonetic manifestations as expected from the place and manner of articulation in Table . Specific articulation features concern the following alone: Retroflex stops are rather post-alveolar and apical than sub-laminal. /ɫ/ is realised as a dental-laminal lateral with varying degrees of velarisation and should more correctly be rendered /ɫ̪/. /lʲ/ is realised as an alveolar-apical lateral with varying degrees of palatalisation (in the texts, this phoneme is transcribed as ‘l‘). /j/ is of a very labile nature and may be absent in some pronunciations. The phonemes /ɳ ɲ ŋ/ occur only in word final position and may be analysed as context-defined realisations of an underlying nasal segment |~| (see Section 6.2.4, Table ). /ɽ/ only occurs in the Biriu-Jinjiret variety of Northern Kalasha and then only in intervocalic position and before an /i/ in words which, in the Rukmu-Mumoret dialect, have a preceding retroflex vowel: cụ́i – cúɽi ‘plait’.
Table 7. Consonant clustering and consonant alternation in word-final segments.
The manifestation of /h/ is of a very labile nature, except in combinations with unvoiced consonants. Table shows examples of combinations with /h/ and its varied manifestations.
In loan words in particular, the phoneme combination /p+h/ has the allophones [ph] and [f], and the combination /k+h/ has the allophones [kh] and [x], which speaks in favour of a monosegmental interpretation.
A small number of words exhibit variation between [b], [m], [w], and [β], otherwise expected realisations of /b/, /m/ and /w/, respectively:
In a few words, the phoneme /ʥ/ has overlapping manifestation with the typical realisations of /ʑ/ and /j/, for example:
In word-final position, the voice and aspiration distinctions for the stop consonants, affricates, and sibilants are neutralised. These only occur unvoiced and unaspirated in this position.
6.2.2. Vowels
Kalasha has a five-vowel system, with two unrounded front vowels, two rounded back vowels, and one low, unrounded mid vowel. Each of these vowels may be modified by retroflexion; in a surface-near interpretation, also by nasalisation; and (except for /i/) by a combination of retroflexion and nasalisation. This gives a total of 19 vowel phonemes (Table ).
Following morphophonemically conditioned manifestation rules for nasality, nasal vowels can be analysed as combinations of a plain oral vowel + an underlying nasal segment, |~| (see Section 6.2.4).
For reasons of simplicity, retroflex vowels can be analysed as underlying combinations of a plain vowel or a nasal vowel and an abstract, underlying retroflex segment, |ř|, thereby reducing the vowel inventory by nine vowels. If this analysis is preferred, manifestation rules need to be set up to account for, for example, |ˈʨuři| ‘braid’ -> [ˈʨu˞i] in the Rukmu-Mumoret variety, |ˈʨuři| ‘braid’ -> [ˈʨuɽi] in the Biriu variety, and |ˈhiřa| > [ˈhi˞a] in both varieties. However, historical evidence does not always support an underlying r-like (retroflex) phoneme (Mørch and Heegaard Petersen Citation1997, 77–94; Heegård and Mørch Citation2004; Di Carlo Citation2009, 67–71), and the analysis with an underlying |ř| needs more consideration in future studies.
6.2.3. Stress
Kalasha has free word stress, and the possibility of a structural contrast is exploited in a few word pairs, for example:
Words with stem final /u/ and /i/ can have variable stress:
In specific word structures, the stress may shift by suffixation, either because the suffix is stressed (6a)–(6c) or as a result of word-internal stress placement rules (6d)–(6e):
Some words can be pronounced with a long, stressed vowel. Mørch and Heegaard Petersen (Citation1997) provide evidence for a contrast between /a/ and /a:/, but the issue of phonemic vowel length calls for further studies.
In contrast to other Indo-Aryan languages in the Hindu Kush such as Palula, Indus Kohistani, and Kalam Kohistani, Kalasha does not feature phonemic tonal contrast.
6.2.4. Morphophonology
Suffixation may prompt an underlying voiced or aspirated consonant, which would otherwise be de-voiced or de-aspirated in word-final position. This variation pattern calls for a hierarchical phonemic structure with a surface structure and an underlying morphophonemic structure, as shown in Table .
A similar morphophonologically conditioned variation occurs with consonant clusters, word-final /w/, and the nasal consonants [ɳ ɲ ŋ]. Disallowed final consonant clusters may appear by suffixation, and a word-final [w] may appear as an underlying |ɫ|, as shown in Table .
The nasals [ɳ ɲ ŋ] appear in actual pronunciation before stop consonants and affricates with identical places of articulation and in word-final position. However, as Table shows, in the position before a homorganic consonant, the manifestation varies between a nasal consonant and a nasal vowel. This pattern of variation suggests that the nasal element should be regarded as a sort of underlying ‘floating’ element, |~|. Realised as a nasal consonant before a homorganic stop consonant or affricate, this nasal consonant becomes word final due to restrictions regarding word-final consonant clusters, with the result that a phonemically surface-near opposition between final /ɳ/, /ɲ/, and /ŋ/ (and final /n/) arises. This process and the varied manifestations are illustrated in Table . (The data contains no occurrences of the underlying structure |~b| + suffix realised as word-final /m/.)
Table 8. Morphophonologically conditioned realisation of final nasal consonants.
The Kalasha orthography (see Chapters 2 and 5) is not stable with reference to this morphophonemic variation. Words are mostly written according to their surface-near phonemic structure, for example without consonant clusters and with unvoiced and unaspirated final consonants, but a nasal vowel letter may occur before a palatal or velar stop consonant or affricate since there are no letters for palatal and velar nasal consonants. The phonemic transcription of the narratives, in contrast, consistently reflects the surface-near word structure.
6.3. Nouns
Common nouns can occur in the following cases: the direct, the genitive-oblique, the instrumental, and the vocative case with a set of local, locative, and ablative suffixes as well as with temporal suffixes. The semantic parameter ‘animacy’ may be distinguished in the direct and the genitive-oblique cases, while the semantic parameter ‘number’ is distinguished in the direct only for a subset of animate nouns and in the genitive-oblique case for all nouns (Table ).
Table 9. Case marking and local suffixes, common nouns.
Proper nouns, for animates (persons and animals) as well as inanimates (places) differ from the inflection of common nouns only in the genitive-oblique (Table ).
Table 10. Case marking and local suffixes, proper nouns.
6.3.1. The direct case
The unstressed direct plural -an occurs only infrequently and with considerable inter- and intra-speaker variation, with a few nouns that denote humans beings. The stressed direct ending -án occurs only on nouns denoting a group of humans of esteem or humans of a certain status or occupation: for instance, miṣṭerán ‘teachers’ and dukandarán ‘shopkeepers’. The suffix is probably to be regarded as a ‘collectiviser’ and it is glossed ‘coll’ in the texts.
The direct case is used for subjects of all verbs in all tenses and aspects and for the object of most transitive verbs.
6.3.2. The genitive-oblique case
The stressed genitive-oblique plural -ón occurs only on animate nouns with a-stems, for example súda ‘kid’ – sudón ‘kids’, with just a few exceptions, such as púruṣ – puruṣón ‘man – men (gen.obl.pl)’ (see Heegård Citation2012). All other nouns take -an in the genitive-oblique plural.
The genitive-oblique has a variety of functions, including marking possession (8a) and complementing postpositions (8b) as well as serving as an indirect object (8c), object of goal-directing or ‘affective’ verbs (i.e. verbs denoting an action directed toward someone or something, 8d-e), and infinitival objects (8f).
For the sake of brevity, the genitive-oblique case is abbreviated ‘obl’ in the grammatical gloss of the texts.
6.3.3. The instrumental case
The instrumental has restricted distribution. It is the preferred instrument marker where a body part is used as an instrument and for verbs of ‘speaking’ and ‘beating’ (9a)–(9c), but otherwise, semantic roles of instruments, etc. are expressed by use of postpositions.
6.3.4. The vocative case
The vocative is infrequently used and varies between zero marking and the preposed article o, which seems to trigger stress movement: o Lákšan! – Lakšáno! ‘hey, Lakshan!’
6.3.5. The local suffixes
The locative and ablative suffixes in Table only attach to inanimate nouns, while a third ablative suffix, -(y)ei, attaches only to adverbs (see Section 6.7.1.1). Semantically, these local suffixes are distributed according to topographical or referential characteristics of the location, denoted by the parameters ‘support type’, ‘dimensionality’, ‘visibily/accessibility’, ‘dispersion’, and ‘specificity’. Table illustrates the basic semantics of these local case suffixes (see Heegård Petersen Citation2006a and Heegård Citation2014 for lengthy discussions of the semantics of the local suffixes).
Table 11. Semantic parameters and manifested meanings of the local suffixes.
In the grammatical gloss, -a is referred to as loc1, -una as loc2, -ai as loc3, -ani as abl2, and -aw as abl3 (and the ablative -(y)ei as abl1).
Loc1-a comes close to being an ‘oblique locative’, denoting ‘unspecific’ or ‘general location’, for example dúra ‘in the house; home’. However, not all nouns can take this ending: *choma ‘floor-loc1’, *bata ‘stone-loc1’, *moṭera ‘car-loc1’. This defective distribution remains to be clarified.
The specific spatial and referential semantics associated with Loc2, Loc3, Abl2, and Abl3 are illustrated with (10a)–(10e).
(10a)–(10b) illustrates the relevance of the parameter ‘support type’: In (10a), Abl2-ani codes the source Ground as a (two-dimensional) plain surface, while in (10b) Abl3-ani codes the source Ground as a (three-dimensional) container. (10c)–(10d) illustrate the relevance of the parameters ‘dispersion’ and ‘specificity’: In (10c), Loc1-a codes the location as a general, unmarked location, while in (10d) the location is coded as a specific and exact location, and in (10e) one reading is that the location may be specific (i.e. one specific house) but that the exact location of the men in the house is unclear. For other instances of the semantics of these suffixes, I refer to the grammatical glosses and commentaries to the texts and to the discussion in the literature mentioned above.
Loc2-una and Abl2-ani are often associated with singularity, while Loc3-ai and Abl3-aw are often associated with plurality (cf. Trail and Cooper Citation1999), but a number interpretation of the semantics of the local suffixes is context dependent. Loc2-una (and Abl2-ani) can easily denote a ‘plural situation’ (11), and Loc3-ai (and Abl3-aw) can denote a ‘singular situation’ (10e, i.).
6.3.6. Temporal suffixes
Kalasha has two suffixes that are exclusively used for temporal functions, and they are probably to be regarded as derivatives: -asa and -ano. These suffixes attach exclusively to inanimate nouns. -ano occurs only with temporal nouns, for example miléṭ ‘minute’, bas ‘day’, hawtá ‘week’, kaw ‘year’, etc., and provides the meaning of ‘completion of period’. -asa, in contrast, can occur with non-temporal nouns and adds the meaning ‘during the period of’. See (13a)–(13b), which are both possible answers to (12):
6.3.7. Kinship suffixes
Kalasha has a specific set of suffixes that attach to a kinship term when it occurs as possessum in possessive constructions, ‘my son/sons’, ‘our daughter/daughters/, ‘your mother/mothers’, etc. The endings express the number of the possessed kin and the person of the possessor. The possessor must be in the oblique case. (Table )
Table 12. Examples with kinship suffixes and their grammatical gloss.
The occurrence of the personal suffixes depends on a number of syntactic variables (Bashir Citation1988a, 44–45). For example, the 1.sg suffix does not appear when the possessed phrase is the subject, the predicate nominal, or the direct object, but it is obligatory when the possessed NP occurs in a non-direct context. The 3.sg ending and probably also 2.sg ending are obligatory in all syntactic contexts. The kinship suffixes take precedence over the ‘regular’ syntactically required case endings.
6.4. Adjectives
Adjectives in Kalasha can occur as attributives, modifying a noun phrase (14a) or in predicative position (14b). In these functions, Kalasha adjectives inflect neither for number (shown with ‘Ø’) nor for animacy, irrespective of the syntactic role and animacy of the modified noun, compare (15a)–(15c).
For a few antonymic semantic notions, Kalasha adjectives come in pairs that distinguish between animate and inanimate (Table ).
Table 13. Adjectives and animacy distinction.
Adjectives may occur as heads in noun phrases. In this function, they inflect as nouns, (16a)–(16b).
6.5. Pronouns
6.5.1. Personal and demonstrative pronouns
For first and second personal pronouns, Kalasha distinguishes between the direct and the genitive-oblique cases and between singular and plural (Table ).
Table 14. First and second personal pronouns.
The first and second plural direct forms ábi have as a casual variant in the form ái. The direct case is used for the subject, and the genitive-oblique case is used for all other syntactic functions.
Third person pronouns are identical to the demonstrative pronouns. They distinguish semantically between ‘near’, ‘distant’, and ‘absent’ and between singular and plural. The category ‘Near’ implies visibility, ‘Distal’ can refer to a visible or non-visible location, and ‘Remote’ implies non-visibility or absence. These pronouns also have an accusative case form, which in the plural is identical with the direct case form (Table ).
Table 15. Third person and demonstrative pronouns.
The Remote, genitive-oblique pronouns tása and tási have the casual forms táa and tái and the Near plural form émi (direct and accusative case), but not the accusative éɫi can have the casual form éi. None of the other pronouns seem to have such consonant-dropping variant forms.
The direct case is used for subjects, the accusative case is used for objects for most verbs, the genitive-oblique case is used for objects of verbs that denote a direction towards a goal or that imply that the patient is affected in some way, and for indirect objects and for complements of postpositions.
An emphasizing or topic-marking prefix š-/ša- can be attached to the 3rd person/demonstrative pronouns but not to the 1st and 2nd person pronouns. š- implies that the referent is already mentioned or present in the discourse (Bashir Citation1988a, 43).
6.5.2. Distributive and indefinite pronouns
Some distributive and indefinite pronouns, and some quantifiers and numerals, take the case endings in the genitive-oblique case as shown in Table , when they occur as heads in nominal phrases.
Table 16. Case endings for quantifiers and distributive adjectives.
Examples are:
There appears to be defective distribution in the data. For example, only ogoég- ‘each other’ and eg- ‘one’ take the singular ending -is. The plural ending -in occurs with distributive or collective pronouns such as ogoég- ‘each other’, awdú ‘both’, saw ‘all’, and warék ‘another one’ as well as with the numerals ek ‘one’, du ‘two’, and tre ‘three’. Har ‘every’ does not seem to admit either of the flexives.
6.6. Verbs
Verbal forms in Kalasha are formed either synthetically through the combination of verbal stems and flexives or analytically through combinations of infinite and finite verb forms, auxiliaries, and verbal particles. Semantically, the verb formation integrates tense and aspect. Kalasha verbs distinguish between present/future tense and past tense as well as between three aspectual parameters: specificity (in the present/future tense), perfect-imperfect, and actual-inferential (in the past and the perfect). Furthermore, the semantic parameter of animacy is expressed in all tense and aspect forms that require a conjugated form of the auxiliary verbs ásik (animate), ‘be’, and šik (inanimate). The following presentation of the verb system draws heavily upon Bashir’s work on the Kalasha verb system (Bashir Citation1988a, 54–118).
6.6.1. Infinite verb forms
Infinite verb forms are formed by adding a suffix to the verbal root or stem. Table shows the principles of formation of the infinite verb forms. The text below describes some of the functions of these verb forms (see Bashir Citation1988a, 56–60 for a fuller description). Other functions will emerge from the notes in the text sections.
Table 17. Kalasha infinite verb formation.
Table 18. Conjugation classes and finite flexives in the present/future tense (based on Bashir Citation1988a, 46–47).
Table 19. Conjugation classes and finite flexives in the past tense (based on Bashir Citation1988a, 46).
The main function of the perfective participle is as the base in the perfect tenses (present perfect and past perfect, see 6.6.2.1), formed by a participle and a finite form of one of the auxiliaries ásik (animate) and šik (inanimate) (Table ). The perfective participle also functions as the so-called ‘conjunctive participle’, well-known in South Asian linguistics as forming adverbial sentential subordination constructions (see 6.10.3.4). The main function of the imperfective participle is to serve as the base in the past imperfective actual and past imperfective inferential tenses (see 6.6.2.1). The past participle has the function of forming the past inferential together with an auxiliary verb (see 6.6.2.1), except for the third person, where the auxiliary can be omitted: se sawzá-iɫa ‘he made it (without realising it)’ (3s.rem.nom + make-pst.ptc). As the sole participle form, the past participle can serve as the attributive in noun phrases: sawzá-iɫa aú ‘the made food’ (make-pst.ptc + food). The passive participle is encountered infrequently and seems to have restricted use as it only occurs with parik ‘go’ in constructions that encode negative ability: darwazá ne umra-ún par-íu ‘the door cannot be opened’ (door + neg + open-pass.ptc + go-p/f.3s.ns). The necessitative participle overlaps in function with the particle baṣ, expressing necessity or compulsion (see 6.10.4). The infinitive verb form functions as a nominal and can take case endings and function as the object for verbs and postpositions. (See notes to texts for other functions.)
Table 20. Present paradigm of the auxiliary verbs ásik (animate), šik (inanimate), and hik. Formal variants of ásik in parentheses.
6.6.2. Finite and indicative verbals
The finite present/future and past tense verb forms are formed by flexives that attach to the root and that make the verb agree with the subject in person and number. According to Bashir (Citation1988a, 46), Kalasha verbs fall into 8 conjugation classes. Table shows the present/future tense conjugation, and Table shows the past tense conjugation.
The verb žuk ‘eat’, with the present/future forms žum, žus, žu, žuk, žúa, žun, seems either to fall out of these classes or to constitue a verb class of its own, with a set of present/future endings with an u-formant and a vowelless root form, ž-, or with a u-vowel in the root and vowelless endings. The present/future forms of ik ‘come’ are identical to the endings of Class 7, for example, im ‘I come’, ik ‘we come’, and in ‘they come’. These forms are here analysed as root i- plus flections of Class 7 with a proces of vowel simplification.
Verbs belonging to Class 5, for example dek ‘give’, dyek ‘put’, and tyek ‘hit’, pose an unsolved morphological problem. Their present perfective participle forms dái, dyái, tyái suggest a root form with an a-vowel, and their past participle forms díta and tyíta show on the one hand syncretism between dek and dyek Footnote 21 and a root form with an i-vowel. In addition, Bashir (Citation1988a, 46) gives their endings as unstressed, but since the root lacks a stress-carrying vowel, the endings must be stressed. Apart from the second plural in det, dyet, and tyet, their inflection thus resembles that of Class 3.
Unstressed endings in underlying -au are pronounced [ow] unless preceded by a stem final a-vowel, in which case the vowel sequence /-a-au/ is pronounced [ɑɑw].
The past tense suffixes, Table , expose a greater degree of syncretism than the present/future suffixes, and according to Bashir (Citation1988a, 46) the set of endings of Classes 1, 2, and 8 are identical. The endings of Classes 4 and 5 can be seen as identical if the past tense suppletive roots are analysed as vowelless.
A large number of Class 1 and 2 verbs may take a prefix, the so-called ‘augment’ (Morgenstierne Citation1973b, 227; Bashir Citation1988a, 55) in their past tense formation, as shown by amá-’. The verb for ‘eat’ has aš- as a suppletive past tense root. The past tense forms of ‘come’ are identical to the endings of Class 7, for example, a ‘I came’, omi ‘we came’, on ‘they came’, etc.
A large number of verb forms are formed by use of the auxiliary verbs ásik (animate), ‘be’ and shíik (inanimate), and ‘be’ and hik ‘become’. In this use, these verbs are glossed as ‘aux’ (ignoring the animacy distinction). Table shows the present conjugation of these auxiliary verbs (see Section 6.2.1 for the past tense conjugation).
6.6.2.1. Present, past, and perfect verb forms
In the non-present/future forms, Kalasha distinguishes between the present perfect and a number of past forms. The past forms are distinguished according to the semantic parameters perfect-imperfect and inferentiality (actual vs. inferential). For the present perfect and the past actual forms, they are also distinguished in terms of animacy. Table shows the past actual and past inferential forms of the auxiliary verbs. Examples (18)–(24) illustrate the formation of the other present, past, and perfect verb forms. (See 6.6.2.2 and 6.6.2.3 for other verb formations along the parameters of specificity and inferentiality.)
Table 21. Past actual and past inferential paradigms of the auxiliary verbs ásik ‘be’ (animate), šik ‘be’ (inanimate), and hik ‘become’. Formal variants of ásik in parentheses.
The present/future (p/f) and past actual (pst.a) verb forms are formed by a verbal stem plus a flexive. The present perfect, the past actual perfect, and imperfect are formed by the perfective or imperfective participle plus an inflected form of a ‘be’ auxiliary. The past inferential is formed by the past perfective participle + an inflected form of the ‘become’ auxiliary. The past imperfect inferential and past perfect inferential are formed by the imperfective and the present perfective participles plus ásta, the past participle of the auxiliary ásik, plus an inflected form of the ‘become’ auxiliary.
6.6.2.2. Inferentiality and non-past forms
Inferentiality may also be expressed in non-past clauses by the particle húɫa ‘it seems’, the third person singular and plural of hik ‘become’ in the past inferential, and ghṍan ‘it is said’, a frozen third plural present tense form of the verb ghṍik ‘speak’. Húɫa, translated as ‘it seems’, combines with the verb in present/future tense (26), and ghṍan, translated as ‘it is said’, combines with the verb in the infinitive (27).
6.6.2.3. Specificity
The present/future may me marked by the specific particle day (probably derived from the perfect participle of the verb dek ‘give’).
The specific particle may be used for situations of which the speaker is certain or has direct evidence. It may also be used as a sort of progressive, as shown in (28). The specific verbal forms are noted with spc in the grammatical gloss, and the non-specific forms are noted with ns.
6.6.3. Finite, non-indicative forms
Kalasha has four non-indicative verb forms. The imperative is formed by conjugation of the verbal root (the imperative). The hortative/optative and the necessitative are formed by suffixation of a particle to the finite verb form or the verbal root. The subjunctive is formed by allowing the finite verb to be followed by third person of the past actual of hik ‘become’, háwau, often shortened to haw (Table ).
Table 22. Non-indicative verb formation (imperative with examples in the singular, examples of the subjunctive in (30)–(32)).
For states and situations that have not occurred, the hortative expresses the speaker’s wish they should occur, (29)–(30). For states and situations that have occurred, (31), the hortative expresses the speaker’s satisfaction with this change of state (Bashir Citation1988a, 84–87).
The necessitative participle -éli and the necessitative particle baṣ overlap in meaning. Based on her informants’ reactions, Bashir hypothesises that -éli has a more emphatic or specific meaning than baṣ (Bashir Citation1988a, 90–99).
The subjunctive is used for states and situtations that are reported as not fully realised, conveying a sense of tentativeness, uncertainty, or puzzlement concerning an aspect of the state or situation being referred to (Bashir Citation1988a, 88). As such, it often occurs in questions (32) but may be used in other sentence types too (33)–(34).
In (29), (32), and (33), háwaw/haw and -óri can be analysed as hortative and subjunctive complementisers for subordinated clauses (see Section 6.10.3.4).
6.6.4. Transitivity-causativity and volitionality
Kalasha has a set of morpho-syntactic means of increasing valency, for example by deriving a transitive verb form from an intransitive. Included in this are the semantic parameters of causativity and volitionality. This is described in detail by Bashir (Citation1988a, 155–218; Citation1990), though only a few mechanisms are illustrated in the following.
A very productive means of deriving transitives/causatives morphologically is by suffixation of -á- (cs1) and -aw- (cs2) (Table ).
Table 23. Morphological transitive/causative formation.
An intermediating causant is coded by the oblique case and with the causative postposition ṣaṭawái, historically the present perfective participle of the double causative of the verb ṣáṭik ‘attach’ (intr) (ṣaṭ- ‘attach’ + -aw- ‘cs2’ + -á- ‘cs1’ + -i ‘pf.ptc’) or with the compound postposition kái mã́i:
6.6.5. Compound verbs
Compound verbs are a double-verb construction, a well-known verb modification proces in New Indo-Aryan languages (Masica Citation1991, 326–330; Bashir Citation1988a, 218–220).Footnote 22 In Kalasha, a compound verb consists of a main verb in the present perfective, the conjunctive participle, plus a finite verbal component, the so-called ‘vector verb’ (or ‘light verb’), which carries the tense/aspect, person, and number marking. Kalasha employs a variety of light verbs in this verb formation: The most frequently encountered are párik ‘go’, dyek ‘put’, and dek ‘give’, though other light verbs are also encountered, for example, thek ‘place’, nisík ‘sit down’, and ónik ‘bring’. The main semantics of a compound verb is carried by the main verb; the vector verb adds more abstract, or ‘grammatical’, meaning (Bashir Citation1988a, 218–219; Masica Citation1991, 141). Examples are given in (37)–(38).
Dependent on the specific vector verb the semantics implied by compound verbs in Kalasha can be implication of finality or completeness of the action coded by the main verb, emphatic force, negative outcome, anticipation of event (Bashir Citation1988a, 241–249).
6.6.6. Conjunct verbs
The most productive way of forming verbs in Kalasha is through the conjunct verb construction, a well-known verb formation process in New Indo-Aryan languages (Masica Citation1991, 368–369). Conjunct verbs consist of a nominal-like element plus a verbaliser, the vector verb. Examples are kọ̃ kárik ‘listen to’, mon dek ‘speak, say’, phan dek ‘lie’, apáw dek ‘live; stay’, and khir hik ‘deny’. The most common vector verbs are hik, which makes intransitive verbs, and kárik, which makes transitive verbs. Dek ‘give’ and dyek ‘put’ can also be used as vector verbs. The nominal element may be an independent nominal, like kọ̃ ‘ear’ and mon ‘word’, or it may be a nominal-like element that does not exist as an independent word (and cannot take flexive or derivative affixes). Examples of the latter type are phan dek ‘lie’, apaw dek ‘live, stay’, and khir hik ‘deny’. In the texts, these ‘nominal elements’ are translated into English with a derivative in ‘-ing’ or ‘-ness’: apáw dek ‘live’ (‘living give’). Conjunct verbs inflect like ordinary verbs with the suffixal morphology outlined above.
6.7 Adverbs
Adverbs and adverbial phrases in Kalasha form a very heterogenous class. Some adverbs are monomorphematic words, others are derived by attaching prefixes and suffixes, others are originally adjectives used adverbially, others are derived by reduplication, and others are formed syntactically by combining words from other word classes with conjunctive participles or postpositions. Finally, the meaning of some adverbials is expressed by verbal predicates, conjunct verbs (Section 6.6.6).
The place adverbs are subject to a detailed analysis in Heegård Petersen (Citation2006a, Citation2006b). The other adverb types have not to my knowledge been subject to detailed studies, and the presentation here merely reports the most basic observations in a tentative manner.
6.7.1. Place adverbs
Kalasha has three major groups of place adverbs: Adverbs with the deictic centre anchored in the speaker (‘here’, ‘there’, ‘where’), adverbs anchored in the topography of the landscape (‘upriver’, ‘downhill’, etc.), and adverbs that may be called general place adverbs (‘up’, ‘down’, etc.). The latter group may also include relational adverbs, nọ̃́aw ‘downwards’, rúaw ‘ahead’, etc. (see 6.8.1). Many adverbs in these groups may be modified by the suffixes -(h)ák and -alía, which both mean ‘a little bit (in a particular direction)’ but the distribution and specific semantics of which remain to be specified.
6.7.1.1. Place adverbs deictically anchored in speaker
Four overall semantic parameters define the use of the deictic adverbs: (1) ‘distance’, (2) ‘specificity’, (3) ‘across-edge location’, and (4) ‘locative vs. ablative’. The inventory of these deictic adverbs is given in Table .
Table 24. Deictic place adverbs in Kalasha (forms marked with ‘?’ are not attested).
These adverbs are formed by four invariant word forms and of a number of bound roots, which can be suffixed with local (and stressed) case endings, Loc1-a, Loc3-ai, Abl1-(y)ei, and Abl3-aw (see Section 6.3.1). Ablative forms may include the ablative-perlative postposition day. Suffixation with Loc2-una and Abl2-ani seems impossible with these adverbs. The ‘across-edge’ forms are formed by a sort of reduplication of the ‘not across-edge’ forms. The Absent forms are formed by a prefixed t-, identical to the formation of the Remote demonstrative or third person pronouns. All forms can be prefixed with emphatic š- (ša- before consonants), for example, š-ayá ‘right here (and nowhere else)’.
The semantic parameter ‘Distance’ distinguishes between ‘here’ (near deictic centre), ‘distant’ (away from deictic centre), and ‘absent’ (away, remote, out of sight from deictic centre), similar to the semantic parameter distinguishing the 3rd person and demonstrative pronouns. It is, however, still unclear how and to what extent visibility and distance interact, for example whether a non-visible but relatively close location will be denoted with atrá or with tará. There is a basic division between adverbs that denote exact and inexact location (similar to the fundamental division between the local case endings). For example, aya means ‘exactly here in this spot’, and andai means ‘around here (somewhere)’. The adverbs denoting inexact location further distinguish between ‘across-edge’ and ‘not across-edge’. ‘Across-edge’ adverbs are used when there is a some sort of cross-sectioning border or barrier between the deictic centre and the location, for example a road, a bed, a table corner, etc. Locations across a cross-sectioning river may also be denoted by the topography-anchored adverb páyran ‘across-river’. Locations that are ‘across-edge’ are divided along parameters resembling those that differentiate the ‘specific’ case endings, ‘identifiability’ or ‘boundedness’: ayá, etc. ‘exactly identifiable’/‘bounded’ vs. and-ái ‘not exactly identifiable’/‘unbounded’.
For the sake of brevity, these adverbs are not glossed with their full semantics in the narratives, so that, for example, ayá is glossed as ‘here.ne.spc’, andái is glossed as ‘here.ne.nonspc-loc3’, and taɫéi is glossed as ‘there.rem.nonspc-abl1’.
The adverb ṭaɫái ‘there.abs.spc-loc3’ may also be used in a general sense, meaning ‘over there’, ‘there, very far away’.
6.7.1.2. Place adverbs anchored in topography
Kalasha has two sets of adverbial roots that denote direction and location uphill (pučhúm and hála) and downhill (undruhák and ógaɫa) as well as one set of bound adverbial roots that denote direction and location upstream (wẽ-) and downstream (prẽ-). Another topography-anchored adverbial root is páyran- [ˈpe:ran] ‘across or over a stream or chasm’.
Hála/ála ‘steep uphill’ and ógaɫa ‘steep downhill’ occur only unsuffixed. Pučhúm ‘uphill’ and úndru/óndru ‘downhill’ occur as free forms and with the general local suffix -a and the diminutive, stressed -(h)ák. Prẽ- ‘downriver’, wẽ- ‘upriver’, and payran- ‘across-river’ occur with local suffixes -a, -aw, and the diminutive -(h)ák. Derivations with -(h)ak may be suffixed with -a or be further derived by stressed -alía ‘in the direction of’. Table shows the inventory of these place adverbs, the word formations patterns, and the associated meanings.
Table 25. Adverbs anchored in the landscape’s topography.
As emerges from the glosses in the table, there is considerable semantic overlap between these adverbs, the meanings and nuances of which are subtle. In addition, pučhúm ‘uphill’ and undrú ‘downhill’ overlap in meaning with adverbial use of the relational adverbs thara, tháraw ‘up, upwards’ and nọ́a, nọ́aw ‘below, down, downwards’. Pučhúm and úndru also overlap in usage with general place adverbs such as hála ‘steep up, up’ and ógaɫa ‘steep down, down’ as well as with the adverb dihák ‘upward, skyward, upward in a perpendicular direction’.
Some of the adverbial forms may also be used with a general directional meaning not achored in the landscape’s topography. Example (40), which describes a situation in focus detached from any landscape features, shows wẽhák ‘upstream’ with the meaning ‘away’.
6.7.2. Relational adverbs
This presentation follows Di Carlo (Citation2009, 112–114) by considering a group of words that denote ‘projective’ location in relation to ground location as ‘relational adverbs’.Footnote 23 In English, this may refer to words and phrases such as ‘above’, ‘below’, ‘middle of’, ‘beside’, ‘in front of’, etc. Morphologically relational adverbial nouns can be free or bound roots or appear as frozen inflected forms, in which case they can be analysed as postpositions. Free roots can be suffixed by all or a subset of local suffixes. Examples of relational adverbs are given in Table .
Table 26. Examples of relational adverbs and their morphology.
Syntactically, a relational adverb occurs as the head in a noun phrase. The modifier, a noun or a pronoun denoting the deictic centre, is the obligatory modifier in the genitive-oblique case (41)–(42).
Relational adverbs can also occur as the second component in compounds, as in (43).
6.7.3. Temporal adverbs
The temporal adverbs constitute a very heterogenous group morphologically, etymologically, and semantically. This presentation is by no means exhaustive and serves mainly to give the reader an impression of the heterogenous nature of this group.Footnote 24
6.7.3.1. General temporal adverbs
A portion of these adverbs may be divided into a ‘present’ (or ‘now’) group, a ‘future’ (or ‘later’) group’, and a ‘past (or ‘before’) group’. Within the ‘present’ and ‘past’ groups, there seems to be a distinction between an ‘indefinite’ and a meaning denoting a shorter or ‘definite’ time-span. It is left to future studies to investigate this possible semantic distinction (Table ).
Table 27. ‘Indefinite’ and ‘definite’ general temporal adverbs (from Trail and Cooper Citation1999).
Other general temporal adverbs include, for example, the adverbs in Table .
Table 28. Examples of other general temporal adverbs (from Trail and Cooper Citation1999).
6.7.3.2. Calendrical adverbs
Kalasha has an elaborate semantic system for the days and years before and after the current one, with lexical and phrasal distinctions for two time units after the present and three time units before, as shown in Table .
Table 29. Words for ‘before’ and ‘after (this) day’ and ‘this year’ (from Trail and Cooper Citation1999).
The inventory of words denoting periods of the day is also elaborate. The adverbial expressons are formed by suffixal modification of the noun (Table ).
Table 30. Words for periods of the day (from Trail and Cooper Citation1999).
A similar strategy is used for forming adverbs that denote, for example, the notion of ‘during the day/week/month/season of the year/year’ (Table ).
Table 31. Other calendrical adverbial expressions, with the local suffix -una.Table Footnote a
6.7.4. Degree adverbs
The main function of degree adverbs is to modify other adverbs or adjectives, which they quantify before the nouns.
6.7.4.1. Quantifying or restricting degree adverbs
A number of monomorphemic words function as degree adverbs:
6.7.4.2. Intensifying degree adverbs
Adverbs – both indigenous and borrowed – from another, perhaps larger set, are used as intensifiers. Their collocational restrictions remain to be clarified, but from my own data and from the data in Trail and Cooper (Citation1999), the list in Table gives an indication of which parameters are in play.
Table 32. Intensifying adverbs and collocational semantic domains (from Trail and Cooper Citation1999).Table Footnote a
Further research is necessary to discover the extent to which, for example, the restrictions regarding verbal collocation and the negative-positive scale cut across the other semantic domains
6.7.4.3. Reduplication
Reduplication is a productive strategy for forming degree adverbs in Kalasha (47). The source word may be a manner adverb or an adjective, and the newly formed word denotes ‘increased emphasis’ or ‘vehemence’. The reduplicated part is the initial syllable’s first consonant(s) and vowel, for example C(C)VC.CV > C(C)V-C(C)VC.CV.Footnote 25
Another process is reduplication of a degree adverb, for example, ẓar ‘quickly’ -> ẓar ẓar i ‘come quickly’ and lak ‘very’ -> lak lak šúkar ‘very grateful’.
6.7.5. Manner adverbs
6.7.5.1. Non-derived manner adverbs
Kalasha has a relatively small class of monomorphemic manner adverbs, which in their syllabic structure resemble the majority of the degree adverbs (Table ).
Table 33. Non-derived, monomorphemic manner adverbs.
Table 34. Examples of postpositions. (Numbers in parentheses refer to entry number in Turner (Citation1966).
6.7.5.2. Manner adverbials by cp constructions
The most productive way of forming manner adverbials is by use of the cp’s thi ‘becoming, being’ and kái ‘doing’ (48)–(50), termed “intransitive” and “transitive adverbializers” by Bashir (Citation1988a, 285). These adverbials can be formed using words from several word classes, for example an adjective (48), an adverb (49) or a numeral (50).
Manner adverbials with thi imply that a situation has come about involuntarily, without an implied preceding agentive action. In contrast, transitive adverbials with kái denote manner of actions that have been brought forward volitionally.
6.8. Postpositions
Semantically, Kalasha postpositions form a highly heterogeneous group, denoting static location, direction, or other non-spatial semantics. They differ semantically from the local suffixes (Section 6.3.5) by not denoting topological or referential aspects of a location. Kalasha postpositions differ from the relational adverbs (Section 6.7.2) by being morphologically invariant and denoting ‘directional’ or ‘dynamic’ spatial relationships. Historically, Kalasha postpositions are either loanwords or developed from either case-inflected nouns and adverbsFootnote 26 or participial verbs. Syntactically, the participial postpositions may require their modifiers to be in the direct or the genitive-oblique case. All other postpositions require their modifier to be in the genitive-oblique case. Examples of postpositions are given in Table .
Some postpositions are required syntactically by the verbal predicate, for example NP-as pi gháṭik ‘ask someone’ and NP-as som mriš hik ‘scold someone’ (for a list of such predicates, see Heegård Petersen Citation2006b, 105–131)
6.8.1. Distributional differences between local suffixes and relational adverbs and postpositions
Besides the semantic differences between local suffixes on the one hand and relational adverbs and postpositions on the other, a number of distributional patterns distinguish these local morphemes. First, the local suffixes never occur on personal and demonstrative pronouns. Local states of affairs with these word classes are expressed using relational adverbs and local postpositions. Second, only a subset of the local suffixes can occur with place adverbs, while all (spatial) postpositions can. Third, the local suffixes are fused with noun stems and trigger morphophonological alternations, such as alternation of the voicing of stem final elements, stress movement, and vowel lengthening (see Sections 6.2.3–6.2.4). These processes are not triggered by relational adverbs and postpositions. Fourth, local suffixes are never stressed, whereas relational adverbs and postpositions are. Fifth, in combined nominal phrases, local suffixes are obligatory on all members of the noun phrase, as is oblique case-marking. Postpositions and relational adverbs may occur only once, as heads, as shown in (51a)–(51c) (the parentheses indicate syntactic non-obligatoriness).
6.9. Numerals
The Kalasha numeral system is basically vigesimal: 20, rather than 10, functions as the base for numbers between 20 and 100, such as ‘60’ in (52). The numbers from 11 to 19 are formed by coordination of daš ‘10’ + že ‘and’ and one of the numbers between 1 and 9, (53). (The combination of daš ‘10’ and že ‘and’ assimilates to daže-.) The numbers between the 20-base numbers are formed by the 20-base + že ‘and’ + a number between 1 and 19, (54)-(55). Numbers in the 30s, 50s, 70s, and 90s also add a suffix -a, (56), the function of which is merely to indicate exactly that type of numeral combination.
Table illustrates the basic numerals and the principles for forming cardinal numbers.
Table 35. Cardinal numbers in Kalasha.
The numeral 100 can be expressed in accordance with the vigesimal system, ponǰbiši, or by the loanword šor. The numerals 200, 300, etc. up to 1000 are formed by the number 2–9 + šor ‘100’. For the numeral 1000, Kalasha uses the Persian loanword hazár, ek hazár, and for 100,000 the Urdu loanword lakh, ek lakh (Table 36).
Ordinal numbers are Khowar loanwords.Footnote 28
6.10. Syntax
Word order in Kalasha is relatively free, but the canonical pattern is SOV. Adjectives and genitive attributives precede nouns, and adpositions (postpositions) follow nouns. Auxiliaries follow the main verb. Most complement structures are left-branching, i.e. sentential, infinitival, or nominalised complements precede the finite verb. Few complements structures are right-branching (Section 6.10.3).
6.10.1. Subject and object
In all tenses and aspects in plain intransitive and transitive clauses, the subject occurs in the direct case. When functioning as direct objects, nouns occur in the direct case (57). First and second person pronouns are in the oblique case (58a)–(58b), and third person pronouns are in the accusative case (59).
Certain predicates require their direct objects to be in the oblique case. These predicates express actions that in some way can be said to affect their objects, and they often take an object-marking postposition. These verbs include ditransitive verbs, which can be simple (for example, bhíčhik ‘aiming or pointing at’, čúṇḍik ‘sting, bite’, ṭṣiṭṣhék ‘teach’, and greék ‘hurt something or someone’) or complex (i.e. ‘conjunct verbs’ (Section 6.6.6), for example, iphazát kárik ‘take care of’, pạgọ́hian tyek ‘kick’, and sazá dek ‘sentence, condemn, cause to suffer’).Footnote 29
6.10.2. Volitionality and experiencer subjects
A great number of verbs that express bodily and emotional states occur in lexical-morphological pairs expressing actions or events that are involuntary (‘non-volitional’ or unavoidable) and actions that are volitional (or neutral with respect to volitationality).Footnote 30 Bashir (Citation1988a, 197–209) defines four types of opposition, exemplified by (66)–(69).
The first of these four types makes use of the transitive formation with -á-: When attached to the stem and followed by the personal suffix with the initial -i-formant vowel, this creates a transitive-marking formant vowel -e-, for example, bóm- ‘vomit’ + -á- ‘cs1’ + -ik (inftv)> *bom-a-ik> bom-ék ‘make (someone) vomit’.
The intransitive, volitional construction (66a) has the subject in the direct case, and the verb agrees in person and number with the subject. It focuses on the physical action itself and connotes that the subject has control over the action. The transitive, or causative, involuntary construction (66b) encodes the experiencer in the oblique case, and the verb agrees in person and number with the cause of the action, which may be expressed or implied by the situation.
The semantics encoded by members of this opposition type are typically that of bodily conditions like ‘coughing’, ‘panting’, ‘shivering’, and ‘breaking wind’ but could also include cognitive states such as ‘forgetting’, ‘grasping’, etc. (Bashir Citation1988a, 199).
The second type is established by conjunct verbs with dyek ‘put’ or griik ‘take’ as the vector verb, encoding involuntary actions against either simplex transitive verbs or transitive conjunct verbs with karik ‘do’, ik ‘come’, or ǰhonik ‘know’ as vector verbs.
In the volitional construction (67a), the agent is in the direct case, and in the involuntary construction the experiencer is in the oblique case. The semantics encoded by this opposition type are typically those of sensations and afflictions. Most weather phenomena are expressed by this formation type, with dyek as the vector verb in a conjunct verb formation (Bashir Citation1988a, 199–205).
In the third type, the involuntary action is encoded by a transitive conjunct verb with kárik ‘do’ or karék ‘make (someone) do’ as the vector verb. The action that is neutral with respect to volitionality is encoded by a simple intransitive verb or by a conjunct verb with intransitive hik ‘become’ or párik ‘go’ as the vector verbs.Footnote 31
In the volitional construction (68a), the agent is in the direct case, while in the involuntary construction the experiencer is in the oblique case. The semantics encoded by this opposition type are typically those of sensations and afflictions, such as ‘be cold’, ‘be hungry’, and ‘be thirsty’.
In the fourth type, the volitional construction is typically formed by a conjunct verb with kárik ‘do’ as the vector verb (examples (69a) and (69c)), and the non-volitional construction by a conjunct verb with hik ‘become’ as the vector verb (examples (69b) and (69d)). In the volitional construction, the subject is in the direct case, and the verb agrees with the subject in person and number. In the non-volitional construction, the experiencer is in the oblique case, and the verb agrees in number with the entity causing the experience.
This construction type resembles the construction known as the ‘dative subject construction’ in other NIA languages (Masica Citation1991, 347–356). Besides predicates denoting physical conditions and cognitive states like the other types, this type typically encompasses predicates that denote mental states, such as ‘be angry’, ‘trust’, ‘believe’, and ‘need’ or ‘be in need of’ (Bashir Citation1988a, 207–209).
6.10.3. Subordination
Kalasha has a wide range of subordination structures. Table gives an overview of these structures, which will be examplified and explained below using examples (70)–(102).
Table 36. Ordinal numbers in Kalasha.
Table 37. Subordination structures in Kalasha (with examples in parantheses).
6.10.3.1. Sentential subordination by complement markers
The most frequent pattern for sentential complements is their production using the complementiser, or ‘conjunction’, ghṍi, etymologically the present perfective of ghṍik ‘say, speak’. Bashir (Citation1988a, 267–277) has identified 31 “predicate types” that can appear with ghṍi and two canonical sentence structures, [S] ghṍi VFootnote 32 and V [S] ghṍi.Footnote 33 For many of these predicates, ghṍi marks direct or indirect speech (70)–(73), while for others there is no action of utterance involved (74)–(76).
Constructions often occur without the matrix verb, with only the complement sentence and ghṍi:
A number of predicates also require the conjunction ki in combination with ghṍi, with the structure V ki [S] ghṍi.Footnote 35
Other predicates can take a ki complement without ghṍi, for example with the structure V ki [S]:Footnote 36
6.10.3.2. Sentential subordination without complementiser
A few predicates take a sentence-like complement in which the subordinated verb occurs in the perfective participle form (see Section 6.10.3.3), for example:
The infinitival verb form may be used as a subordinated verb. It can occur in the oblique case form with the postpositions báti ‘for’ (82) or hátya ‘for, towards’Footnote 37 with a conjunct verb or a simple verb as the matrix verbFootnote 38
A few predicates that consist of an adjective or a noun in the direct case or with a locative suffix plus a finite form of a ‘be’-verb may take a sentential complement with an oblique infinitive.Footnote 39
The most common type of an infinitival complement has the infinitive in the direct case.Footnote 40
Finally, a few predicates take a nominalised sentential complement, either where the verb stem is treated as a noun (88) or where the motion verb in the complement sentence is omitted (89).Footnote 41
6.10.3.3. Adverbial subordination: the conjunctive participle construction
As a means of adverbial subordination, Kalasha makes extensive use of converb constructions (Haspelmath Citation1995), often termed ‘conjunct participle construction’ in South Asian languages (Masica Citation1991, 323, 397–401). A sentence with a conjunctive participle construction, henceforth abbreviated ‘cp’, consists of a finite verb as the matrix verb and one or more subordinated infinite verbs, formed with the present partiple -i or a suppletive participial form. The form of the cp verb is identical to the participial verb form used in perfect tenses (Table , examples (19) and (24)). Even though the actual infinite verb form is identical, the grammatical gloss expresses the different functions of these verbs, and ‘cp’ denotes that the participial verb form is used as a conjunctive participle. The semantics expressed by the cp construction may be instrumental, causal, or temporal (i.e. event(s) preceding the main event in time). The literal translation into English will be ‘having V-ed’, but often a paraphrase is more obvious, for example with the conjunction ‘and’ or adverbialising ‘by means of’.
Examples (90)–(92) show how cp constructions are used in Kalasha (cps highlighted).
In (90), the cp dhúi ‘milking’ expresses the means by which the actant feeds himself. In (91), the two cps úṣṭi and dhrak_dái express two sequential actions. In (92), with three cps, the first (adyái ‘running’) expresses the manner by which the action of moving (pái ‘going’) is carried out, with this cp itself expressing a preceding action to the third cp ((badók) ɫasái ‘letting out (an axe)’), which describes an action that precedes the main action or perhaps the means by which the action expressed through the main verb is carried out.
6.10.3.4. Subordination by conjunction and particles
Examples (32)–(34) (Section 6.6.3) showed that háwaw/haw marks complement subjunctive and subordinated clauses. Example (93) shows that háwaw/haw can also introduce ‘when’-sentences.
‘As’ sentences are constructed with the enclitic particle -e:
‘If’ sentences are constructed using the conjunction pe in the protasis, either with pe alone (95) or in combination with the subjunctive háwaw/haw (93). When occurring alone and in combination with hawaw/haw, pe stands immediately before the finite verb, and hawau/haw occurs clause-finally, after the finite verb.
6.10.3.5. Relative clauses
Kalasha has six different subordinating strategies that correspond to relative clauses in other languages.Footnote 42 In all six strategies, the relative, nominal-modifying clause precedes the antecedent. In one strategy (97), the verbal element in the relative clause is finite. In another strategy, “the participial strategy” (98) (Bashir Citation1988a, 332), the relative clause has the shape of a genitive noun phrase, with the verbal element as a cp and the ‘subject’ for the subordinated verbal element in the oblique case. In a third strategy (99), the verbal element in the relative clause is wholly nominalised in the infinitive with an oblique case ending.
In a fourth strategy (100), the verbal concept is nominalised into an agent noun, similar to English ‘the one/someone who VB’, in which ‘the one/someone’ is an implied pronominal concept (Bashir Citation1988a, 333).
According to Bashir (Citation1988a, 334–335), Kalasha also employs two borrowed relativisation strategies. The most common of these, especially in narrative texts, uses an interrogative pronoun element with k-, often in combination with the conjunction ki (101). In this construction, the relative clause is “internally headed” (Bashir Citation1988a, 334), i.e. the head-NP is mentioned in the relative clause, preceded by the interrogative k- element. Most often between this element and ki – and repeated by a pronoun – is the co-relative element in the matrix clause.
The sixth strategy makes use of Urdu wála as the relative marker. In (102), the relative clause, marked by wála, intervenes between the attributive ása ‘that’ and the head NP moč ‘man’,
6.10.4. Discourse particles
Kalasha makes use of a great number of discourse particles to express topicality, focus, and contrast as well as mood and epistemic senses.Footnote 43 Some of these particles are free morphemes, and some attach as enclitics to a particular word. They can have a particular phrase or a whole clause as their scope. In (103), -ta expresses emphasis. In (104), -o expresses contrast with a previously mentioned situation. In (105), -tik has a presumptive meaning.
When occurring in combination with other discourse particles or with other morpho-syntactic constructions, the discourse particles may acquire new semantics. The enclitic -o can combine with the cp to express temporal sequentiality between two events (compare (106a) with (106b)):
In (106a), the cp construction conveys the meaning of manner or reason. In (106b), the combination of cp and -o conveys the sense of sequentiality (Bashir Citation1988a, 51).
Another example is given in (107), in which -o and -ta suffixed to different words together convey the meaning of ‘but’.
In the texts, discourse particles will be glossed with their ‘canonical’ meaning, for example emph for -ta. Enclitic -o has a variety of functions and will be glossed was a general topicaliser, top. The particular meanings arising from specific combinations will either appear from the translations or be clarified in comments to the translations.
7. Linguistic and stylistic characteristics of storytelling in Kalasha
This chapter aims to provide insight into the linguistic features characterising the samples of oral literature presented in this publication. The presentation does not seek to be exhaustive, as a fuller and more comprehensive survey would require a complete publication of its own. It is, however, the aim to give the reader an idea of the linguistic and paralinguistic strategies that speakers use in constructing texts of these sorts and thus to suggest topics for further studies in Kalasha text linguistics.Footnote 44
7.1. Paralinguistic features
Mimicry and gesture are essential to absorbing storytelling, underlining the multimodality of language. Quite a few of the storytellers in this publication use mimicry and gesture to underline the behaviour of the characters and unfolding events in the story. Esteemed storytellers also characteristically maintain eye-contact with the audience, thereby involving the audience in the narration, for example in order to prompt encouraging feedback. Mimicry and gesture also serve textual functions as they can disambiguate and clarify deictic expressions. When examining the texts, the reader may in some places be confused as to the exact deictics of the ‘there’ and ‘here’ adverbs. This ambiguity only exists in writing: In the actual narration, pointing gestures, gaze direction, or head nods clarify the exact locations, for example in Text 8.1, Lines 40–78, a passage that is crucial to understanding the fox’s intentions and thus the dramatic climax of the story.
Incorporation of these paralinguistic features into storytelling underlines the importance of using video to document language, as this indisputably contributes to a clearer understanding of the use of the ‘deictic place adverbs’ as well as the derived use of the geography-anchored adverbs for ‘upstream’, ‘downhill’, etc. (Grammar, Sections 6.7.1–6.7.2).
7.2. Prosodic features
Intonation and voice modulation such as murmuring, whispering, and variation in loudness and register may, of course, be exploited in order to dramatise events or give characters specific profiles. People who are considered to be good storytellers always make use of these features. In Kalasha storytelling there are three prosodic features that are used more systematically and that have lexical and grammatical equivalents: creaky voice, breathy voice, and vowel lengthening.
Creaky voice may be used to emphasise intensity or a high degree of a given quality assigned to an entity or situation, for example in (108) (underlined words).
Several words in a sentence or a whole sentence may be pronounced using this feature. As evident in this example, the meaning of creaky voice is translated by use of degree adverbs in English.
Breathy voice seems to have a similar function to that of creaky voice. In (109), the word ǰanǰál ‘argument’ is pronounced with a breathy voice in order to give the impression that an intense argument was going on.
Lengthening of a stressed vowel is also frequently used by most narrators, and it may indicate intensity, overlapping in function with creaky voice and breathy voice, as in (110).
Vowel lengthening can have other connotations as well. In (111), the stressed vowel in upáčhi ‘pulling out’ indicates that this activity went on for a long time.
In (112), we find another function of vowel lengthening, namely as a means of emphasising that the reported series of events actually occurred in a specific place.
Later in the same text, see (113), the vowel lengthening highlights that the man is totally surrounded by wheat and thus that there really was a lot of wheat in that place, the mythical homeland of the Kalasha, Tsíam.Footnote 45
7.3. Word repetition
Another means of expressing that an activity is of extended duration and/or is carried out with a certain intensity is through word repetition, as in (114).
In the same text, (115), the repetition of the auxiliary áini emphasises the actual character of the village people.
7.4. Ritualised openings and closenings
It is recognised that languages can have formulaic means of opening fairytales: for instance, ‘once upon a time’ in English and ‘es war einmal’ in German. In Kalasha, fairytale openings can be káymina káymina (literally kay ‘when’ + -mina ‘in the period of’. Closenings are also well-known, for example, ‘og de levede lykkeligt til deres dages ende’ (literally ‘and they lived happily to the end of their days’, i.e. ‘ever after’) in Danish. In Kalasha, closenings can be simple statements to the effect that the story has ended, Ía kisá khathúm háwau ‘this story has become finished’ (Text 8.4, Line 227) or that the story reports mythological ‘facts’, as in Text 8.5, Line 158: Šató maškulgí ‘and that’s the way it is’ (literally emph + 3s.rem.dir + ‘conversation’). A more cunning means of ending a story is to expose ones’ own position. For example, in (115), the storyteller claims that he has nothing more to give. Another common closening phrase is seen in (117), where the narrator connects the final activity in the story with herself, becoming the unfortunate owner of a lame horse.
An even more clever method is evident in Text 8.2, Lines 91–95, where the storyteller first claims that the story is a lie and then elaborates upon the lame horse perspective.
7.5. Missing constituents
Ellipsis is a recognised syntactic phenomenon, but comparison of the texts in Kalasha with their English translations highlights how frequently basic constituents are omitted. It is no surprise that the subject may be omitted since Kalasha verbs are inflected for person and number of subjects. Often, however, objects are also left out, for example in (119)–(120) (missing constituents shown with ‘Ø[ ]’).
In (119), the context makes clear the identity of the object and that the river is the subject. The same is true for (120). It is nevertheless puzzling to determine the effect of the ommissions since it is not always objects that are left out. It is a task for future studies to find out which types of constituents can be elided and under which circumstances.
Inquit verbs are often missing, as in (119). The quotative particle ghõi often marks direct or indirect speech, but direct speech without inquit verbs and the quotative is also frequent.
7.6. The afterthought construction
A constituent that is missing from the sentence core is often expressed after the main clause, in the so-called ‘afterthought construction’, also known as ‘extra-position’ in other linguistic traditions. All non-verbal constituents may be omitted from the main clause and expressed in the afterthought position. In (121), it is the subject, in (122) the object, in (123) the indirect object, and in (124) an adverbial (the missing constituent is represented with ‘Ø’ in the main clause and with underlining in the afterthought position).
The afterthought construction can also be used to repeat a constituent, as in (125), where the repeated constituent is further specified, ‘of ours’.
This phenomenon is common in South Asian languages, and the afterthought construction may function to clarify information or establish or repeat the focus. For information-structuring functions in Gilgiti Shina and Dameli respectively, see for example Radloff and Shakil (Citation1998, 93 et passim) and Perder (Citation2013, 188–189).
7.7. Shift of tense
Like many other languages, Kalasha makes use of tense shift in a narrative in describing the unfolding of events, for example, a shift from reporting past tense to historical present tense. Texts 9.6 and 9.7 provide many examples of such tense shifts. In Text 8.6, for instance, the narrator unfolds the event and lines in the past tense (‘… said he (the crow)’) until Line 28, when he abruptly shifts to the present/future-specific, only to continue in the past tense (‘having gone there, he saw …’) in Line 29.
The past tense may be used to describe the simple unfolding of events in previous time, whereas a shift to the present/future tense may direct attention to a specific turn of events or create suspense by expressing dynamicism. Shift of tense may also function as a foregrounding/backgrounding device, and it is possible that prosody and/or gesture may in this case interact with the grammatical choices. This remains a matter on which future studies of narratives can cast light.
7.8. Sequentiality
The texts provide many examples of constructions and markers that link clauses. Some of these are discussed in the Grammar, Section 6.10.4, ‘Discourse particles’. One strategy is to use the ‘then’ adverbs to/tóa ‘then’ and pháto ‘then, consequently’. Another strategy is to use conjunctive participle construction, see Grammar, Section 6.10.3.3. By repeating a verb (and its object or an adverbial phrase) from the preceding sentence in a participle form, cohesion between the two sentences is made explicit. The topicaliser -o often occurs with the conjunctive participle, but it need not always do so, as shown by (127), where the finite verb ačhínaw ‘cut (pst-a)’ is repeated by the cp čhíni ‘cutting; having cut’.Footnote 46
In many cases, a literal translation of this function of the cp looks somewhat clumsy in English. A paraphrase is often required, or the literal meaning of the cohesion cp may simply be ignored, and the conjunction paraphrased with ‘and’ or a similar conjunction.
The cp pái ‘going, having gone’ may be used without a clear indication of a preceding motion event, as in (126).
Before this sentence, the story goes like this: Then I went inside, inside the ship a lot of people were sitting. Some were watching TV, some where doing other things. I went in there, sat down on a chair and then fell asleep. Having fallen asleep, and then, not being awake, a long way later, I realised that the ship was shaking a lot. Then, (because) I slept, I thought: “What is that ???”. There is, as far as I can tell, no motion involved to which pái ‘going, having gone’ can provide repetition or make direct linkage. It thus seems as if it has lost its lexical meaning and become a temporal connector.
As shown in Grammar, Section 6.10.3.3, the syntactc function of cp constructions is to establish adverbial constituents. The cps can accummulate and form a series of actions that culminate in the action denoted by the main verb. This is often used as a means of dramatising the events, as in (127), a repetition of example (72), where an important turn of events is described.Footnote 47
8. Texts
Text 8.1: L’awakas kisa ‘The story of a fox’
Narrated by Erfan (Guru, Biriu) 1996
Transcribed and translated by Taj Khan and Jan Heegård 1996, 2010, 2014.
This is one of many fables with a fox who cheats on its companion. In this version it seems to be the fox’ fear of a bigger animal, a markhor, that causes it to cheat on that animal. A good understanding of the semantics of place adverbs is crucial for the understanding of the story’s fatal event.
L'awakas kisa
Toa baya, ek wakhtuna ek l’awak asta. To ek phonduna pariman asta, se. To parikwew tasa kakboy roitu del’-day. To kakboy roitu del’-day. Te du sal’a karin-day. Se l’awak bhiiu-day. Se bi-bhiu-day ki-o: “Ia kakboy, ia gad’a. “Ia may zhu,” ghõau-day. Se l’awak calak, se matraw-dayː “Baya, a zhe tu bo prus’ moc, a zhe tu bayawt hik. To tasa phand del’ kakboyas. Tasa kay matraw ki: “Tu bo prus’ moc, a zhe tu baya.”
To phonday parin-day, mashkul’ himan parin-day. L’awak matraw, kakboyas kay: “Tu shẽhẽ kari ki ek nawats awata pay wal’ ha, sharon hatya.” “Shara in, shara on haw, shara gri undruak histi ogal’a tyay nashiu,” aghõaw.
Kakboy matraw: “A pe to aris haw, tu may hatya kia karis?”
L’awak amaaw: “A tay hatya tsa-tshatak krom karim.” “Tay hatya uk onim. Tay hatya shul’a onim.”
To se matraw: “Prus’ dhõyo parik,” ghõaw.
To pay hutal’a awata pay wajaw, kakboy. Se asta tara asaw, l’awak baya. To shara iu to gri histiu, undruak. Se histi aaw. Ogal’a pay ga’ngay tyay shara nashiu. Ogal’a pay ga’ngay tyay shara nashiu.
To l’awak maau: “Onja bo chir hawaw, baya.” “Al’bat copawew-o parik.” “Prel’ikasa tara pay a zhe tu zhuk.” “Prel’ik pashik.” Toa se apaw del’.
Toa tara uc’hars’is’ hiu, gona uc’har. To tara d’ud’in, te. L’awak matraw: “Tu aya mo d’ud’I, aya d’ud’i,” ghõaw, kakboyas kay. Ia nawats, aya mo d’ud’i, aya d’ud’i,” ghõaw. To kakboy matraw: “Prus’ atra d’ud’im,” ghõi.
D’ud’in te. L’awak-o aya d’ud’iu nawats ghenaw-day, nawats ghenaw-day. Pay rat hiu rat-o l’awak us’t’iu. Us’t’i kakboyas kay maau: “May histis-day, baya,” ghõaw. “Tichak buchum khezas,” ghõaw. Se khabar ne tan pi kakboy-o. L’awak nawats ghenaw day us’t’i tharaw day se d’ud’iu tharaw day se d’ud’iu. Prasuikwew matraw ki: “Buchum khezas,” ghõaw, kakboyas kay. “Kakboy baya, buchum khezas,” ghõaw.
Kakboyas khial’ hiu: “A tharaw day asam, buchum khezam,” ghõi citiu. To se buchum khezaw. Se buchum khezikas wãuna undruak khezaw. Nawats ghen khezaw. L’awak andyei usti aya d’ud’i aw. Toa l’awak tichak d’ud’iu. D’udi-o geri matraw: “Puchum khezas, baya,” ghõaw.
To se geri khezaw, se al’ay kay khezaw, nawatsghen kay. To tichak d’ud’iu l’awak. D’ud’i tichak asta kai-o geri matraw: “Al’ay khezas-l’a baya may nawatsuna al’i aas,” ghõaw. Toa se kakboy aya zhal’iu nawatsuna.
To geri jagel’, jagai-o geri d’ud’iu. D’ud’iu d’ud’iu tichak asta kai-o us’t’iu: “Tichak asta khezas l’a baya, tu may bo nawatsuna ala.”
To tichak asta khezi, aya chur’ika zhal’iu, kakboy. Toa ek gona bat oni aya thel’. Toa jagal’: “Prus’ d’ud’iu, se kakboy.” Ad’ud’aw pe haw-ta aya batuna khur s’at’aw, shẽhẽ kay zuk dyel’, kakboyas. Ogal’a pay ga’ngay tyel’-day, se kakboy. Se kakboy pay ogal’a ga’ngay tyita. To se l’awak koshan hiu. “Kakboy baya parau,” ghõaw. “Cop-o tara pay jagem,” ghõaw.
Copawew pariu, tara. Shara asta tara shiaw, kakboy asta nashi asaw. Toa tara pay awdu kay prus zhu. Se tan bihikas wajahen day kakboybayaa hatya cal’aki araw. Badmashias thara to nashel’, gona kakboy. L’awak shamon cal’ak. Toa kisa khul’ hawaw, baya.
The story of a fox
Then, baya, at one time, there was a fox. Then, he was walking along a road, he. Then, as his was walking, he comes across a snow leopard. He meets that snow leopard. These two are discussing. The fox is frightened. He is very frightened, because: “This snow leopard, he is big, he will eat me,” he says to himself. But the fox is clever, he says, “Brother, I and you are very good men. I and you shall be brothers, we go along as brothers,” he says. Then, he lies, to the snow leopard. The fox said to him: “You are a very good person, I and you are brothers.”
Then, they are walking along, they are talking, they are going. The fox says, to the snow leopard “You should do like this: go to a dangerous place, a high place, take hunting position, for the markhors.” “The markhors will come, when the markhors have arrived, you catch a markhor, throw it downhill, throw it down, it will die,” he said.
The snow leopard says: “If I do this, what will you do for me?”
The fox said: “I’ll do some small favours for you.” “I’ll bring you water. I’ll bring you firewood.”
Then, the snow leopard says “OK, so we shall go.”
Then, as they go along and come to a high place, he waits, the snow leopard. He was also there, the baya-fox. Then a markhor comes, the snow leopard catches it and throws it downhill. He threw it. Going down, falling into the hole, the markhor dies.
Then the fox says: “Now it has become very late, brother,” “maybe we should go early tomorrow morning instead.” “Going there in the morning I and you shall eat the markhor.” “It will be day, and then we will see,” then he stayed.
Then there is the top end of a waterfall, it is a big waterfall. Then they go to sleep there, they. The fox says, “You shall not sleep here, sleep here instead, he says, to the snow leopard “This is dangerous, don’t sleep here, sleep there,” he says. Then the snow leopard says, “OK, I’ll sleep there.”
They go to sleep, they. The fox sleeps there at the dangerous place. It becomes night, at night the fox gets up. Getting up, he says to the snow leopard: “You are throwing me, baya,” he says. “Move a little uphill,” he says. He is not aware of himself, the leopard. Getting up from the dangerous side, the fox goes to sleep at the upper and safer side. While they are asleep, the fox says: “You shall move uphill,” he says, to the snow leopard. “Snow leopard-baya, you shall move uphill,” he says.
The snow leopard thought to himself, “I am at the upper side, I move further uphill, he thought. Then he moves uphill. But instead of moving to an uphill place, he moves downwards. He moves to the dangerous side. The fox gets up from here, and sleeps here. Then the fox sleeps a little bit. Sleeping, he says again, “You shall move uphill, baya,” he says.
Then the snow leopard moves again, he moves to there, to the dangerous side. Then he sleeps a little, the fox. Having slept a little, he says again: “As you have moved there, my dear baya, you have brought me to the dangerous place,” he says. Then the snow leopard reaches here at the dangerous place
Then the fox looks again, having looked he sleeps again. He sleeps and he sleeps, for a little while, then he gets up saying: “Move a little bit, dear baya, you brought me to a very dangerous place.”
Then the snow leopard moves yet a little bit, he reaches the tip of the high place, the snow leopard. Then the fox gets a big stone and places it here. Then he looks and says to himself: “He sleeps well, the snow leopard.” As the snow leopard was deep asleep, the fox here at the stone, he attaches his legs to the snow leopard and pushes, the leopard. Going down, he falls into the hole, the leopard. That snow leopard is going, being hit into the hole. Then that fox becomes happy. “The snow leopard-baya went down,” he says, “tomorrow I will go there and look,” he says.
In the early morning he goes, there. The markhor is also there, the snow leopard has died. Then, going there, he eats both of them. Because of his own fear the fox tricked the snow leopard Because of that trouble he kills it, the big snow leopard. The fox was such a cunning being. Then the story is finished, baya.
Text 8.2: Kambak chul’as at’s’hõ’ik ‘The story of the unfortunate daughter’
Narrated by Rabijan (Guru, Biriu), December 1996.
Transcribed and translated by Taj Khan and Jan Heegård 2014.
Told by a female informant, this story incorporates aspects of female destiny, jealousy and self-sacrifice. It sets out in a known context, a girl going to school, but soon becomes mystic with supernatural events. The story is probably not a story which is typical for the Kalasha, but perhaps a story known in the Chitral region. It is vividly told, with use of address terms to the audience (two fieldworkers), and with use of a number of the narrative characteristics, including paralinguistic features such as vowel lenghtening and creakiness to indicate iterativity and extendedness.
Kambak chul'as at'shõ'ik
Kaymina kaymina, bo suda sukuluna pariman asta, baya. Toa baba ek mocas putr ne asta, ek chu asta. Se asta sukuluna pariman asta. Ek mocas put ne asta, tasa chu asta. Se asta sukuluna pariman asta.
Bo t’em se tara sukuluna pariu-day, baya. Se tal’ey iw-day, dura. Mis’t’er to khund’ial-day. Saw suda prus’t’ kay khund’ial-day, se. Tasa kay matraw-day ki, se: “E kambakas chul’as!” “Anday ita sabak matras,” ghõaw-day, tasa kay.
Toa se bo kapha hawaw, mis’t’eras pi. Toa se dura paraw. Dura pay dadas kay amatraw ki: “Dada, suda prus’ kay khund’ial-day, mis’t’er, may kay matraw-day ki kambakas chul’as.” “Tes tu anday ita sabak matras,” ghõaw-day.
Cop-o us’ti dadas paraw. Shẽhẽ ki, baba, sukuluna hatya, sukuluna pay, baba, mis’t’eras som janjal araw. Janjal kay matrau: “Tu prus’ kay saw suda prus’ kay khund’ies-day. Tu khẽchãkan may chul’a kay, “kambak chulas anday ita sabak matras,” ghõas-day.” “Tay galat mondr, asa.”
Toa mis’t’er amatraw ki: “Tay chul’aw kambak.”
“Khẽ thi kambak may chu?.”
“Tay chul’aw cimbar shenas hatya nasib hiu, cimbar shenas hatya.”
Paraw, tal’ey dras’ni. Achitaw, achitaw-ta, dras’ni paraw, phonduna paraw. Dhenta shiaw, ghona dhenta. Dhenta umri chul’as udrimana hawaw. Dadas bian thaw hawaw. Dadas t’amt’aka thi thaw hawaw ki: “O, may chu, ia mis’ter jhoni asta.” “May chu al’ay dhentay ataw.” “A thaw hawis, maidanuna.”
Toa, baba, se shẽhẽ thi asaw ki dadas pay asaw. Chulas udriman dhẽtauna ati jagay asaw-e, udriman dhẽtauna cimbar shen shiaw. Tap tramas’ung, moc ne pashin ogoek. Ek sha-to shen pashiw-day. Toa, tara, cimber shenuna imiti mek shian. Toa achitaw achitaw-ta te mek upac’au. Upac’hi khulel-day-e, gheri mek diun pay, puchum pariw-day. Tharaw day-o upac’iw-day, undruak pishtyak mek diman parin-day. Ne abhaaw, se.
Toa shãshondyaka phrelik tara ati shiaw. Tara ati shiaw-e, toa istrizhaguak nisi bo wat-ta. Khialiti pay asaw, se chiti asaw. Toa ek istriza bata tara payda thi asaw, to-o du thi asan.
Du jhon thi to upaci asan, te mek. Upac’i aya s’is’una ghona mek shial’a. Toa upac’i asan to upac’i asan-e us’ti nisi asaw, juan moc. Se tasi hatya cimbar shen thi asaw, baba, shẽhe ki, se moc asta.
Phato se pis’t’aw jaas zhe s’umber jaas som hamdardi kariu. S’umber jaas mon ne day asaw, taa som. Bo kapha thi asaw. Pis’t’aw jaas koshamani kay asaw, taa som. Toa se bazaruna pay ki-o tasa hatya mar’ik gri oniw hul’a. “May hatya may beru griw, a dukanuna ne parim.” Toa tasa hatya bo ishnyahari oniw hul’a.
Se huk asta ne, “Tu may kay ko ne mond des-day.” “Asa may kio ki onawaaw-day kio kia” “Tu asta may ja, asa asta may ja.”
Toa se matri asaw ki: “A kia onawaam tay s’at’away.” “May kia ajat ne hin-day.” “Ek mar’ik may hatya oni.
“To kia mar’ik?”
“Ek kalamdar mar’ik may hatya oni,” ghõy asaw.
To bazaruna pay to oni asaw-e, jaas shehẽ kay muc’ dhari asau. “Aya muc’a thai.” Asa to thay asaw-e, “Dupat’a ha-o, kalamdar mar’ik,” ghõy asaw. “Khias,” ghõy asaw, tasa kay. Se kalamdar mar’ik asta chii shiaw, istriza asta nashi asaw.
Kura may laway asini, baba, chutyakuna. A-o mimi kay aris. Ek hãsh may day asini. Se khut’a asta, ne. A ne jagay to greda him
‘The story of the unfortunate daughter’
Once upon a time many children were going to school, baya. Then, baba, a man had no sons, he had a daughter. She was also going to school. A man did not have sons, he had a daughter. She was also going to school.
She is in school for a long time, baya. The teacher calls at her. He talks nicely to all the children, but he says to her, he: “Hey, daughter of misfortune! Come here and study,” he says, to her. “Hey, daughter of misfortune, come here quickly and study,” he says, to her.
Then she became sad because of the teacher. Then she went home, having come home she said to her father: “Father, he talks nicely to all the children, the teacher, but to me he is saying “daughter of misfortune, come here quickly and study, he says.”
Getting up in the morning, her father went to the school. Like this, baba, to the school, going to the school, baba, he argues with the teacher. As they are arguing, he says, “You talk nicely to all the children, but how come you are saying to my daughter “daughter of misfortune, come here and study?” .” “Your words are wrong, they.”
Then the teacher said: “Your daughter is misfortunate.”
“How is my daughter misfortunate?” the father asked.
“Your daughter will be the wife of an iron bed.”
He went away, the father, appeared from there. He thought and he thought, going away from there, walking along the road (together with his daughter), there is a mountain, a big mountain. As the mountain opens, the daughter steps inside. Her father is left behind outside. Her father, now bereft of his daughter is left behind, saying: “Oh no, my daughter!, apparently that teacher was right.” “My daughter has gone into that mountain there.” “I have been left in the open field.”
Then, baba, it was like this, her father has left. As the daughter had entered the inside in the mountain and looked around, inside in the mountain there is an iron bed. It is completely dark, people cannot see each other. Only that bed she sees. Then, there, the iron bed had nails all over. Then she thought and thought and took out the nails. Having taking out nails for a very long time, and as she is finishing the job, then again, it was keeping giving nails, and she goes upwards. As she finishes pulling nails out from the upper side of the bed, the nails were still coming up in the lower side. She could not do the job.
Then suddenly a light entered there. As the light had entered, she realised a girl had been sitting there for a long time. She fell into wonder, she thought. As a woman had appeared there, they then became two.
Being two persons, they pulled out, the nails. After pulling nails out for a long time, there was a large nail here at the head of the bed. Then they pulled it out, and as they pulled it out, a young man got up and sat right down. He has become an iron bed for them, baba, like this, but he was a man.
Then he became sympathetic to the second wife and first wife. The first wife did not talk, with him. She became very sad. The later wife had fun, with him, so he would go to the market and bring beads for her. “My husband will buy things for me, I’m not going to the shop,” she said. So he would bring many things for her.
She was also not saying anything. “Why don’t you say something to me?,” the husband asked. “She (: the second wife) asks me to bring whatever for her.” “You are my wife as she is my wife,” the husband said.
Then she (: the first wife) said: “What should I ask you to bring, I don’t need anything.” “Just bring me one bead.”
“What bead?,” her husband asked.
“Bring me a magic bead,” she said.
After he went to the bazar and bought her that, his wife opens her hand and says “Put it here in my hand.” As he puts it there, “break into two halves, precious bead,” she said. “Break,” she said, to the bead. As the magic bead indeed broke, the woman died too.
Someone had lied this tale to me, baba, in my youth. Now I passed it on to you. They gave me a horse. He was halt, right. I took it without noticing it.
Text 8.3: Ek khacha sirã’ adua ‘A bad, stormy day’
Told by Sikandar Ghulam Khan (Kraka, Mumoret) in Thessaloniki, Greece, 2004.
Transcribed and translated by Jan Heegård 2006.
This story is an example of how a self-experienced (and dramatic) situation can be reported in a narrative format. On his way home to Thessaloniki in Greece, from his cousin who lives on a Greek island, the narrator, experiences a rather dramatic trip with the ferry. This is reported in an entertaining way, in particular with the use of vowel lengthening and creaky voice to emphasise the dramatic moments.
Ek khacha sirã' adua
Ah baya, a Sherwal’i pashika pay ays. Se may baya hiu. May zhe tasa ayas babawtr. Tasa dura pay ays. Tasa dur ek bo shishoyak adrakuna shiu, bilkul tana awata. Toa tara bas thi-o.
Toa a pishtyak Athens dai ita Thesaloniki hatya iman ays. Thesaloniki hatya iman ays. May bo krom ashini. Toa tara musim bo kharap thi ashis. Bo sirã’ diman ashis koki se ‘island’-una samandaraw wajahen bo sirã’ dyel. To hawel adua a shase samandarani tiket’ gri im ghõi acitis-e, Kishti ne parik abhaaw bo sirã’as wajahen dai. Copamin-o gheri ne parik abhaaw.
Waresh-o du tre bas pis’t’aw-o. Toa copawewuna parikas t’em hawaw, hul’uk. Tre bajaano kishti samandari pulis amaan ki: “Ajo pariu,” ghõi. Toa a pay t’iket’ agri.
T’iket’ grii nisa nisi-o sirã’ dyiman ashis. Tes sirã’ dyiman ashis. Toa a-o udriman ati kishtias udrimana bo moc nisi aini. T’v-‘see’-iman aini, kuro kariman aini. A tara pay kursiuna nisi phato ad’ud’is.
D’ud’i-o phato anga ne hawis pay, bo phond pis’t’aw, se kishti bo tsal’akiman ashis. Phato ad’ud’is, a acitis “asa shemi-o,” ghõi.
Pay bo wat pis’taw-o a sangais moc alagul karin-day. Alagul aran toa a d’ud’i ays a ek tam anga thi jages-e. Moc saw pal’ay aan tal’ey nisikeynani thi. Jages se kishti bilkul mus’an gherikas hiu-day. Ek wã pel’at’ikas hiu-day.
Toa a asta adyais. Phato to bag gri adyay bian nia. Moc tal’ay tshatak kishtiuna nisiman aini. Kiaki warek tshatak kisthti shian iphazatas bati. Iphazatas bati tal’ay nisiman aini. Adyay us’t’iman aini moc bo aboi diman aini. Bo aboi diman aini bo perishan aini.
Toa phato adek wat pis’t’aw, phato sahi haw.
A stormy day
Ah, you see, baya, I went to see Sherwali. He is my cousin. My and his mother are sisters. I went to his house. His house lies in a very beautiful forest area, in a completely separate place. Then, I was staying there.
Then, coming back via Athens, I was going to Thessaloniki. I had a lot of things to do. Then the weather had become very bad there on the island. There was much wind because, on the island there is much wind because of the ocean. Then, on the the first day, as I thought that I would better go and buy that ferry ticket. The ship could not sail because of the strong wind. In the morning time (the next morning), it still not could not sail.
Then the next day after, two to three days later. Then, during the morning, it was time to leave, it was noon. At three o’clock, the sea police said, “Now it sails.” Then I went and bought a ticket.
Having bought the ticket, I sat down, as I sat down, the wind was still blowing. It was blowing fast. Then I went inside, inside the ship a lot of people were sitting. Some were watching TV, some where doing other things. I went in there, sat down on a chair and then fell asleep.
Having fallen asleep, and then, not being awake and aware about the situation, a long way later, the ship was shaking a lot. Then, because I slept, I thought, “What is that!?”
A long time later I heard people were bustling about. They were bustling about, then, I was sleeping, as I suddenly awoke and looked, all people escaped from the sitting place there. I looked and saw that the ship was about to turn over. The ship was indeed about to turn over.
Then I also ran away. Then catching the bag and running, I came out. There people were sitting in small boats. There were other small boats, lifeboats. They were siting there in order to be rescued. Running like crazy, they were getting up in the boats, people were calling ‘help’. They were crying ‘help’ a lot, they were very afraid.
Then, a little time later, then it became okay.
Text 8.4: Gad’a mocas zhe gromani mocan ac’ho’ĩk ‘The story of an old and lonely man’s struggle with the people from a village’
Narrated by Kalamder Khan (Kraka, Mumoret), May 2005.
Transcribed and translated by Nabaig, Taj Khan and Jan Heegård.
This is a story of a clever but poor, old and lonely man who cheats a group of naïve people from a nearby village. As we will see, their naivity has severe consequences. There is a personal twist in this story, as the narrator himself is an elderly man who lives by himself.
Gad'a mocas zhe gromani mocan ac'ho'ĩk
Ek gad’a moc asta, gad’a moc shẽhẽ thi aaw, ki ek kut’uay asta, se. Khay, tal’ay kut’uay-o, shẽ thi aaw ki ek gagiik, tasa. To ek gagiik dhui zhu hul’a, taa balbac-o ne.
Toa shẽ thi aaw se gak chiay aaw. Chiay aaw-e phato hayran thi aaw. Hayran thi shẽ thi aaw ki kura taa kia den, bo garip moc. Toa to gak mari aaw, se gad’a moc. Gak mari shẽ thi aaw ki to post-o suira dyay s’us’ay aaw. Suira dyay s’us’ay-o, citi aaw citi aaw.
To asta gri drazi pay aaw. Pay ek biabanuna pay aaw, tara moculak tara asan. Moc tara asan, to-o ne pashi aan. Se lash bewmut’a us’t’i aaw, se. Tara-o us’t’i bewmut’a us’t’i, tara tasa hatya jayga shial’a. To gaw asta ala us’t’aaw.
Us’t’i tara, phato dhrak day te moc jiay aaw. Te tasi ulakan kia day aan, te. Day shẽ thi tan aw zhui aan. Aw-maw zhui-o te d’ud’i aan.
Se-o tara mut’a isprapuna parau. Isprapuna pay, kimon ad’ud’aw kimon ne haw, anga ne hawaw, gad’a moc. Khur pastari aaw, gaw ataw, undruhak pal’i dariauna paw. Tara no’una daria ashis. Dariauna tyay aheraw, moc anga ne hawaw, gad’a moc.
Ko kay-o se anga thi aaw gaw pal’i shiu. To gaw asta ger ne kay aaw, se. Se gheri se jiay aaw, moc d’ud’i aan. Se asta gheri isprapuna pay aaw.
Se shatara d’ud’ikas mocuna gaw pal’i dariauna tyay shiu, s’ong-s’ongay tyay, awaza thi shiu, awaza thi shiu. Asmanani thi ataw, ghõi, tal’ay te moc-o ugay dyay aan. Pl’ik te asini, bishiani asta ziad moc, uk airaw.
Airaw-e l’ush thi shiu. L’ushun-o jiay aaw-e ul’ak tara bhoni shian. Perishan aan t’ung day. Lash to gaw jiaw-e gaw ne shiu. “Ah, gaw kura airan.” Uchundi aaw, uchundi anday-al’ay tyay aaw. Uk hay shiu to gaw asta. “Asmanani thi ataw, d’umb hawimi,” ghõi. Te asta uguna tyay, pal’i te asta d’umb, gaw asta d’umb.
Lash uchundi tay ul’akan tada us’is’a pay aaw. Pragoa pay aaw. Du gan’t’a tara nisaw. Nisaw-e mocan pata ne hawaw. Caw baja-o, ponj baja-o, chak praw, mocan pata ne. Tasi tal’ay kharca ashini, tasi praw.
Te kharca-marca tasi day-o, te bic’haraw. Bic’hari saman-maman gardokan hatya pharaw. Te rumbay ani-o, gad’a moc. Tara asini gak tara gordok hãsh, sohorum ashini. Te asta pharaaw, pharay paraw.
Pay ek deh ashis. Tara dehuna paraw tasa kut’uas tada. Tara paraw-e moc bihan nihi jagaan. “Ey moc, shaa gad’a moc bo dewalat onaw.” “Gaw pharay pay ays.” “El’i kawel’a alaw,” ghõi, tante mashkul hawan.
Se tara nii taa tara kut’uuna nii. Te gos’t’ay praw, te saman athaaw. Thay gec araw, mocan pata ne. Te taa som jare hawan, moc-o uk hay shiu.
Toa moc, gromani moc, tara pay tasa aphucan ki: “Ey gad’a moc, tu emi kawei halya.” “Gaw pharay pay ay.”
“Ey moc, a to gaw taza kay pe abrinkis, bo dewalat onis dya.” “A to gaw brinki shemi hali aam.”
“Ne, ne, tu gaw brinki-ta shamon dewalat ne oni.”
“Ne gaw brinki aam, wareg-o may kura den?”
Paron tara dehuna pay amaan ki: “Gad’a moc shẽ shẽ maaw-day.” Te kõ’ aran, te, bishi bas hawaw, mastruk paraw, pata ne. Toa shẽhẽ sala aran ki, gromani moc: “Shase garip gad’a moc shamon mamila araw.” “Abi ei gak marik, homa emi gak.”
Pl’ik te gak niniay tara pay aaw, ghõi, shor hawan, te du shor hawan, amaran. Mari mos abrinkan azhuan gaw-o s’us’aan. S’us’ay-o paron, ek mulkuna bazaruna hatya paron. Bazaruna hay amaan ki: “Ey, gocu ne grea-day-e,” ghõi amaan-e.
“Gocu ispa kia ajat,” ghõi amaan.
Post ne agrian, ne grii, akasan, akasaan pishtyak on. Pishtyak tara ita gad’a mocas hatya kahari hawan. Kahari thi, “Al’a junkik, homa taba arau,” ghõi. Shẽ amaan-e: “Al’a junka,” ghõi, gad’a moc mutra kariu-day, bihan dras’naw. Te tara kut’uuna angar s’at’aan. Angar s’at’aan kut’u ad’uaw.
Se-o bhut muc’a kay tara cisti aaw, jiel-day, tara kay. “Shel’i may hatya zid aran, dus’mani aran.” “A-ta khalash thi aam, may kut’u ajunkan.” “Khayr shiu, a isi pashem,” ghõi amaaw, tante.
“Khodayas sargayro to kura pashin” paron, angar s’at’ay-o. Aduaw, se kut’u, dui nisau s’ut’ik hawaw.
L’uzhun-o us’t’I, “Ajunkimi, to gad’a moc, se homa taba kay ays.” L’uzhun-o us’t’on-e, gad’a moc bojeyuna s’ut’ik pirel-day. “Ey, se-ta khalash thi aaw, kia mamila,” ghõi amaan-e, dunion dunion: “Asa jadu, asa kia ne hiu.” “Asa hatya kia cal karik, homa taba araw.” “Abi onja wec’hiru hawimi, balbac kibaw hawan, kawa pay gak griik?”
Toa tara tan gromuna sala aran, sala kay amaan: “Asa hatya warek cal karik,” she amaan. “Kia cal?,” aghõan. “Asa hatya ek cal shiu.” “Al’a atra pay nat’hek.” “Nat’hay gri al’a bhoni uk histik,” ghõi amaan.
Tara pay nat’hay agrian to. Bo moc te, se-o gezhi. Taa balbac asta ne, garip moc. Nat’hay gri to bakasay pron bakasay dyay, kulpi pron. Kulpi dyay to drazi airan, hay uk ahistin. Uk histi airaw, daria, to. Se-o “Abayo, ne ne” ghõi amaaw, shẽ amaaw. Cisti kõ’ aran kõ’ kay pishtyak on, “Airau,” ghõi.
Hay ek biabanuna hairau, biabanuna hay, mocas zhontruna zhal’aaw, hunduruna al’ay hairaw. Hay zhontruna hatya hairaw, hairaw-e, tara-o bo dewalatman moc, maldar moc tara ays, du shor pay aini.
Se-o “Tara kia hariu-day?” ghõi. Adyay tara pay badok l’asay to chal’aaw. Chal’ay to kulpi achinaw, chini jagaaw gad’a moc tal’ay aaw.
“Ey moc, tu may ko chal’ay,” ghõi amaaw ki: “May histi,” aghõaw. “Atra bacahi may hatya zhal’aaw-day,” aghõaw.
Shẽhẽ amaaw-e wal’moc amaaw ki: “May baza khul hawan, may histi, a bacahiuna nisim, atra mehtar griin-day.” “May hatya phayda shiu may histi,” ghõi amaaw.
Gad’a moc sustaaw, se moc juhan thi. “May shẽ mal dewalat, tu nii,” “may histi,” aghõaw. Ne-o se shẽ hawan, hawan-ta, wal’moc tal’ay ataw.
Ataw-e gad’a moc kulpi dyay, j’anj’er s’at’ay, gon’d’ tal’ay dyay, drazi gad’a moc paraw. Hay to hay batthara hay, to uk ahistaw. To uk ahistaw. Uk histi amaaw ki: “Tu “ne” ghõi maas, atra tay phucin-day.”
Gad’a moc tara paraw, bazuri tsandays pay l’asaaw. L’asay te pay gri paraw, tara pay. Te mal tara jaygauna zhal’aaw-e, gromani moc hayran hawan.
“Gad’a moc jadu, mal gri-aw, gheri dewalat onaw,” ghõi amaan-e. “Dikia cal karik,” bion, moc.
Gad’a moc tasi amaaw: “May shẽ dewalat grea.” “May-o gheri uk hista, atra nii, a bacahiuna apaw dem.” “A emi kia sektik ne bhaam,” ghõi amaaw-e, te bion.
Bihi amaan ki “al’a kia ne pata hiu ... asa al’ei duniani asta iu,” ghõi amaan, shẽhẽ may. Te moc amaan ki: “Ey, ek cal karik.” “Asa bo dewalat onaw, asa el’i-ta aan-mi-oria”. “Asa kia cal c’ic’hi aaw, aspab bihan chal’ay, ay maydanuna apaw dek, homa ama grom junkik. “Asa s’ut’ik hay sohorum onaw, asa uk ahistimi, mal gri aw, gaw faray gak mari, dewalat onaw.” “Ajo kia ne bata hiu, abi al’a cal kay abi bata jiek.”
Aspab chal’aan, chal’ay niay maydanuna histi, ... gromuna angar s’at’aan, te-mi. Angar s’at’ay grom ajunkan. Grom junki s’ut’ik pharaan bo moc hayran. Bo moc hayran. Hay bazaruna hay abrinkan-e amaan ki: “S’ut’ik ne grea-day?.”
“Kia s’ut’ik”, aghõ. “Somaniaw saruzo,” ghõi amaan-e.
Shẽhẽ amaan-e, amaan ki: “Shul’a gri kay a-am, shul’a gri kay aam,” ghõi amaan. “Shul’as’ut’ik-o homa kia adyat ne hiu” ghõi, ne agrian. Ne agrian. Ne gri, pishtyak ita, te gad’a mocas pi asta garip hawan. Maydanuna thaw hawan, gad’a moc dewalatman.
Gad’a moc aw, kas’ong asta niji aaw, wal’ pariu-day. Hãshas thara nisiu-day, gordok t’rat’rel-day. Tasa kia l’ochiu zhe pociu-day. Dewalat tasa praw, khoday. Te taa kia ne diman aini shẽ thi aini aini. Tan wakht kibaw aran zaya aran. A tara jaygauna ays to apashis. Ia kisa khatum hawaw.
The story of an old and lonely man’s struggle with the people from a village
There was an old man, the old man he has become like this, in a shelter (he) was, he. Well, there in the shelter, it was like this, one cow there was, of his. He was feeding himself solely by milking that one cow, he had no family.
Then it happened like this, the cow stopped giving milk. As it had stopped giving milk, then he became worried. Worried like this, because who will give him anything, he was a very poor man. Then he killed the cow, that old man. After killing the cow, it was like this, he dried the skin by putting it in the sun. Having let the skin dry by putting it in the sun, he thought and thought.
He loaded the skin on the back and went off. Going, he came to a wilderness, there there is a crowd of people. There are people there, they have not seen him. Very, very slowly he climbed up in a willow tree, he. Having climbed up there, having climbed the willow tree, there was a place for him. He also took the dried cowhide up there.
Having climbed up there, then, as he was lying down, he watched the people. They gave their flocks of animals something to eat, they. After giving the animals something to eat, they ate their own food. After eating the food and stuff, they slept.
He fell asleep there in the tree. Falling asleep, whatever much he might have slept, he did not wake up, the old man. He stretched his legs, the cowhide fell (down), falling down, it hit the river. There below there was a river. As it hit the river, the river took it, the man did not wake up, the old man.
After some time he woke up realising that the cowhide has fallen. He was not aware about that cowhide, he. Again he looked at the people, they are sleeping. He also went to sleep again.
Right there, in the middle of the sleeping, when the cowhide had fallen and hit the river, a sound appeared as the cowhide hit the branches. Thinking that something fell down from the sky the people there went into the water. All, they are more than 20, there are a lot of people, the water took them.
As the river took them, it became morning time. In the morning, as the old man looked down, a herd of animals were fastened there. They are worried, bowing their heads down. Slowly, as he looked for that cowhide, the cowhide was not there. “Oh, who took the cowhide?,” he asked himself. He climbed down, and after climbing down, he looked here and there. The water has taken that cowhide. He thought: “It fell from the sky, we are lost!” “They also jumped into the water, they were lost as the cowhide was lost.”
Climbing down very slowly, he went near to their herd of animals, up to the front part of the herd. He went down to the rear part of the herd. He was there for two hours. As he sat there, there was no sight of anyone. It became 4 o’clock, and even 5 o’clock, it became dark, no sight of anyone. There, there were things for the animals, he gave them things to eat.
After giving them those things to eat, he released them. After releasing them, he loaded the things for the donkeys. Having gathered them in a line, he took them away, the old man. There were cows, donkeys, horses there, there were gold. He loaded that too, loaded and went away.
Going away, there was a valley. He went there to the valley, near his shelter. As he went there, people came out and looked. They said to each other:“Hey people, that old man brought a lot of riches.” “Carrying the cowhide on his back, he left.” “From where did he bring the valuable things?” – They discussed that for themselves.
He took it there, he took it there to his shelter. He put it in the stable, he put the things down. Having put it down, he waited and looked, no sight of anyone. The valuable things were his in possession, because the water has taken the people.
Then the people, the village people, went there and asked him: “Hey old man, from where did you bring this. Carrying a cowhide on your back, you went away.”
“Hey people, if I would have sold that cowhide being alive then I would have brought much more wealth.” “Selling that cowhide, I have brought this.”
“No no, by selling a cowhide, you cannot bring so much wealth.”
“If I have not sold the cowhide, who else will give me (the wealth)?”
They left, having gone there to the village, they said: “The old man says this and this.” They listened, the other people in the village, 20 days passed, a month passed, nothing happened. Then they discussed the matter like this, the people of the village, that .. “This poor and old man did so many things.” “We will slaughter those cows, those cows of ours.”
They all took the cows out, going over there, to a field, they became 100, they became 200, they slaughtered them. After slaughtering them, they sold and ate the meat, and they dried the cowhides. After having dried the cowhides, they left, they went to a place, to the bazar. Taking the cowhides to the bazar, they said: “Hey, you are not buying the cowhides?” they said.
“To what need are the cowhides for us?” they said.
They did not buy the cowhides, not buying, (the village people) walked and walked with the cowhides and finally they came back. Having come back, they got angry with the old man. Being angry (they said): “We will burn him, he destroyed us.” As they said like this, “burn him,” the old man was going to urinate, he came out. They set fire to the shelter there. They set on fire, the shelter burnt down.
The old man stood there with the pants in his hand and looks at the fire there. “They have created problems for me, they have been hostile.” “I am safe but they burnt my shelter”. “No problem, I will show them,” he said, to himself.
“Who will see him except God?,” they said to themselves, they went, after making fire. It burnt down, that shelter, after being burnt down, it became ashes.
After waking up in the morning, they thought: “We burnt him, that old man, he had destroyed us.” As they woke up in the morning, the old man fills the ashes into a sack. “Hey, he is safe, how come?,” as they said this, they thought for a long time: “He is a magician, nothing can happen to him ....” “What plans shall we make against him, he destroyed us.” “We have now become without milk, our family became like this, where shall we go and buy cows?”
Then they made plans in there in their own village, having made plans they said: “We shall do something else against him,” they said like this. “What plans?,” they asked. “There is one plan for him.” “Going there we will chase him.” “After chasing and taking him we will tie him up and throw him into the water.”.
Having gone there, they chased and caught him. They were many, he was alone. He had no family, a poor man. Having chased and caught him, they put him in a box, put him in a box and locked it. After locking they took him away on their shoulders, taking him away they threw him into the water. Being thrown into the water, it took him, the river, him. He shouted out, “no no” he said, he said like this. They stood and listened, having listened, they came back thinking: “The river has taken him.”
Being taken, the river took him to a wilderness, being taking to a wilderness, he arrived at a person’s watermill, being taken through the hundur. Being taken, the river took him to a watermill, as he was taken, there was a very rich man there, he was a very rich man, he had 200 goats.
He thought: “What is the water taking there?.” He ran, going there, he took his axe and pulled the box out from the water. Pulled out the box, cut the lock, having cut the lock, he looked, the old man was there.
“Hey man, why did you take me out?,” the old man said, “throw me in again,” he said. “To me a kingdom will arrive there,” the old man said.
When he said this, the shepherd replied: “My hands are finished, throw me and I will settle in the kingdom, there they are choosing a king.” “There will be a benefits for me, throw me into the water,” he said.
The shepherd defeated the old man, the shepherd being young. “Take all of my valuable goods, throw me,” the shepherd said. Neither him nor the other they were like this, the shepherd entered into there into the box.
As the shepherd entered the box, the old man locked it, attached a chain, put a stick onto there, put him on his back and left. Taking it, he took it and took it onto a stone and threw him into the water. Throwing him into the water he said: “You will say no, there they will ask you.”
The old man went there, folded up his sleeves and released the goats. After releasing them, he left with the goats, went there. As he reached there to his own place with the livestock, the village people became surprised.
“The old man is a magician, he took the livestock, and in return he brought wealth,” as they said this. “What shall we do now?,” they were afraid, the people.
The old man said to them: “Take this wealth of mine and throw me again into the water, being taken there, I will live in a kingdom ....” “I cannot take care of this, the wealth,” as he said this, they became frightened.
Being frightened they said: “We don’t know about him, he can even come from that world,” they said. The people said: “Hey, we will do a trick”. “He brough much wealth, let that be with him.” “He has learnt some tricks, we will take all our things outside, we will live in a flat field, we will burn this our village down.” “He took ashes and brought gold, we threw him into the water and he came with livestock, carrying the cowhide after killing a cow, he brought riches.”“Now, but there can be nothing, now we will try this trick too, then we will see.”
They took out the things, taking them out and throwing it onto the field, they set fire to the village themselves. Having set fire, they burnt down the village. After burning the village, they carried the ashes on their shoulders, a lot of people took it away. Taking it, taking it to the bazar, as they sold it they said: “You don’t buy the ashes?.”
“What ashes?” the people in the bazar replied. “Is this ashes from the somani-juniper?”.
As they said this, they said, “We made it from wood”, they said. “We don’t need wood-ashes,” they(: the bazaar people) said, and they didn’t buy it. The others also not buying and having come back, they (: the villagers) became even poorer than the old man. They were left on the bare field, the old man was rich.
The old man came, he has also taken off his hat, he goes herding. He sits on a horse, he releases the donkeys. He has no worries. He gave him riches, God. The other people in the village were not giving him anything, (because) they were like this. They wasted their time. I was there in that place, I saw it. This story is finished.
Text 8.5: Ya’si parikas barauna
A myth about women’s ritual protest to the gods about rainy weather, and how wheat came to be a crop in the Kalasha valleys.
Narrated by Sayed (Kraka, Mumuret), May 2005.
Transcribed by Nabaig and Jan Heegård. Translated by Sikander Ghulam Khan, Taj Khan and Jan Heegård 2006 and 2014.
With this story we are introduced to the mythology of the Kalasha. The story sets out with being an explanation of the ritual Yas’i parik (Yasi + go) where in the case of a rainy period the women of a valley traverse the valley to make clear to the gods that they want this situation to stop. From this start, the story continues to explain how the important crop wheat came to the Kalasha valleys. As narrated in this form by Sayed, a man knowledgeable about traditional Kalasha customs and religion, this myth contains symbolic elements of fertility and divine purity. The story is full of geographical details and names as a means of emphasising the relevance for present-day Kalasha community.
Yas'i parikas barauna
Wakti may wakt ashis. May wawaa nom Khan. Khana (putras) nom Mirota. Mirotaa (putras) nom Sudrum Khan, Sayed Khan a-o, tasa putr. Sayed Khan a-o, tasa putr.
Waktimaya homa ek wawa asta. Zamana ashis, sak piliwe’ hul’a, basund ashis. Basund ashis-o, homa wawa ek istrizhaas hatya as’ek asta. Deshuna ashis, aya deshuna. Anishuna zha Brũ’a zha Darazguru zha, shal’ay homa shia desh. Khabar biko, basundmastruk, sak az’aiush. Sak piliwe’ hul’a, muchi-l’a, muchi sat bas pilewe’ hul’a.
Toa te istrizha Yas’i pay aan. Kra’ka’ay day pay kanderisar tyay te asta gri pay, Batrika tyay Brũ’a tyay Anizhuna tyay prehãk pay aan. Paron haw, khay, waw-o shatasa pariawan ek istrizhagua’kas as’ek asta.
Kabar biko, khay, “kawa basi aaw,” ghõi citi aaw. Copamin-o jagay aaw-e,
istrizha ne ita aaw, hic kura ne ita aan. Weyrakas asta ne ita aaw, warek asta istrizha ne ita aan. Taa som d’aluna pay aan, shate ne ita aan. Ne ita aan haw, prenaw Kanderisar pay, jagay aaw-e ne. Khoji pay aaw, se, tre caw basan, ne-mi ita aan. Tal’ey Batrika pay aaw, tara ne, tara phuci aaw. Brũ’a paraw, tara ne, Anishuna paraw, tara ne. Darazguru paraw, tara ne.
Phato wawaa shẽ khial hawaw ki “Albat no’ay-day paron, a tharay ita aam.” Pishtyak aw, se Kra’ka’ pishtyak wehãk aw. Ita aya ita jagaaw, ne pata. Phato se te isap aral’-e, sat istrizha pay aan. Hawel’ namber Ac’u’yak Awa. Gad’erak se tasi mocaw, istrizhon mocaw. Duo namber Nilikashẽ, Niliba’i, Sonba’i, D’ukbibi, Kacenduk. S’hel’i sat istrizha pay aan, nom asta sabit, shemi nom. Nom asta sabit, shemi nom.
Khabar biko, taa dustas tal’ay mocay, wawa pay aaw, phato. Tal’ey paraw pay. Senjil’a pa’u, Senjila tyay E’hẽ’ paraw, E’hẽ’ tyay. Biriunisara prehãk asta paraw. Phato wawaa pata ne hawaw, tasa. Se upul’i paraw, se cisti paraw, se kia thi paraw haw.
Pay Tsiam azhal’aw, mishari zamana. Tsiam pay jagaaw-e, c’hetmocuna ghum shian.
Tara zamanauna ghum ne. Homa aya ghum shiw, tagar-o kawa ne, aya asta sujakbi.
Tara pay jagay aaw-e, ghummocuna ek istrizha uk dyel-day. Toa deshay thi jagaaw, jagaaw tara pay. Tara hatya haybat praw, gromuna hatya parik ne abhaaw. Tara pay to uk achinaw. Uk chini-o mikinno’ay l’uhi aaw. Khabar biko, ogal’ay thi se istrizha khundi aaw, ogal’a gromuna kay. Grom tichak desha shial’a.
“Oh, Ac’uyak Awa, anday i, uk achis,” ghõi amaaw, tasa kay. Se c’hetmocani istrizha, se-o tasa se dustas asta.
To uk chini-o se mikinno’ay l’uhi aaw. Toa se gad’a istrizha tal’ey gromaw dras’niaw. Ita tara ita to uk gheraaw. Uk gheray ukas al’-ayhak tyay-o. Paraw gheri, gromuna hatya.
Gromuna pay kia phat gan’d’a hawaw, shamondyaka hawaw, gheri to uk achinaw tara pay, se wawa. U’k achinal’-e se istrizha “kimon khundiem,” ghõi-o, phato ita aaw. Ita tara ita to uk gherel, uk gheraaw. Uk gheray tara c’hetruna hatya, parim ghõi cak hawal’-e, homa se wawa dras’naw mikinno’aw.
“Ey, kaway paris-day, kawa ay, khẽ thi a?”. Anday jagaaw-e, dustas tara ita aaw. “Ey khẽ thi a, tu khẽ thi a?.”
“Tu khẽ thi a, a asta shẽhẽ thi a,” ghõi amaaw. “Anday cisti na.”
“May t’em ne onj-o, ne cistim a.” “May t’em asta ne tay tada onja cistikani, a onjes’t’a hawis,” se istrizha shẽhẽ amaaw.
“A tay tada khali mashkul him, kia may drazhi-o mo de.”
Khay duniauna shamon phond khulay wawa pay aaw .
“Dikia mon, kia mon praw,” ghõi. Taa gehen kay paraw, paraw.
“Tu mo mo may mo cut’i,” ghõi amaaw.
“Mo cut’i,” ghõi amaaw haw, “Ey, ko shẽ maaw-day?,” ghõi.
Sak kibaw hawaw, se kibaw thi se amaaw ki: “Tu akher t’okmat kay may cut’im,” ghõas-day.” “Tu cut’i-ta mo may drazhi mo.” “Tu tay al’a chutyak a’nguyak may shaya kibawuna zhal’ay,” ghõi amaaw. “A pe ne l’awem-day haw.”
Shẽhẽ kay chutyak a’nguyak tara bazuyruna zhal’aaw e, cew bazuyruna zhal’aaw-e, s’us’i shanday azhal’aw-aw. As’us’aw toa shẽhẽ kay tasa-mi ek l’ok ahistaw. Se istrizha kawa kibawuna gren’ dyay ays haw. Ahistaw, toa gri abhonaw tyay to a’nguyak bhoni. Shẽ kay tasa kay ahistaw, “Thedi may mo cut’i, ajo hawaw ne may pi tasali hawaw tay.” “A onjes’t’a thi aam a sucaun para.” “May tu mo cut’i,” ghõi may ays. “Tu may acut’i, tu onj-o pishtyak pari.”
“Pishtyak pari,” aghõaw haw, wawa acitaw acitaw s’is’ kucays. S’is’ kucay-o amaaw ki: “Dõyõ parim-day-e, tu aya cisti-na,” ghõi amaaw.
“Ek ponj milet’ cisti adhek wat cisti,” ghõi amaaw. “Adhek wat cisti,” ghummocuna pay, mocuna pay jagaaw-e, mocuna awatay-ta kibaw shian haril’ak shian. Mocuna se ghora thi ita shian, te ghuum. Chini chini chini chini bat’i kay-o. Shamondyaka bat’i kay cu’i.sutr gri cu’i chini tyay bhoni. Ghren’ dyay-o tara ita, tara zhaygon’d’a ita wawaa kay ahistaw.
“Shemi hay tan hatya, bi kari,” aghõal’-aw.
Phato sida ao, ita se bas hawaw. Gheri se, khay mishari moc, hawaay ao. Hawaay ita dubajay zhal’i-o. Kasi ita Kra’Ka’ ao. Kra’ka’ ita to ghum s’us’ay-o phato bi araw.
Bi kay, ek-du mand hawaw, se ghum. Du mand hik zhe khabardar hawaw. Deshuna haw kawa asta moc khabar hawaw ki tasa khon’d’aghum payda thi shiu. Phato kas-o, ek ser praw, kas-o bat’i praw kas-o du paw praw. Shẽ kay to aphazhaw, tasa-mi hatya thaway-o.
Shasa ghum homa shatasa wawaa nis’an. Sal’a ghum homa-day aaw, day aal’aw. Shato ghum phato jari haw, se mulkuna jari hawal’-aw. Sha-to mashkulgi.
About women’s ritual protest to the gods about rainy weather
Once upon a time, there was a time. My grandfather’s name Khan. Khan’s son’s name Mirota. Mirota’s son’s name Sudrum Khan, I’m Sayed Khan, his son.
Once upon a time, we had a grandfather. There was a time, it became a very rainy season, it was Spring. It was Spring, our grandfather was in love with a woman. It was in the valley, here in this place. Until Anish, till Brun, till Darazguru, over there this is our valley.
Suddenly, Spring month, apricot-kernels appearing. It was a very rainy season, it rained a lot, it rained for seven days, it was raining for seven days.
Then the women had gone to do Yas’i. Starting from Kraka, from Kanderisar, they took them along also, from Batrik, from Brun, from Anish, they went downstream. When they went, then, grandfather, he was in love with one of women who were going.
Then suddenly, so, he thought: “Where did she sleep?,” “where can she have been?.” As he looked the next morning, the woman has not come, nobody at all has come. His beloved has not come, also other women have not come. Those who have gone together, none of them have come. As they have not come, as he went downstream to Kanderisar to find them, he could not find them. Then he has gone searching for three-four days, still they had not come. From there, he went to Batrik, and they were not there either, he asked for them there. He went to Brun, they were not there, he went to Anish, they were not there. He went to Darazguru, they were not there.
Then the grandfather thought like this that: “Perhaps they went the down-way, I have come the upper-way.” He came back, he came back upstream to Kraka. Having come back, having come here, he looked, he didn’t know of the women’s whereabouts. Then, as he counted them, he realised that seven women had gone. The first was Acuyak Awa. She was the elder of them, of the women. The second, Nilikashẽ, and then Nilibai, Sonbai, Dukbibi, Kacenduk. These seven women had gone, also the names are proof, these names.
Suddenly, his girlfriend was among them, grandfather has gone, then. From there he went, going for a long time. He reached Senjila, from Senjila, he went to Ayun, from Ayun, he also went down to Biriunisar, downstream. Then, about grandfather, we don’t know anymore, about him doing this. Maybe he went flying, maybe he went standing, he may have gone in whatever way.
Whatever way he went, he arrived in Tsiam, it was mixed world. Having gone to Tsiam, and as he looked, there were wheat in the fields.
In those days there were no wheat in the Kalasha community. At our place now we have wheat, here is also small species of wheat.
As he has gone there, he saw a woman irrigating the wheat. Then he looked from far away, he looked, went there. He was afraid of going there, then he could not go to the village. He went there and stopped the water. Having stopped the water, he has hidden himself under the sage. Then suddenly, the woman from down-valley called someone, in the down below-village. The village was a little away.
“Oh, Acuyak Awa, come here, the water is closed,” she said to her. The woman from the fields, she was his girlfriend.
After stopping the water, he was hiding under the sage. Then the old woman came out there from the village. Having come, having come there, she turned the water back for the fields. Having turned the water towards the field, then again she went back to village.
After she had gone to the village, after half an hour or so, he again stopped the water, having gone there, the grandfather. As he stopped the water, then the woman thought “how many times shall I call,” then she came to turn the water herself. Having come there, she turns the water, she turned the water. Having turned the water, there to the field, having turned the water, when she was about to go to the field, our grandfather appeared from under the sage.
“Hey, where are you going, where were you, how did you come?,” the grandfather asks.
When she looked to here at him, her friend has come there, “Hey, how did you come, how did you come?,” she asked.
“The way you came – I also came like that,” he said. “Come here and stand close to me,” the man says,
“I don’t have time now, I will not stand together with you,” the woman said. “I don’t have time to stand close to you now, I became onjeshta,” the woman said. “I will only talk with you, but don’t touch me!.”
Khay! The grandfather has walked so many roads in all the world to find her, and then she won’t have contact with him.
“What are these words, what is said by her,” he thinks. Then he approached her.
“No, no, no, don’t you touch me,” she said.
When she said “don’t touch me,” “Hey, is why she talking like this?,” he said to himself,
She became very upset, she, being upset, she thought to herself and said: “You insist touching me anyhow,” she said. “Don’t touch me, and don’t even try to approach me,” she says. “You can let that small finger of yours touch my cloth or anything,” she said. “If I am not lying,” she said.
Like this, as he lets the little finger touch the sleeves, as he lets the little finger touch the sleeves of the clothes, the finger dried here as it touched her cloth. It dried, then like this he threw the finger as if it was an old rag. The woman had a piece of cloth tied to her somewhere. She threw it, then he took it and fastened his finger with the piece of cloth. She threw like this, and said: “Now, don’t touch me, so now, do you trust me?.” “I have become onjes’t’a, I have been purified.” “I told you not to touch me.” “You touched me, you go back now.”
“When she said ‘go back,” grandfather thought and thought, scratched his head. Scratching his head, he said, “Ok, I am going.”
“You stay here for a while,” she said. “Stay for 5 minutes time, stay a little while,” she said. “Stay a little while” she said, as she went into the middle of the wheat fields, into the centre and looked, and in the centre, around there was something, it was green. In the centre the wheat has become white, it had ripened, the wheat. Cutting and cutting and cutting she cut a lot of wheat and made a bundle of it. Made a small bundle of wheat, took a braid-string and cut it, and fastened it tightly the bundle of wheat. Having tied it, she came there, having come there to the irrigation channel, she threw it (: the bundle) to grandfather.
“Take this and grow it for yourself, grow it,” she said.
Then he came back to the Kalasha valley straight away, he came and stayed. Again, being a mixed person, he came by air through the air. He came by air, arrived there somewhere, at Dubaj, came to Kraka by walking. He came to Kraka by walking. (He) coming to Kraka, he dried the wheat and then cultivated it.
Having cultivated it, it became 1-2 mand, the wheat, and the valley, i.e. the people of the valley came to know about this. When in the valley and everywhere the people came to know that ‘hairless wheat’ has come into being. Then he gave one ser to someone, gave a bundle of wheat to another one, and two paw to another. He distributed like this and he left something for himself.
That wheat is a sign of that grandfather of ours. He has given us that wheat. That wheat, then, was eaten, eaten in the country. And that is the way it is.
Text 8.6: Lawak zhe tasa du yardust ‘A fox and his two friends’
Narrated by Sher John, Kraka, Mumoret, December 1996.
Transcribed and translated by Nabaig, Taj Khan and Jan Heegård 2004 and 2014.
This story is a traditional fable, with animal figures that behave like human beings. The fox is the cunning figure, who tries to do trick on his seemingly naïve friends, the mountain goat (the markhor) and the crow. The narrator, Sher John, is a reputable storyteller in the Kalasha community. His style is vivid as he uses mimics, voice modulation and gestures to support his narration and involve his audience. Linguistically his narratives are characterised by many lines of direct speech and dynamicity by use of tense shifts, and in general, his narratives contain many examples of the narrative features described in Chapter 8. In addition, Sher John often portrays the stories’ figures with characteristics of his fellow villagers, in this particular fable, the detail about the fieldowner who smokes a chillum.
L'awak zhe tasa du yardust
Ek l’awak ek shara zhe ek ka’ga’ malgiri asta, yardustan asta. Ek awata pay te tromish-o d’ud’in hul’a. Ek dhenta tara dhentakẽ’una pay, d’ud’in hul’a har tromish.
Se shara-o dish bad’ul’a thi asta. Toa se l’awak tan zhanuna amaaw hul’a: “Shama shara pe nashay-o pe, kawa idrõ’ may den kawa a zum dya,” ghõi. Bo afsus kariu-day, l’awak.
Ita tromizh-o ek awata basin hul’a. Ek adua taa mocas kay amaaw l’awak ki: “Tay c’hetruna ati ghum cariu-day shara.” Shara ghum cariu-day, tay c’hetruna ati.” “Tu nashay-o, idrõ’ may hatya thaway, a zhum,” aghõaw.
Toa se jal abhonaw, tara c’hetruna, se moc. Tromish-o shara tara ita jaluna as’at’aw. Jaluna as’at’aw haw l’awak zhe ka’ga’-o tara dhentakẽ’una bas pay aan. Bas pay-o ka’ga’ tasa kay amaaw: “Hey, se ek yardust-o ne aaw, se ek yardust-o ne aaw.” “To asta jiek, pre,” ghõi amaaw-e, “Tromish hawaw-la, aaw shal’ai,” ghõi amaaw.
Copamino rages’t’i: “Se ek malgiri ne aaw,” ghõi. Pay to asta gri pay jagel-day, ka’ga’. Tara pay jiaw jaluna s’at’iaw. Toa ka’ga’ l’awakas kay amaaw ki: “Tay dando’yak tsil’aka, a ne bhaam ….” “Tu al’a jalaw el’i sutr chini, ia khalas hiu malgiri, phato parik-a,” ghõi amaaw, sher amaaw. L’awak amaaw: “nnn, may dando’yak trupal-day a ne bhaam,” ghõi amaaw.
Batmashi kariu-day, ne, l’awak-o, hah!
“May dando’yak trupan-day,” ghõi. Desha pay apaw praw. Toa se ka’ga’ sharaas kay amaaw: “Tu nashikos’ kay apaw-day, hũk asta mo kay.” “Moc ita tay bic’haraw pe haw, bic’hari al’ay pe nihaw haw, toa a kia cal kaam.” “Phato pal’aas,” ghõi amaaw . Toa se moc aw, cilim z’ingaiman. Cilim z’ingaiman tara ita, cilim diga’thara thay-o, uchundi tara ita to bic’haraw-mi-e . Se ka’ga’-o pai to cilim tyay udzakaw to tamaku udzakaw, udzakaw hawaw. Se moc tes thi adyay paraw tasa ka’ga’as gehen “ay ai” kariman. Ka’ga’as gehen paraw haw shara-o pal’ay paraw.
Phato pal’ay paraw haw, badok phirikay pa’u tasa sharaas. Sharaas ne gri pay, l’awakas d’hãkuna tyay, l’awakas d’hãk-o ac’his.
Phato ka’ga’ tasa kay amaaw: “Tu muziri kariman ai.” “Khoday tay shẽhẽ araw, “homa-o ne shehe kaw,” ghõi. Phato te paron.
Phato ac’o’ĩk-o khul hawaw, a asta phato.
A fox and his two friends
One fox and one markhor and one crow were friends. Having gone to a place they slept at night. There was a mountain there, they went sleeping in a mountain cave every evening.
The markhor was very fat. Then the fox in his innermost heart said: “If that markhor was killed, and the intestines were given to me, I will eat them,” he said. He is very eager, the fox, in a false manner.
They then came in the evening to spend the night in one other place. One day the fox said to the owner of the field: “It will enter your field and eat the wheat, the markhor.”“The markhor will eat your wheat, when entering your field.” “When you have killed it, store the intestines for me, I'll eat them,” the fox said.
Then he sat up a trap, there on the field, that man. In the evening the markhor came there and got caught in the trap. When the markhor was caught in the trap, the fox and the crow went to spend the night in the mountain cave.
After they have gone to sleep, the crow said to him (the fox): “Hey! the one friend, the markhor, is not here, the one friend is not here.” As the crow said: “Let’s go look for him,” the fox said: “It has become very late, let it be!.”
Then early in the morning, “The one friend is not here,” said the crow. He looks together with the fox, the crow. Having gone there, the crow saw the markhor caught in the trap. Then the crow said to the fox: “Your teeth are very sharp, I cannot, ….” “You shall break these strings of the trap, and he will be free, the friend, then we shall go,” he said, the crow said. The fox said: “No, my teeth are hurting, I cannot,” he said.
He is making trouble, right, the fox, right!
“My teeth are hurting,” saying this, the fox stepped aside and stayed there. Then the crow said to the markhor: “You stay here dying, don’t say anything.”
“When the man has come and untied you, untying you, when he has taken you out there, then I will find a solution.” “Then run away,” the crow said. Then the owner of field came, smoking a chillum. As he came there, smoking a chillum, putting the chillum on a wall, and going down, having come there, he let the markhor loose. Then that crow went there, hitting the chillum he spilled out the tobacco, he spilled it out. The man went quickly to stop that the crow, saying ‘ai ai’ to that crow.”When he went towards the crow, the markhor escaped.
Then the markhor is escaping, the man by throwing an axe, is trying to hit that markhor. But as the axe did not catch the markhor, as the axe hitting the fox’s back, only the fox’s back broke.
Then the crow then said to the fox: “You were doing bad things to the markhor.” “God did this to you, he will not do this to us,” he said, Then crow and markhor left.
Then the story has ended, and I also, then.
Text 8.7: Bacaas put ne ubujuna ‘A king without sons’
Narrated by Babi (Kraka, Mumoret), 1997.
Transcribed and translated by Nabaig, Taj Khan and Jan Heegård 2004 and 2014.
The text collection ends with a long and fantastic heroic story, told by Babi from Kraka (Mumoret). In her narration Babi weaves elements from different stories together in a living, elegant and fascinating way. As a price of his birth, the hero of the story is taken away by a faker, only shortly afterwards to start out on an adventure, which leads him to a magic woman, confronts him with animals in need, and leads him to a marriage with the youngest daughter of a king and thereupon an imprisonment which he escapes by being clever, only to be be confronted with jealousy which leads him to the killing of his brother. This tragic event is clarified by the intervention of a faker. The narrative contains all of the characteristic features of a well-told story. Enjoy!
Bacaas put nu ubujuna
Kaymina, kaymina, ek baca asta, tasa put ne ubujuna. Put ne ubuji, se akhabir hikas hul’a. Ego tasa hãsh asta, se asta ku’ak ne kada.
Toa ek phaker tara, ek faker tara al’a. Tara ita, baca tasa kay mail’a: “A akhabir hawis, may azheli ne ubujon,” ghõi mail’a, shehe mail’a.
Se du pal’aw chal’ay taa dita. “Ek pal’aw-ta tu zhe tay jaaw kokhon’d’a kay zhua.” Ek pal’aw-o tay hãshas de se ku’ak kaw. Se tay jaaw du put haliu. Du putr pe halaw haw, hawel’o, gad’ara putr-ta, may, se tshatak putraw tay,” ghõi may aaw tasa kay, se faker. Shehe may aaw, faker, gal’a tal’ey.
Dura pay apaw-day aaw, kimon no mastruk hawaw kia haw. Se put haliaw. Put hali-mi te shehe araw ki: Tasi hatya ek band kamra sawzaaw, duniaas ne pashay, phawno’una kay. Te tal’ay kimon wat aini. Te gad’a hawan, juhan thi aan. Te sukuluna sabak maan-day.
Tasi t’em pura hawaw, te juhan hawan, ne. Faker aw, tara. Tara ita bacaas kay amaaw ki: “Ajo may put hali nim-dai.” Shehe amaaw-e tasa kay, paraw tal’ey. Tara pay to gad’ara putras ne haliaw, ek chutyak putras haliaw. Tara hali to tasa pashaaw-e, se faker amaaw ki: “Ia may put ne, may put tiʨak bad’ul’a.” “Se bo shishoyak, to hali,” ghõi tasa kay amaaw.
Shehe amaal-e gheri paraw, tal’ay pay to hardi ne araw se bo shishoyak. Gheri paraw gheri shato-mi suda aniaw. Tara aniaw-e se amaaw ki: “Tu may som dukha mo kari, may put aya hali, a parim-dai,” aghõaw.
Phato paraw baca tara pay, tasa kay amaaw-e, se rahi hawaw. Se ego hãsh tan som agriaw,
ego khangar agriaw. Khangar agriaw bayas kay amaaw ki: “Tay khangaruna pe nanga l’ui akasaw
tu may khoci i,” ghõi may aaw. Se paraw tal’ey. Toa dadasi zhe tay som khodayar kay,
faker aniaw, to.
Faker ni tasa jaygauna aniaw. Taa jaygauna ni, tara shial’a ek-ta mac’hiuts shial’a, ego preconawts shial’a Faker tasa kay amaaw ki: “May put shemi zhu, zhuiman apaw de.” “A shonja-mi thesu shaya pay mutra kay-o pishtyak a im,” ghõi may aaw, faker, paraw.
Tasa shial’a sat kamra. Te ac’uyak tasa-day aaw, day-o, may aaw ki: “Ek kamra-o mo umray, tagar el’i-o jagay,” ghõi amaaw.
Se tal’ay l’abe’ thi tara pay ger ne kay ek awata umraaw-e: Ek gad’a istrizha tara aaw. Se bo kamzor thi aaw, gad’a istrizha.
Toa se tasa kay amaaw ki: “Ey, tu kawel’a payda hawi?” aghõ-la.
Se taa kay amaaw ki: “May gad’a moc haliaw, may dada.”
Toa se amaaw ki: “Dõyõ onja-ta pari.” “Tay dadaaw ikas t’em thi shiu.” “Copo tay dadaaw:
“gheri shonja-mi im,” ghõi-o pariu. “Se al’ay pay ponj basano iu.” “Toa may tada rages’t’i i, a tay kay mon dem,” ghõi amaaw taa kay, sudaas kay. May-o pishtyak paraw.
Se tara paraw-e dadas aw. Dadas tara ita: “Khẽ, may put, bad’ul’a hawi-e?” ghõi amaaw. Se amaaw ki: “Dada, a sak bad’ul’a thi aam.” “Khali precona ric’im-day, sak bad’ul’a thi aam.” Se bo khoshan hawaw.
Gad’a moc khoshan thi amaaw ki: “A dic-ta al’ay pay malal hul’a him.” “Onjo shonja-mi atra pay-o, gheri pishtyak a im.” May-o gheri paraw.
Toa sudayak phato adyays juan tara paraw-e, gad’a istrizha tal’ay aaw. Se amaaw ki, tasa kay: “Tu shal’a ek kamra asta umray,” aghõaw.
“Ne umray aam.
Se amaaw ki: “Shã shẽhẽ kay, se al’ey pay azheli aya haliman.” “Bad’ula kay-o se zhu-day.” “Te zhui te s’is’-o oni atra ek kamrauna, te saw darzen kay aaw.” “Dura puyrak thi shiu,
ek dana phatuki shiu tara.” “Tay asta pe ashaw haw pura hiu-day.” “To atra shehe ki aaw, may atra halaw-e, a te ne ashis.” “Ne ashis haw, a kamzor hawis.” “Phato may ne zhui-o, aya hali,
may kamraay-day band kay thay aaw.” “A-o anday kia asta pac’hiãk zhui, anday aam,” aghõaw.
Se amaaw ki: “Se tay dadaaw iu haw pe haw, tara ghona cidin shiu, sat kẽan cidin,
to tara thel.” “Angara thayo angar tyel.” “Angar tyay precona tara puirak kay wis’el.”
“Wis’ay-o tay kay maaw ki: “May put, us’t’i, nat’ kari”“ ghõi amaaw. “Shehe pe amaaw haw, tu maas ki: “Dada, a kia jonim nat’ik.” “A thesu duniauna paida thi.” “May dada may band kamraay hal’ay aaw. “A moc-mi ne jonim” “Onjo aya ita aam, a tay sargayro a kas ne jonim.” “Tu us’t’i nati, tay tada kay pashi-o a asta jhoni nat’ kaam”,” ghõi amaaw, se. “Amaaw pe haw, faker us’t’i nat’iu.” “Anat’aw pe haw, to t’uki angara histi.” “Tal’ay precona mocay to histi cidinay.” “Ahisti pe haw se abayo del: “A tay ne zhum, may chal’ay” ghõi.”To mo chal’ay.” “Se prus’t thi pe awis’aw, to chal’ay tasa at’hi drũki aya oni.” “Shal’ay sudayakan s’is’ shian.” “Al’ay kay tyay el’i saw us’t’in,” ghõi amaaw. Mon banday-o to ahut’aw tal’ey.
Se paraw tara pay nisi ays-ta, dadas aw, faker ao. Faker tara ita tasa kay amaaw ki: “May put tu khẽ bad’ul’a hawi?”
“Ãã dada, sak bad’ul’a thi aam,” ghõi amaaw tasa kay.
Phato gad’a moc bedarman angar araw. Angar kay tara cidin athaaw. Cidin thay precona praw tara puirak kay. Day-o to wis’aaw wis’ay, us’t’i may put nat’ kari, mic-o t’em pas ne hiu.
“Us’t’i nat’ik,” ghõi amaaw-e, se amaaw: “Dada a kia jonim nat’ karik?” “A moc-mi wats kay ne jhonim, kawa pashi-mi ne aam.”
“Tu nat’i tay tada kay pashi-o toa nat’im”, aghõal‘-e, toa se us’t’aw. Toa to l’as’ t’uki tal’ay ahistaw, abayo praw ki: A nashim-day may chal’ay. Cidinay ahistaw toa se prus’t’ awis’aw. Tal’ay wis’i te mos tana hawan. Tana thi at’hi niweron toa chal’ay tara oni batthara kay adrũkaw. Drũki tara hay tal’ay kay udzaki praw-e te himiti us’t’on.
Te pura tre caw bishi juanan, muray istrizha. Te us’t’i amaan ki: … “Ey suda kia kesmat,” aghõan-e se amaaw ki: “hic kia kesmat ne, khodayas nomuna para,” ghõi amaaw, tasi kay. Te-ta paron tan duray hatya.
Shase band kamraay ays shase gad’a istrizha, gheri nokdar murayak hawaw. Murayak thi amaaw ki: “Tu kaway paris-day may ja kari.” “Tu may ja kari aya-mi apaw dek aya bo kamra shian sat kamra shian,” ghõi amaal’-e, se amaaw ki: “Prus’t’, aya nisim, “A adhek caker kay-o im” Tan hãsh asta gri paraw.
Ek awata paraw-e,ek jaygauna sonukuras mõ’ shiu. Se har kal’a ku’ak kariu hul’a-e. Tara no’una samandar shiu hul’a. Tal’ey nong dras’ni toa zhu hula ku’akasi. Toa te sunukuras ku˞akasi saw troin-day: “Har kal’a homa aya ku’ak kariu-day, shal’ey nong dras’ni homa zhu-day,” aghõ.
shal’ey nong dras’ni homa zhu-day,” aghõ.
Se amaaw ki: “Gam mo kara, a to nashem.” Ghõi tara nisaw, nisaw-e pay,
shase nong tal’el’a dras’naw, bo gad’a. Dras’ni tasi neji zhal’iu-e, se to khangar gri tyay to nashaaw. Nashaaw-e te khalas hawan.
Toa sunukur ao, tasi hatya kia asta oniu. Ayas aw, tara ita amaaw: “Atra moc aaw, a zhum-day al’a,” ghõi aaw, deshay thi. “Te amaan ki: “aya, tu mo zhu.” “Ogal’a kay samandar jagay har kal’a jiay.” “Tu ku’ak kaas-day-e te nong zhu-day onjo to nashaaw “.
Ghõi amaan-e, se bo koshan hawaw. Koshan thi tara ita amaaw ki: “Ey, kia kesmat” aghõaw-la. “Hic kia kesmat ne, a mic caker ita ays.” “Parim-day caker parim-day,” aghõ-le
Ek ku’ak tasa day-o amaaw ki: “May ku’ak tay hatya kia kesmat kariu.” To asta gri paraw, se.
Pay ek awata paraw-e, sher aaw sher mut’una s’at’i aaw. Tara s’at’i khuruna tasa mas gri shiu. Mas gri mut’una s’at’i asta, se kasik ne bhaaw. Taa du ku’ak aan. Te adrakay pay tasa hatya ki asta gri oni tasa den-day Se zhuiman tara aaw hul’a. Se tasa kay khondiaw ki: “Ey juhan,” aghõaw ki: “May shandey khalas karik.” “Kia kesmat haw a tay hatya karim,” aghõaw-la.
Se taa kay amaaw: “Tu may zhus,” aghõaw-le. “Ne zhum,” aghõaw, toa se paraw. Tara pay ek l’undur chini tasa ruaw ahistaw. Ruaw histi amaaw ki: “Tay bo pe asa khur trupaaw haw, tu atra don c’hãc’i, mic-o may zhus, tu.” “Daraja hik ne bhaas.” “Asa khur atra thi s’at’i shiu,” aghõ.
Ek l’undur tara histi to chalaaw. Tal’ey chalaaw-e, to l’undur asta brundi khulaaw, se sher.
Toa du ku’akasi on. Tara ita, “zhuk-day,” ghõian. Se amaaw ki: “Mo zhua.” Ay may shehe kay dariman aili, bo gudas himan aili onja, andey khalas hawis,” aghõaaw-e, te bo koshan hawan.
Ek ku’akaso se taa praw. “Ia tay hatya kia kesmat kaaw,” ghõi. Te asta gri paraw.
Kanduri beabanuna paraw, ek shehe ki t’ek jaygauna. Misali ogal’a shatra shahar jhonaaw
Shehe hutala jagayuna se aaw. Se tara-mi nisaw, tara bhangut-day nisi. Se tara-mi nisaw, tara bhangut-day nisi. Se zãgu us’i-o zãgu hiu-day hul’a tara. Tasa hãsh asta aaw, tara. Sher asta aaw, sunukur aaw.
Ek bacaas tre chu asta. Te ja ne-day asta. Adua-ta tal’ay se kasi hul’a, rat-o tromish-o tara ita basiu hul’a. Ek adua tal’ey paraw-e, bacaas chul’asi ja den-day.
Baca chul’asi kay may aaw ki: “A mimi muc’a gamburi dem, el’i gamburi gri abi kas tyat haw, shate mimi beru,” ghõi amaaw, tasi kay. Shehe may, “Prus’t’,” ghõi chul’asi amaan.
Se chutyak chul’as al’a zangu hikwew, shato suda pashi asta. Se bazaray parikwew-o, ek l’andraos sambi bazaray pariu-day hul’a. Te sambiaw niji thel hul’a, te-o.
Toa himiti ek ghona maydanuna sariaan. Sari, saw mocbi tara sariay baca sariay aaw. “May chu ja dem,” ghõi, tara-o gamburi tasi mut’s’a-day aaw-e, chul’asi kuro kas kay tyay aan, kura kas bo shishoyak juhanan kay tyay aan.
Se-o shat asa l’handra mocas kay tyay aaw ki: “May beru shasa,” ghõi. Toa baca kahari hawaw ki: “Tu l’handraas kay gamburi gri pa’.” “A beyizat hawis, a bo ghona moc.” “Sawin pi shishoyak tu chu ay may.” “Tu bo shum beru ari.”
Toa te shehe araw ki nii ek gakgos’t’ay praw. Te du jamol’asi nii angut’iay nisaaw. Te tal’ay aini-ta. Rat-o tasi maharaman kay amaaw ki: “Para,” pay kõ’ kara, may jamol’ay kia mashkul hin-day.” Te du jamol’asi hũk ne kaan-day tan te mashkul hin-day,” ghõi may aaw. Se l’handra-ley amaaw ki: “Copamino pe may ishpashur pe homa mruan hutiu. Te du jamol’asi hũk ne kaan-day tan te mashkul hin-day,” ghõi may aaw. Toa “Prus’t’,” aghõaw, se, tasa kay. “Ko ne hutum-day?.” “Hutum, asa l’handra bo mon del,” ghõi
Copamina te ahutaw, is’kar paron, te. Se tal’ey paraw ala pay, tan jaygauna pay. To l’andraos niji athaaw. Toa te saman sambiis. Sambi-o sunukuras zhe sheras kay amaaw ki al’ay pay du uprahu’yãk gri-o tagar te-o Gonjikaw dhentuna al’ay bihot’ai-o eu,” ghõi amaaw. Se tara l’abe’ hiu-day hul’a, te paron.
Tal’ay pay du dana gri onan. Tara oni te nit’s’uay prus’t’ tayari kay, thay-o, se l’abe’ hiu-day hul’a. Toa du jamol’asi thamam jaygauna kasi, nasi chal’ay-o.
Tara kay uchundon, tara uchundi-o amaan ki: “Ay bo gudas hawimi.” “Homa ek l’handra moc gudas araw.” “Abi ne sapremi,” aghõ-le, se amaaw ki: “A aya safar kay thay aam a mimi dem.”
Ek angus’t’yar tasa som ashis. To angus’t’yar l’at’s’hia araw l’at’s’hia kay. Tasi istek daralit’omay t’hapa s’at’aaw, nis’ani. S’at’ay-o tasi praw, te tasi-day-o te ahutaw.
Pis’t’aw se paraw te shangurbal’u asta gri. Tara hay te za aran, za kay chul’as to za asta gri dadas hatya paraw. Eg-o tal’ay gagrit’s’ ahistaw.
Se zhui zhui akhari-o jagaaw-e: “Bo dzaw shial’a isa l’handraas jaas dzaw,” ghõi. Prus’t’ asa gagrit’s’ tasa ashuna hawaw-e, asa gakrit’s’ al’ay histi oni aaw, asa kiaw ghõi. Tasa hatya bo khaca mon praw.
Se amaaw ki: “Khẽ kaam, dada, tu may nii gakgos’t’ay dyay ays. “Al’ay kaway pal’i shian,” ghõi se tasa kay amaaw. Toa ni ek gardokgos’t’ay te praw.
Tal’ey tromizh-o gheri ahutaw: “Pari,” kõ’ kari may jamol’ay kia mashkul hin-day ghõi. Se tara paraw-e, se amaaw ki: “Copamino pe homa mruan hutiu haw,” ghõi amaaw. “Prus’t’”, ghõi, geri ahutaw, te.
Ahutaw-e, gheri tal’ay paron. Tal’ay pay shase moc hala pay gheri. Taa sheras zhe sunukuras kay amaaw ki “Al’ay pay du shara grii-o tagar te-o khonjigaw dhentuna al’ay bihot’ay eu,” aghõaw.
Shate du jamol’asi gheri tara kay uchundon, bo gudas thi-o, tasi kirmec asta khul thi shian. Was’was’ thi tara uchundi maan: “Shatasa mocas hatya troik-day, abi.” “Ajo du adua al’ay pay gudas thi, ne saprek-day,” agõan-e, se amaaw ki: “Aya shian, a mimi dem.”
Gheri to angus’t’yar l’at’s’hia kay istek t’haralit’omay tay t’hapa s’at’aaw. T’hapa s’at’ay gheri tasi praw. Toa te asta gri paron, pay zama kai gheri ayran tromizh-o.
Toa ni ek chutyak angut’iay te nisaaw. Tal’ai-o gheri huti aaw: “Pay kõ’ kari kia maan-day,” ghõi. Toa se gheri may aaw ki: “Copamino pe homa hãshgal’ karawaaw ghõi amaaw. “Prus’t’,” ghõi, se. “Asa l’handra har chat kia asta maaw-day, karawaam hãshgal’.”
Copamino maydanuna sariini. Se jaas kay amaaw ki: “A hala parim al’ay pay may hãsh halim.” “May te samam sambi im”. “Atra ita hawel’o plinas tyeme ita, tay gad’ara babaaw gulina tyel.” “Se al’a oni may prelel.” “Se oni al’a oni may prelel.” “Tay mochumara babaaw gulina tyel.” “Se oni may dem-day,” ghõi. “Gheri-o pe pa’u tay gulina tyel.” “Tu-o bihot’ay histi.”
Shehe may-o se pay aaw. Tara pay te sambii-o. Copamina ita aaw. Bo moc-bi sari aan tal’ey, bacahiani saw. Toa hawel’-o pl’inas tyay aaw-e, tasa gad’ara baba-as gulina tyay shiu. Se tara hay taa prelay aaw. Te jhonin-o ne-day ki: “Asa homa jamow,” ghõi. Se bo shishoyak moc. Te samam sambi ita aaw. To hic kura ne jhonin aan ki asa beru ghõi.
Gheri tyay aaw-e, tasa ek babas gulina tyay shiu. Se tara hay tasa prelay aaw.
Te du jamol’asi-o shate t’hapa ki tay s’at’ay aan, shate tasi trupay gal’ karik ne bhaan-day. Hãshthara nisik ne bhaan-day. Ek gehen hin-day te trupen-day, ek gehen hiu-day ek gehenaw trupel-lay.
Akhari-o tyay aaw-e, ta.a chutyak babas, se-o bihot’ay histi aaw tasa kay. Histi aaw-e, toa joni aan ki-o asa beru hula. Toa tasi pi bes’ay aaw, se. Te-o ek hal’ asta chal’ek ne bhay aan.
Tal’ay-o bo koshan thi baca te uchundaaw. Tal’ay dura nii, gheri z’eri araw, tasi hatya. Z’eri kay teta mic shum kamraay nisaaw. To-o ni sahi shishoyak angut’iay nisay aan-o.
“Ia may jamow hul’a.” “A ama ne jhoni ays ia hawel’, l’handra ays,” ghõi.
Tal’ay du bas aini ek bas aini.
Shehe ek pis’t’aw-day ek t’ana kamra shial’a. Tal’el’a-day pay ek hinduistrizha asta. Se-o idrõ’ muzhi te bat kariman asta. Se suda pay tara duruna pay aaw-e se jaas may aaw ki: “Tu al’ay mo pari.” “Al’ay pe paraw khatra,” ghõi may aaw-e, se kabul ne kay aaw.
Tal’ay pay aaw-e, se jaduistrizha taa som jadu geri kay to bat kay aaw. Bat kay aaw-e, jaas phato nisi troi aaw.
Toa bayas jagay aaw-e, dadas dura bayas niranguna l’ui khas’i shiu. Toa se chutyak bayas citi aaw ki: “May baya khẽ hawaw haw?.” Tasa is’kuna ek hãsh asta gri se ita aaw.
Ita shatara gad’a istrizhaasuna z’al’i aaw. Se gad’a istrizha to jhoni aaw.
“Jhoni may aaw ki: “Ey juhan, tu shonjami im,” ghõi “pay aay.” “Tu kawa pai-o a, shã shohon wat malal hawi,” ghõi may aaw. Shehe may aaw-e se citi aaw ki: “May baya shaya ita aaw hul’a,” ghõi.
Se tal’ey nasen dras’ni phato pay aaw. Sunukur-as tada zhal’i aaw. Sunukur may aaw ki: “Ey juan, may ku’ak tay hatya kia kesmat ne araw-e.”
“Ne,” ghõi may aaw.
Ek ku’ak gheri taa-day aaw. To asta gri pay aaw.
Gheri pay sheras tada zhali aaw-e, sher tasa kay may aaw ki: “Ey juan, may ku’ak tay hatya kia kesmat ne araw?.”
“Ne araw.” Eg-o gheri se-day aaw.
Te asta gri pay shatara zangu hiu-day, shatara jaygauna us’t’i te jhoni aaw ki: “May baya shaya ita aaw,” ghõi.
Tal’ey pay aaw se pay shaharay pay sida pay taa jaas dura ati aaw. Jaas dura ati aaw-e, jaas shatra to jagay bhalauna pali aaw. Ne taa kay mon dek bhai, ne-ta kia. Toa se mic pakti kay aaw. Pakti kay ruaw thay aaw. Thay aaw mocuna khangar histi aaw. “Shandey andaihak pe tay baza aaw haw tay nashes.” To pakti zhui aan, du gehenaw-day.
To ek shen shial’a. Tal’ay d’ud’i aan-e, mocay khangar histi aaw. Andey andayhak pe tay pet’ek aaw haw, tay nashem,” amaaw.
Toa se copamino gheri se bata pay aaw, taa duruna hatya. Pay aaw-e se may aaw tasa kay: “Tu hawel al’ay pay ay kia has zhui ay?” “Onjo gheri paris-day,” ghõi may aaw, tasa kay. Toa se citi aaw ki: “Oh may baya shanday pay aaw-e.
Se tal’ey durani al’ey atikwew, atikwew, ek mizok tasa shanday ati aaw bazurai. Se tara pay jadu geriuna nisi aaw. Nisi kibaw kay idrõ’ muzhi aan. Se istrizha to har karikas kay aaw, se mizok anenaw ut’iki tara tyay to istrizha har kay aaw. Toa se juan tasa kay amaaw ki: “Shel’i tu tes inisan kari,” ghõi amaaw.
Te bat kay kay shaya puyrak kay aaw hul’a te moc. Toa se deras’ik gri shehe kay tyay aal’-e te himiti us’t’i aan. Tara us’t’i may aan ki: “Ey juan, kia kesmat ghõi aan-e. Hic kia kesmat ne, khodayas namuna para.” “May bayaa bati a aya ita ays.”
Toa tal’ey phato bayas asta thi ita aan. Phonday it-o se citi aaw ki: “Ia may jaa dura ita.” “May jaa som bo mashkul thi aaw,” ghõi, bayas nashay aaw, se ek bayas.
To nashayo se paraw dura hatya. Dura pay nisi aaw, nisi aaw-e, jaas balauna pal’i aaw. “Kia maam asa kay.” Te al’ay parin-day, al’ay pay bat hin onja khẽ thi se ao.
To pakti kay zhui aan. Gheri pakti kay aan e hũk asta ne kay. Zhui aaw toa tasa kay may aaw ki: “Osi tay hatya kia wakia thi ashis ?”
“A osi pakti tay pra, mocay khangar ahisti,” ghõi may aaw.
Huk ne kay aaw pakti zhui aaw. D’ud’ikwew gheri se may aaw ki: “Osi tay hatya kia wakia hawaw?” “Tu mocay khangar ahisti, “A tay nashem, ghõi,” ghõi amaal-e. Toa se citi aaw ki: “Oooh may bayaa galti ne shial’a.” “May baya mic nashes, a,” ghõi.
Pishtyak se us’t’i paraw us’t’i tara pay, taa junazasena pai, nashi aaw. Se tara pay se troi aaw. Troi aaw-e tara ek faker payda hawaw. Faker payda thi taa kay amaaw ki: “Ey juan, ko trois-day?”
Se amaaw ki: “May baya a nashay ays.” “Onjo a ita troim-day isa bati, ko nashes, ama,” ghõi.
Se amaaw ki: “Tu ne nashay aas, isa phal’ik khul aaw ia anashaw, tay mut’s’a thi.” Se amaaw ki: “Dõyõ tu jonis-day.”
“May umbur kimon, may kaw kimon shiu?,” aghõaw.
Se taa kay amaaw ki: “Tay dubishizhedash kaw warek shiu,” amaaw.
Se amaaw ki: “May zhe isa mocuna phazhi, dubishizheponj-o asa de bishizheponj-o may de.” Se tasa phazhi praw-e se us’t’aaw chĩki. Us’t’aaw-e amaaw ki: “A sak d’ud’i ays may ko bujay?,” bayas amaaw.
Se tasa kay amaaw ki: “Tu d’ud’is-o kia-day, a tay nashay ays.” “Onjo gheri tay anga aris, may kaw tay som aphazhis.”
Tal’ey dura paron dura pay, te bo wat tara hin. Tal’ey-o tan bacahiuna hatya te pishtyak, dadas kay amaaw ki: “Ai parik-day homa aya pashialak hiu-day, homa dada” ghõi amaal-e, baca tasi hatya bo saman tasi praw.-day te ahutaw sunukur asta gri.
Te pay shatara jaygauna azhal’an-e se istrizha tasi wal’ thi aaw ja ne thi. To istrizh-o tasa ek bayas ja praw. Ja-day tan dura azhal’an-e dadas zhe ayas bo akhabir thi aan. Te pashi gheri te murayak hawan. Gheri zheri kay zhun-day pin-day nisi aan.
May-o khuta hãsh pron.
A king without sons
Once upon a time, there was a king, he had no sons. Having no sons born, he was becoming old. He also had one horse, it also did not have offspring.
Then a faker came there, a faker came there. Having come there, the king said to him: “I have become old, to me no children are born,” he said, he, the king, said so.
The faker took two apples and gave them to the king. “One apple you and your wife should eat, breaking it into two halves.” “One apple you shall give to the horse, it’ll give offspring.” “She, your wife will give birth to two sons.” “When two sons have been born, the first, eldest son is mine, the small son yours,” he said to him, that faker. He said this, the faker, and he went away from there.
The king went home and stayed there some nine months, or so. The king’s wife gave birth to a son. Having given birth to the sons, the king and his wife did so: For the sons the king made a locked room underground, so as they could not be shown to the world. They were there for a long time. They became older, they have become youngsters. They are studying in school.
When their time had come, when they had become youngsters, right, the faker came, there. Having come there, he said to the king: “Now bring my son, I’m taking him with me.” As the faker said this to the king, the king walked away from there. Having gone back there, he did not bring the older son, the younger son he brought. Having brought him there, and as the king showed him to the faker, the faker said: “This is not my son, my son is a little thicker.” “He is very handsome, bring him!,” the faker said to the king.
Being so said, the king left again, and having gone there, he felt sad, because the older son was very beautiful. He went there, to the faker, again, again he brought the very same child. As he took him there, the faker said: “Don’t fool me, bring my son here, I’m going,” he said.
Then he left, the king, having gone there, and as he spoke to the son, the son became ready to go with the faker. He took both a horse and a sword with him and then went with the faker. He took a sword, and said to his younger brother: “When in case blood appears on your sword, come looking for me.” And he went from there. Having said goodbye to the son’s family, the faker took him away.
The faker taking him away, he took him to his place. Taking him to his place, there was a honey-spring, and, a precona-spring was also there. The faker said to him: “My son, eat this, stay here eating this.” “I must go right now somewhere right near here, having been to the bathroom, I come back,” he said, the faker, and went away.
Seven rooms the faker had there. The faker gave the older son the keys to the rooms. Having given him the keys, he said: “Don’t open one specific room, whereas you can look in the other rooms,” he said.
As the son was playing around at that place, and while going there to the rooms and having forgot about the faker’s orders, he opened up a room: There is an old woman there. She had become very weak, the old woman.
Then she said to him: “Hey, where did you come from?,” she said.
He told to her: “The old man brought me, my father.”
Then she said: “Then, now go.” “The time of your father’s (: the faker's) coming back has come.” “Tomorrow when your father again will be saying “I’ll come very soon,” he’ll go.” “Having gone somewhere, he’ll come back after five days.” “Then come early to me, I’ll tell you something,” she said to him, to the child. As she has said this, he went back.
As he went there to his room, his father (: the faker) came. His father having come there, and as he said: “Now, my son, have you become big and strong?,” the boy said: “Father, I have become very big and strong.” “I’m only shitting precona, I have become very big and strong.” He the faker became very happy.
The old man being happy said: “When I went there previously, I realised that I was late.” “Now I must go there, I’ll be back soon.” Saying so, he went away again.
Then, as the child, being young, ran there to the old woman’s room, the old woman was there. She said, to him: “You should also open that one room too,” she said.
“I haven’t opened it yet,” the boy said.
She said, “In this way, the faker is bringing children here from anywhere.” “Making them big and strong, he eats them.” “Having eaten them and brought the heads there to that room, they are all made a store of.” “The house has become full, but one piece is needed there to fill the room.” “When he has eaten you also, it’ll be completed.” “Then it happened like this there, as he brought me there, I didn’t eat them.” “As I didn’t eat, I became weak.” “Then he did not eat me, having brought me here, putting me in my room, he locked me in.” “Whatever I find of different kinds of birds, I’m eating it, as I’m here,” she said.
She said: “When he your father will come, there is a big pot there, a pot with seven handles, he’ll put it there.” “Having put it in on the fireplace, he’ll light a fire.” “Having lit the fire, and having filled it there with precona, he’ll boil it.” “Having boiled it, he’ll say to you: “My son, stand up, dance,” will say.” “When he has said this, you say: “Father, how do I know how to dance.” “I appeared to the world only short time ago.” “My father brought me up in a locked room.” “I even don’t know any people at all.” “Now I have come here, and except for you I don’t know anyone.” “You stand up and dance, and from watching you, I’ll also know how to dance,” she said, she. “When you have said so, the faker’ll then stand up and dance.” “When he has danced, push him and throw him into the pot.” “Throw him into there, into the middle of the precona, in the pot.” “When you’ll have thrown him, he’ll cry, “oh-ho,” “I’ll not eat you, pull me out.” “Don’t pull him out.” “When he has boilt well, then pull him out, grind his bones, and bring them here.” “There where the heads of the children are.” “When the bone powder have been thrown in there, they’ll all stand up,” she said. Having taught him these words, she sent him away from there.
He went away to his own place, having gone there, and sat down there, his father came, the faker came. Having come there, the faker said to him: “My son, how fat have you become?”
“Yes father, I have become very big and strong,” he told him.
Then the old man suddenly made a fire. Having made a fire, he put a pot there. Having put the pot there, he filled it, putting precona there. Having put it there, he boilt it, having boilt it, he said: “Get up, my son, dance, otherwise time will not pass.”
As he said, “get up and dance,” the boy said: “Father, what do I know about how to dance?” “I don’t know people so well, I haven’t seen any anywhere.”
As he said: “You dance, watching you, then I’ll dance,” then the faker stood up. Then the boy quickly pushed him, threw him into the pot, he yelled “Oh-ho, I’m dying, pull me out.” He threw him into the pot, then he boilt well. Having been boilt there, the meat separated from the bones. Being separated, the bones were separated, then having pulled them out, he brought them there, and he grinded them on a stone. Being grinded and brought there, and as he threw them there, they all stood up.
They were about 60-80 young men and young women. Having stood up, they talked. As they said, “Hey child, what service can we do for you?,” he said: “No service at all, go in God’s name,” he said to them. They then went to their own houses.
That old woman who was in the locked room, became young again. Having become young, she said: “Where are you going!, marry me.” As she said, “You marry me, we can live right here together, here are many rooms, there are seven rooms”, he said, “OK, I’ll stay here.” “But I’ll come back, having gone travelling a bit.” He went away on his horse.
As he came to a place, in that one place there was a falcon’s nest. It was giving birth to offsprings every year. There below, under the nest, there was an ocean. From there a monster would appear and then eat its kids. Then, the kids of the falcon are all weeping, “Every year our mother is giving birth to offsprings, but from there, the ocean, the monster appears and is eating us,” they said.
The boy said: “Don’t worry, I’ll kill it.” Saying this, he stayed there, and as he stayed there, the dragon appeared from there, very big. As it had appeared, and not yet arrived for them the, offsprings, the boy killed it hitting it with a sword. As he killed it, they became free.
Then the falcon came, it was bringing them food. Their mother (: the falcon) came, having come there, the falcon said: “There is a man, I’m going to eat him,” it said from very far away . They said: “Mother, don’t eat him.” “Look at the ocean below, every year, look.” “When you are giving birth to offsprings, the monster who is eating them, is killed.”
As they said this, the falcon became very happy. Being happy, coming there, it said: “Hey, what service can I do for you,” it said. “No service at all, I have only come by while travelling around”, the boy said. “I’m going, I’m going for travelling,” he said. Giving him one son, the falcon said: “My child will do whatever service for you.” Then the boy left with the child of the falcon, he.
Going, as he came to a place, a lion was there, caught by a fallen tree. Being caught there, its leg was attached to the tree. Being attached, caught to the tree, it cannot move. The lion has two offsprings, they were going to the wild forest for him, bringing food and giving it to him. He was eating it, because he was stuck there. The lion called the boy: “Hey, young one,” he said, “release me from here.” “Whatever service you need, I’ll do for you,” it said.
The boy said to him: “You’ll eat me,” he said. “I’ll not eat you,” it said, and then the boy went there, to the lion. Having gone there, he cut a piece of timber, and threw it in front of the lion. Having put it in front of the lion, he said: “When the leg will pain you a lot, you bit the timber there, otherwise you’ll eat me.” “You cannot tolerate to be held in that place.” “That leg has grown together with timber,” he said.
Having put another piece of timber in front of the lion, he pulled the lion out. As he pulled the lion out, he broke the timber by biting it, that lion. Then its two offsprings appeared. Having come there, “We are going to eat him,” they say. The lion said: “Don’t eat.” As the lion said: “You were looking after me like that, you were having much trouble, now I’m free from here,” they became very happy.
The lion gave one off-spring to the boy. “He’ll do whatever service for you,” he said. He left with them.
He went through a lot of wilderness, to such a high place in the mountains. For example, a city there below appeared to him. In such a high place he was. He sat right there, hiding there. He hung up a hammock, and started swinging in it, there. He had a horse too with him there. The lion was also there, and the falcon was there.
A king had three daughters. He had not given them away in marriage. During the day he, the elder brother (: the hero of the story) was walking around there at his hiding place, at night, in the evening, he was sleeping there. One day as he left from there, the king’s daughters were getting married.
The king said to his daughters, “I will hand you flowers, whoever you hit with these flowers, they will be your husbands,” the king said to them. Saying this, “OK,” his daughters said.
The youngest daughter, she had seen that boy while he was playing in the hammock and while he was going to the bazar, he was going to the bazar, wearing the sick-skin clothes. He would wear it, and he would take them off, putting them in place (at his hiding place).
Then all people gathered in one big ground, gathering, a crowd being gathered there, the king announced to them all: “I am going to give my daughter away as a wife,” he said, to whoever there the daughters have hit with those flowers, that he has handed the daughters, to whoever very handsome young man they have hit.”
She (the younger daughter) hit exactly the skin-diseased man, “That is my husband,” she said. Then the king became angry: “You hit a skin-diseased man with the flowers.” “I have been dishonoured, I am big man.” “You are the most beautiful of my daughters.” “You have chosen a very bad husband.”
Then he did this with them, taking them he placed them in a cattlehouse. Taking the two other sons-in-law and their wives he placed them in a guesthouse. There they were but at night the king said to their servants: “Go! and while going there, listen to what my sons-in-law are talking about.” “The two sons-in-law are not saying anything interesting, they are only small-talking,” the servant said. “The skin-diseased said: “If my father-in-law will send us for hunting tomorrow, then we will go.” “The two sons-in-law are not saying anything important, they are only small-talking,” the servant said. Then, “OK,” the king said, he, to the servant, “Why am I not sending them away for hunting?.” “I will send them hunting, that skin-diseased man talks too much.”
In the morning he sent them away, they went hunting, they. The man with the sick-skin clothes left from there, going up to his own place. He took off the sick-skin clothes and put them in place. Then he dressed himself with his own clothes. Having dressed himself, he said to the falcon and the lion: “Go there, catch two pheasants, and let the rest cross the Gonjikaw mountain and come back,” he said. He rested there, they went there (for hunting).
After having gone there, they brought two pheasants. Having brought them there, while they unfeathered them, they placed them after having them ready, the man with the sick-skin clothes was playing.
Then the other two sons-in-law walked around in the forest, but they looked in vain for pheasants to hunt. They came down there, having come down there (to the man with skin-sick clothes), they said, “We faced a lot of problems.” “A man with sick skin tired us out.” As they said “we did not find any pheasants,” he said: “I have cleaned some here, I will give (them) to you.”
He had a ring. He made that ring red by warming it over a fire, having made it red, he branded some signs on their buttocks. Having branded them, having given them signs on the buttocks, he sent them away. Later he left with the insides of the pheasants.
Having brought the intestines there to where the sons-in-law and their wives were staying, they made stew of them. Having made stew, the daughter went to her father with that stew. She threw one piece of cowshit into there.
After eating for a long time, the father finally realised: “It was very delicious, the stew of that skin-sick man’s wife was delicious,,” he said. As he had eaten that cowshit all up, after having put the cowshit into his mouth, he condemned it. He spoke very angrily to her.
She said, “What shall I do, father, you took me and placed me in a cattlehouse.” “Maybe the cowshit has fallen into the stew from somewhere in the cattlehouse,” she said to him. Then the king took her and placed her in a donkey’s stable.
In the evening he sent his servant there again, “Go!,” he said, “listen to what my sons-in-law are talking about.” As he the servant went there, and as the man with the skin-sick clothes said: “I wonder if our father in-law again sends us for hunting tomorrow,” the father said, “OK,” and sent his sons-in-law away again.
As he sent them, they went there again. Having gone there, the man with the skin-sick clothes having gone up there again, said to the lion and the falcon: “When you go there and have caught two markhors and sent the rest of them away across the Khonjigaw mountain, then come back here,” he said.
Those two sons-in-law came down there again empty-handed, very tired, and their shoes had became broken. Ragged, going down there, they say: “We are crying because of that man, we.” As they said “Now we have been away for two days and being tired out we don’t find anything,” the skin-sick man said: “The markhors are here, I give them to you.”
Then again he made the ring burning red and marked signs on them on their buttocks. The marks being attached, again he gave them the caught markhors. Then they left with them (: the meat from the dead markhors), having left, they made stew, and again they carried it to the king in the evening.
Then the king took them and placed them, the daughters and his sons-in-law, in a small guest room. Again he sent his servant there: “When you have gone there, listen to what they are saying,” he said. Then again the man with the skin-sick clothes said, “I wonder if he will make us play polo tomorrow,” he said. “OK,” said the king. “That skin-sick man is always talking about whatever, I make him play polo.”
In the morning they gathered on a big polo ground. The man with the skin-sick clothes said to his wife: “I will go up to my hiding place, when I have gone there, I will bring my horse.” “I will come wearing my own clothes there.” “Coming back there to the polo ground, as I hit the first poloball it will fall into your elder sister’s lap.” “Bringing it she will hand it over to me.” “When I hit it again, the ball will fall into the younger of your elder sisters’ lap.” “Bringing it, she will give it to me,” he said. “When I hit the ball again, it will fall into your lap.” “You throw it away.” Saying this, he went away.
Having gone there to his hiding place he dressed in his own clothes. He came in the morning. Many people have already gathered, everybody from that kingdom. Then, as he then hit the ball the first time, it hit into the elder sister’s lap. Bringing it there, she handed it over to him. They did not know that “He is our own brother-in-law, because he is a very handsome man.” The other man is wearing those dresses. Nobody at all recognized that he was the husband of the youngest daughter of the king.
When he again hit the ball, it was hit into the other sister’s lap. Bringing it there, she handed it over to him.
The two brothers-in-law, because of those marks which was burned onto them and giving them pain, they can not play polo. They cannot sit on the horse. To whatever side they turn, they have pains. They turn on one side, and on the other side, it is hurting in both sides.
At last, as he hit the ball to the youngest sister, she threw it to him. As she threw the ball, then they knew that he was her husband. Then he beat them in the match, he. They could not even make one single goal.
There, being very happy, the king brought them down. Having taken them to the house, he made celebrations for them again. Having made celebrations for them, he simply placed them, the two other sons-in-law, in a bad room. He took the other two, his youngest daughter and her husband, and in a very beautiful guest room they were placed. “Now this is a true son-in-law of mine.” “I didn’t know him at first because he was skin-sick,” he said. They were there for some days.
It was like this, to the back of the king’s house there was another room. Having gone from there, there was a hindu-woman. When they were playing fivestones she was turning the losers into stones. The boy was going, as he went to the door, his wife said: “Don’t go there, if you go there, it will be dangerous for you,” as she said that, he did not accept it.
As he went there, a women-magician, turned him into a stone, as she was performing magic on him. As she made him a stone, the wife of his sat down and cried.
Then as his younger brother who was in his father’s house looked at this brother’s sword, “blood has smeared out.” Then the younger brother thought, “My brother, what could have happened to him?.” In his love he came on a horse to rescue his elder brother.
Having come there, he arrived at the old woman’s place. The old woman, she recognized him, because he looked like his brother. Having recognized him, she said: “Hey, young man, you went from here, saying “I will come soon.” “Where have you been, for such a long time you didn’t come,” she said. As she has said that, he thought, “My brother has been here,” he thought.
He passed by her, then he left (not paying attention, to the old woman any longer). He came to the falcon. The falcon said: “Hey young man, didn’t my offspring do a service for you,” it said.
“No,” he said.
Again it gave an offspring to him. Then he left with it.
As he again came to the lion, the lion said to him, “Hey, young man!, didn’t my offspring do a service for you?”
“No, it didn’t,” the young man said. Also the lion gave him one more again.
Having gone there with the animal offsprings, to that place where his elder brother was lying in the hammock, getting up there, he knew that: “My brother has been here.”
Going from there, leaving, leaving straight for the town, he entered his brother’s wife’s house. As he has entered his brother’s wife’s house, the wife there, looking at him, fell into wonder. Not being able to say anything to him at all. Then she just made rice as usual. Having made rice, she placed it before him. She placed the rice before him, and he placed the sword in the middle of the rice. “If your hand crosses the line from here, I will kill you.” Then they ate rice from two sides.
Then there was a bed. As they slept there, he threw the sword into the middle of the bed. “If your veil crosses this line, I will kill you,” he said.
Then, in the morning he went away again, to that house of the magical woman. As he went there, the sister-in-law said to him: “The first time you went there, what did you eat?.” “Now you are going there again,” she said to him. Then he thought, “Oh, my brother has been here in this house, with the magic woman.”
At the time of entering the house from his own house, a mouse entered into his sleeve.
Going there, he stayed with the witchcraft (: the woman-magician). Staying there, doing whatever, they played fivestones. While the woman was winning, a mouse jumped out from here, from his sleeve, and hit the playing board, and it beat the woman. Then the younger brother said to her,”Quickly, make a good human being,” he said.
She had made many people into stones, made the house full of stone statues of those people. Then taking the smaller stones, she threw them onto the statues like this, then they all stood up. Having stood up there, and as they said: “Hey young man, what service can we do for you,” he said: “No service at all, in God’s name, go.” “I had come here because of my brother,” the young man said.
Then his brother also being they appeared there. On the way, the boy who had just become alive thought to himself: “He came to my wife’s house. He might have talked a lot with my wife,” saying this to himself, he killed his brother, his younger brother.
Having killed him, he went to his house. He went home, sat down, as he sat down, his wife fell into wonder. “What shall I say to him.” “They are going there, going there, they are becoming stones, now how can he come back!,” the wife wondered.
Then having made rice, they ate. They made rice again, they did not say anything at all. He ate, then he said: “What happened to you last night.” “Last night I served you rice and you put the sword into the middle of the rice, she said.
Then he did not say anymore, he just ate rice. At sleeping time, he asked again, “What happened to you last night?.” “You put the sword into the middle of the bed, saying “I will kill you if you cross the dividing line indicated by the sword,” as she said this, then he thought: “Oh no!, my brother did not do wrong.” “I just killed my brother, I.”
Then he stood up and left, having stood up and left for there, he went near to the dead body, where his brother died. Having gone there, he wept. As he wept, a faker appeared there. Having appeared, he (the faker) said to him, “Hey young man, why are you weeping?”
He said, “My brother, I have killed him, I.” “Now, having come here, I’m crying for him, why did I kill him,” he said.
The faker said: “You did not kill him, his grain had finished, he simply died, by your hands.” He said: “Now you know it.”
“What is my age, how many are my years,” the young man said.
The faker said to him: “You have 50 more years,” he said.
The young man said: “Divide them between me and him, give 25 to him, and give 25 to me.” As the faker divided his remaining years for him, the younger brother got up and sneezed. As he stood up, he said, “I slept so well, why did you wake me?,” his brother said.
He said to him: “You were not sleeping, I have killed you.” “Now I woke you up again, I divided my years with you.”
From there they went to the house, having gone to the house, they were there for a long time. The older brother again asked his father-in-law if they could go from there to their own kingdom again. As they said: “We are going now, we miss our mother and our father,” the king gave them a lot of things. Having given them this, then he sent them away along with the falcon.
Having gone, and as they came that place of theirs, the woman waited, had not got married. That woman married with the youngest of the brothers. Being married, and as they came to their own house, his mother and father had become old. Seeing them again, they became young. Again while celebrating, they are eating, drinking, staying there.
And me they gave a lame horse.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 See also text specimens in the Linguistic Survey of India (Grierson Citation1903–1927) and text examples in Georg Morgenstierne’s pioneering descriptions of Dardic, Iranian, and Nuristani languages (Morgenstierne Citation1926, Citation1932, Citation1938, 1940, 1941, 1945, 1950).
2 Chitral District is part of the Hindu Kush massif that stretches from western Tibet, across Northern India and Pakistan, and into Northeastern Afghanistan. The Hindu Kush borders the Pamir massif to the north, with the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent to the south. Chitral District covers the area around the Chitral river and its two northern tributaries as well as a number of eastern and western tributaries. About 400,000 people live in Chitral District. The largest town and administrative centre is Chitral town.
3 See Section 5, Table , for the principles of representing the Kalasha language in writing.
4 According to ethnologue.org, Kalasha has 3,200 speakers in the Northern area. No number is given for the Southern area.
5 I choose to use the Kalasha names for the valleys, otherwise known by their Khowar nomenclature ‘Bumburet’, ‘Rumbur’, and ‘Birir’.
6 The Kalasha people are in fact a major tourist attraction, often promoted in Pakistan as an unspoiled and innoncent paradise (Alaudin Citation1992). Western-based non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have also found their way to the (traditional) Kalasha valley and have provided financial support for the construction of bridges, irrigation channels, village temples, school buildings, etc. This enterprise has led to changes in the traditional economy and in the traditional way of deciding on finance and community problems and tasks. See Mørch and Heegaard (Citation1997, 26–31), Maggi (Citation2001, 18–30), Parkes (Citation2001), Bashir (Citation2011), and Heegård and Khan (Citationforthcoming) for examples of consequences of this attention from foreigners.
7 For detailed descriptions of the Kalasha mode of life and religion, see CitationSiiger (1956, 1963, 1967), Parkes (Citation1983, Citation1987), Loude and Lièvre (Citation1987), Cacopardo (Citation2006, Citation2008), Cacopardo and Cacopardo (Citation1989, Citation1991, Citation2001), Liévre and Loude (Citation1990), Maggi (Citation2001), and Fentz (Citation1996, Citation2010). For an illustration of the importance of the ‘holy’ nature of the ónǰeṣṭa concept, see Text 9.5.
8 This implies that the Kho people must have left or been driven out from the southern part of Chitral in order to invade the Kalasha kingdom from the north after the common intrusion into Chitral from the south. This aspect of the history of Chitral is not, to my knowledge, discussed in the literature on the history of the region.
9 See also Parkes (Citation1983, 12), who points out that references to Alexander the Great can be found in legends from many tribes in the Hindu Kush and that this may be due to the influence of Medieval historians.
10 According to Liljegren (Citation2008, 23), usage of Palula in Kalkatak is decreasing dramatically in the younger generation, which prefers to speak Khowar or Pashto.
11 See Decker (Citation1992) for a lexical similarity comparison, which distinguishes the Utsund dialect from the varieties spoken in Biriu and Mumoret.
12 See Mørch and Heegaard (Citation1997, 62–65, 164–168) for a detailed phonetic dialect study of Kalasha, to this author’s knowledge the only one existing. Mørch and Heegaard (Citation1997, 10–16) and Mørch (Citation2000b) further present sociolinguistic data on language vitality as well as age, gender, and approximate number of speakers of these moribund varieties of Kalasha.
13 See Mock (Citationforthcoming) for a detailed survey of use of the terms ‘Dard’, ‘Dardistan’, and ‘Dardic’. For an annotated bibliography on the Dardic languages, see Schmidt and Koul (Citation1983).
14 The major Nuristani languages are Kamkata-viri (including Kati), Vasi-Vari, Ashkunu, and Kalasha-ala/Waigali (Strand Citation2001). See also Nelson (Citation1986) and Degener (Citation2002) for summaries of and views on classification of the Nuristani languages.
15 See Strand (Citation2001, 258) and http://users.sedona.net/~strand/index.html for this grouping of the Dardic languages.
16 The linguistic interest in the Kalasha (and in the Hindu Kush languages) is superceeded by an enormous anthropological and ethnographical research in the area. For an overview see the lists of literature in Klimburg (Citation1999), Cacopardo and Cacopardo (Citation1991, Citation2001), Maggi (Citation2001) and Fentz (Citation2010)).
17 Bashir’s analyses are solidly based on a huge number of glossed and translated examples from her own fieldwork and previous work on Kalasha, and also on texts collected by the British anthropologist Peter Parkes. Her thesis contains detailed descriptions of the verbal system, relative clauses, compound verb constructions, causative constructions, conjunction strategies, as well as a discussion of how Kalasha relates genetically and typologically to Khowar and to the Indian language area. It is the main source for the sections on verbal morphology and syntax in the Grammar in this publication.
18 While the creation of and decision on an alphabet for the Kalasha language has been settled and agreed upon, it seems more difficult to develop a tradition of literacy and, more importantly, to produce school books in the Kalasha language. There are, however, opportunities for developing teaching materials through collaboration with other anthropologists and linguists, who for decades have gathered texts and photographic materials of different kinds, for example the text samples in Parkes (Citation1983, Citation1990), Heegård Petersen (Citation2006b), Di Carlo (Citation2009), Cacopardo (Citation2010), and the present publication. If further integration of anthropological and linguistic work with the Kalasha education is to be successful, closer collaboration is needed between Kalasha teachers and researchers. One example of a successful collaboration is the photo book Daily Life among the Kalasha: A Photo Book by Mytte Fentz and Torben Stroyer, with Help from Engineer Khan (Fentz and Stroyer Citation1995), which was donated to the Kalasha school teachers in 1995. The book consists of 140 thematically arranged photographs that depict situations from the daily life of the Kalasha. It is produced with the aim of motivating discussions and reflections among students about what it means to be a Kalasha.
19 See, for example, Sharakat and Bumburdari (Citation2011).
20 See for example presentations and discussions by Turner [1927] (Citation1973), Morgenstierne (Citation1947, Citation1974), Strand (Citation1973), Tikkanen (Citation1988), Bashir (Citation1988a, Citation1988b, Citation1996, Citation2001, Citation2003, 818–894, Citation2006a, Citation2006b, Citation2010), Baart (Citation1999), Zoller (Citation2005, 1–20), Liljegren (Citation2008), and Perder (Citation2013).
21 Dek ‘give’ and dyek ‘put’ may in some cases – and by some speakers – be used interchangeably.
22 Compound verbs in Kalasha (and Khowar) are analysed in detail by Bashir (Citation1988a, 218–265).
23 In other presentations (Heegård Petersen Citation2006a, Citation2006b; Heegård Citation2014), these words have been termed ‘relational nouns’ or ‘relator nouns’, following a tendency in the typological literature, see for example Starosta (Citation1985), Svorou (Citation1994), and Blake (Citation2001).
24 Among the morphological and semantic features that should be considered in a more elaborate presentation are: the function of the derivative suffixes -wew ‘time of, during’ and -mina ‘during’; the temporal uses of the spatial suffix -una and the spatial adverbs andáy ‘until now’ (originally ‘here-ne.nonspc’, for example in the fixed construction káyaw … andáy ‘from when until now’) and taɫáy ‘then, at that time’ (originally ‘there-di.nonspc); and the function of the temporal suffixes -ano and -asa (Section 6.3.6). For other temporal expressions and strategies, I refer to the comments to the texts.
25 According to phonotactical rules, a reduplicated aspirated consonant loses its aspiration in the reduplicated syllable.
26 Morphologically fossilised relational adverbs such as pístaw and rúaw may be considered newly developed postpositions.
27 Numeral compounds forming the 20-base have the stress on the first element, as in (52). All other numeral compounds follow the general rule of having stress on the final stem component of the compound, see other examples and Table .
28 I am grateful to Taj Khan and Elena Bashir for providing me with information concerning the ordinal numbers, which are scarce in my data.
29 See Heegård Petersen (Citation2006b, 108–130) for lists of these predicates.
30 Bodily and emotional states include physical sensations and conditions, cognitive states of liking and perceiving, wanting or needing, obligation or compulsion, external circumstances, or events affecting the experiencer (Bashir Citation1988a, 155–185, 196–217, Citation1990).
31 When the +/– volitional action is expressed by a simplex verb or a conjunct verb with parik as the vector verb, the involuntary action can be expressed by a conjunct verb with hik as the vector verb (Bashir Citation1988a, 205).
32 The predicates that occur with this structure typically denote ‘say’, ‘think’, ‘want to’, ‘tell’, ‘fear’, ‘try’, ‘forget’, ‘remember’, ‘know’, ‘be ashamed’, ‘promise’, ‘consider’, ‘force’, ‘persuade’, ‘advice’, ‘believe’, ‘understand’, ‘recognise’, ‘realise’, ‘shout’, ‘scream’, ‘advise’, ‘cry’, ‘seem’, ‘intend’, ‘be able’, ‘be ready’, ‘be eager’, ‘decide’, ‘wonder’, ‘order’, ‘be greedy’, ‘ask for’, ‘beg’, ‘remind’, ‘warn’, or ‘allow’ (Bashir Citation1988a, 268–274).
33 According to Bashir (Citation1988a, 274–277), the following predicates can occur with ghṍi in this structure: ‘say’, ‘think’, ‘want to’, ‘tell’, ‘fear’, ‘try’, ‘hope’, ‘doubt’, ‘inform’, ‘convince’, ‘whisper’, ‘ask’, ‘conspire’, ‘challenge’, or‘agree’.
34 A ser is a measure of approximately one kilogram.
35 Predicates of this type include ‘speak’, ‘think’, ‘want’, ‘fear’, ‘reply’, and ‘exclaim’ (Bashir Citation1988a, 280–282).
36 Predicates of this type include ‘speak’, ‘think’, ‘know’, ‘be ashamed’, ‘believe’, ‘understand’, and ‘wonder’ (Bashir Citation1988a, 282–285).
37 Predicates that can occur with this complement construction include ‘prepare’, ‘allow’, ‘tell’, ‘decide’, ‘remind’, ‘be ready’, ‘be eager’, and ‘get a chance’ (Bashir Citation1988a, 286–288).
38 Predicates that can participate in this construction include ‘try’, ‘order’, ‘fear’, ‘advise’, ‘think of’, ‘be about to’, and ‘begin to’ (Bashir Citation1988a, 288–290).
39 Predicates of this type include ‘be about to’, ‘be appropriate’, ‘say’, and ‘intend’ (Bashir Citation1988a, 290).
40 These predicates include ‘be able to’, ‘begin to’ , ‘look for’, ‘want to’, ‘finish’, ‘stop’, ‘know how to’, ‘learn’, ‘teach’, ‘think about’, ‘remember’, ‘forget’, ‘like’, and ‘fear’ (Bashir Citation1988a, 291–293).
41 These predicates encompass ‘allow (to go)’, ‘be eager’, ‘be ready’, and ‘consider’ (Bashir Citation1988a, 293–295).
42 For an in-depth analysis of relativisation structures in Kalasha, see Bashir (Citation1988a, 325–384).
43 See Bashir (Citation1988a, 49–53) for a brief survey of some of these discourse particles.
44 A number of these strategies, with similar or different functions, are documented for Gilgiti Shina in Radloff and Shakil (Citation1998).
45 Radloff and Shakil (Citation1998, 77, and elsewhere) report functions of vowel lengthening in Gilgiti Shina.
46 This linkage strategy is known througout the Hindu Kush region and is also referred to as ‘tail-head linkage’ (Perder Citation2013, 189, citing Coupe Citation2006, 151). Similar strategies are described, for example, for Dameli (Perder Citation2013, 189–193), Gilgiti Shina (Radloff and Shakil Citation1998, 124, 150), and Shina of Indus Kohistan (Schmidt and Kohistani Citation2008, 223–225).
47 See Schmidt and Kohistani (Citation2008, 229) for a similar function of conjunctive and adverbial participles in Shina of Indus Kohistani.
48 As a numeral, ek means ‘1’, but it also functions to introduce a discourse referent and as such is translated with ‘a’ or ‘an’.
49 With the inferential aspect form of the verb, the narrator sets the narrative in a fictional world.
50 To ‘then’ is a variant form of toa.
51 The derivative suffix -wew ‘while, during, at the time of’ suffixes to the infinitive form of the verb.
52 The conjunct verb roytu dek seems to be a loan or a calque from Khowar roytu dik ‘meet someone’ (Bashir, pers. comm.). In Khowar, roy means ‘person’, -tu s a locative case-marker associated with a vertical motion of configuration, and dik means ‘give’. The specific verb particle -day [dɛ]/[dɛɪ̯] has the allomorph -lay [lɛ]/[lɛɪ̯] after a verb inflection in -l.
53 Reduplication of a stressed syllable is a frequent means of expressing intensification or moreness. If the reduplicated syllable contains an aspirated consonant, the aspiration is not reduplicated (see tsa-tshatak ‘very small’ in Line 24).
54 Lines 9-10 show that the copula verb is omitted in equative sentences, whether the predicative constituent is an adjective (‘the fox (is) clever’) or a noun phrase (‘I and you (are) good people’).
55 The verb matrik with the intervocalic consonant group -tr- is the Biriu equivalent to Rukmu-Mumoret maik.
56 The suffix -awt/-awtr attaches to kinship terms that denote family members on the paternal side who are equal by blood to Ego, such as baja ‘brothers, paternal male cousins’, baba ‘sisters, paternal female cousins’, dada ‘paternal uncles (father’s brothers)’, and nana ‘paternal aunts (father’s sisters)’. The suffix takes the main stress of the suffixed word, and the root final a vowel is deleted by the suffixation.
57 According to Trail and Cooper (Citation1999), the conjunct verb wal’ hik means ‘be a guard or protector’, but here it seems to have the more specific meaning of ‘go into or take a waiting position (as if hunting)’.
58 The noun uk ‘water’ in ug onim ‘I’ll fetch water’ shows that voice assimilation may work across a word boundary.
59 Copa ‘morning’ and the suffix -wew have lexicalised to mean ‘early morning; daybreak’.
60 The temporal suffix -asa attaches to nouns and denotes a period during which the phenomenon that the noun denotes takes place.
61 In compounds, the second element takes the main stress, as in uc’hars’is’ ‘top end of waterfall’ (uc’har ‘waterfall’ + s’is’ ‘top end’).
62 According to Jan Heegård’s field notes, the narrator points out with gestures where the fox sleeps in relation to where the snow leopard sleeps. He does so to make clear where the two characters sleep in relation to one another, which is essential for understanding the subsequent events. The words for ‘here’ and ‘there’ in the following are also accompanied by pointing gestures.
63 The suffix -o marks the focus constituent here. As the following lines will show, it is essential that it is the fox that initially sleeps at the dangerous place, near the edge of the waterfall.
64 Ghen is a variant form of gehen ‘direction’.
65 Here the narrator uses the Rukmu-Mumoret version maau, not Biriu matraw.
66 A few words alternate with respect to their initial labial stop consonant. Puchum/buchum is one example, and post/bost ‘skin’ is another. This speaker seems to prefer the variant with [b].
67 As the snow leopard is fast asleep, he is not aware that the fox has moved to the safer sleeping place, up the mountain. In his sleep, the snow leopard thinks that the fox is near the edge of the waterfall, so that if he moves in the opposite direction, ‘uphill’, like the fox tells him, he will move farther up when he is in fact moving closer to the edge, downhill, to the dangerous side.
68 The suffix -la may be used for downtoning a command. It may also be used for expressions of admiration.
69 Word repetition is here used to express a prolonged or intense activity.
70 The conjunct verb dzuk dyek is peculiar since there is a close synonym in the language, dzukek ‘move someone’. It seems as if the verb stem dzuk has been incorporated into the productive verb-formation process constituted by the conjunct verb formation. (The voiced dental affricate [dz] varies freely with [z].)
71 Kisa is a loanword for ‘story’. It is widely used in Biriu instead of the indigenous ac’hõ’ik.
72 The phrase kaymina kaymina has lexicalised to mean or equate to the English ‘once upon a time’, an introduction to a fictional narrative.
73 As a means of involving the audience from the start of the narration, the narrator addresses the male fieldworker with the term of address for a male person, baya. Its literal meaning is ‘brother’ or ‘male cousin’.
74 The narrator uses the inferential aspect from the start to set the narrative in a fictional realm.
75 Baba, literally ‘sister’ or ‘female cousin’, is the female term of address equivalent to baya, and the narrator uses it to address the female fieldworker.
76 The numeral ek ‘1’ here functions to introduce a discourse referent, translated in English by the indefinite article a.
77 Kalasha does not have a ‘have’ verb. Possession is expresed with the possessor in the genitive-oblique case, the possessed entity (here people) in the direct case, and a ‘be’ verb inflected in accordance with the number of the possessed entity.
78 The person in question is the same person as introduced above. The narrator merely repeats the information that the man had no sons as a means of emphasising his unfortunate situation.
79 The narrator here shifts to the present tense, the narrative present. The meaning is probably that the daughter is at school for a long time, and then as told in the following sentence, she (finally) goes home from there.
80 The specific particle dai has the allomorph lai when following an ending in -l.
81 The manner adverbial prus’ kai ‘well’ is an example of how kai ‘doing, done’ can be used to form transitive adverbials, see Grammar, Section 6.10.3.3.
82 The adjective kambak ‘unfortunate’ here functions as a noun, with the genitive-oblique ending.
83 The repetion of the preceding verb as a cp adds no new information but can be seen as means of creating cohesion between succeding events. A literal translation into English often seems awkard or unnecessary. For a description, see Section 7.8.
84 Janjal ‘argument’ is pronounced with a strong, breathy voice, indicating an intense argument.
85 The contrastive particle -ta here has an emphasising function.
86 The locative ending -ai is used instead of -una to express the idea that the daughter has entered a big enclosure and is out of sight for the father, see Grammar, Section 6.3.5.
87 The word for ‘field, open space’ maydan is pronounced with a prolonged vowel in the second syllable as a means of emphasising that the father is all alone in big, empty space.
88 Although the location of the bed is still in an enclosure, the locative ending -una can be used instead of -ai because the location is known and exactly specifiable to the narrator and the audience (see Grammar, Section 6.3.5).
89 Tap ‘completely’ is pronounced with a creaky voice, as a means of emphasising the darkness inside the mountain.
90 Upac’hi ‘pulled out’ is pronounced with a long vowel as a means of indicating that the daughter pulled out nails from the bed for a very long time, i.e. that there were a lot of nails attached to the bed.
91 The adverb puchum ‘uphill’ refers to the end of the bed that is away from the daughter. It is probably not used in the topographical sense, as the synonym thar- ‘top part of something’ is used in the next line.
92 The particle -o has a contrastive meaning here, highlighting the two ends of the beds, as our protagonist goes from the top part of the bed to the ‘downhill part’ of bed, i.e. the lower, opposite part.
93 In combination with a verb in a perfective conjugation, the verb parik ‘go’ may add a sense of completeness (Trail and Cooper Citation1999, 230) or passivity. The construction diman parik is not analysed here as a compound verb construction since parik occurs with the imperfective participle -iman and not the perfective participle -i, see Grammar, Sections 6.6.1 and 6.6.5; see also Bashir (Citation1988a, 56).
94 The word for ‘girl’ istrizhagu’ak refers to another woman in the mountain.
95 Again, the narrator uses vowel lengthening as a means of indicating an intense and long activity.
96 The afterthought construction is here for the introduction of a new discourse referent, the young man.
97 The ‘later’ wife, i.e. the second wife, is our protagonist, the unfortunate daughter. The ‘before’ wife, i.e. the first wife, introduced as istrizhagu’ak in Line 55, is the wife who was already there in the mountain.
98 This clause is pronounced with a creaky voice throughout, to express the intense sadness that the first wife is experiencing since her husband is only talking to the second, the new wife.
99 The past inferential (3sg and 3pl) of hik ‘become’ here functions as a marker of inferentiality, used with the present tense oniu ‘brings’, rendering the notion of ‘would’ (see Bashir Citation1988a, 77).
100 The reference of se ‘she’ is under-specified. However, it must be the first wife who did not say anything.
101 Trail and Cooper (Citation1999) analyse kalamdar as a noun meaning ‘a person who wanders around and sings and makes charms for money’. Here kalamdar is clearly used as an adjective and translated as ‘magic’.
102 ‘Woman’ is unspecified and ambiguous. In order for the story with the protagonist portrayed as ‘unfortunate’ to make sense, it must be the ‘unfortunate daughter’ who dies, in or by the hands of the first wife of their shared husband.
103 Lines 91–95 form a formulaic means of ending a narrative, where the narrator ironically downgrades the validity of the story (‘someone told me this lie’), the trustworthiness of the himself or herself (‘and now I passed it on to you’), and his or her judgement (‘I bought a halt horse’).
104 The adjective chutyak ‘young (animate)’ is here analysed as a noun, ‘youth’, since it takes the locative ending -una which only suffixes to nouns (Grammar, Section 6.3.5).
105 This should be aya-a ‘mother-1p.psr.sg.psd’ (‘our mother’), with -a indicating the first plural possessor (Grammar, 6.3.7, Table ), but it seems that the second component, third singular tasa in the phrase may zhe tasa ‘my and his’ governs the ending.
106 The suffix -awtr is used when denoting a group of blood-related siblings by the same father, e.g. dadawtr ‘uncles’ (i.e. father’s brother), bayawtr ‘brothers’, babawtr ‘sisters’, and nanawtr ‘aunts’ (i.e. mother and her sisters).
107 Awat is one of many words for ‘place’. It is used when the location is exactly identifiable.
108 Bas ‘day, 24 hours’ and hik ‘become’ here constitute a lexicalised conjunct verb ‘stay (temporarily)’.
109 The narrator has a creaky voice on the word musim to emphasise that the weather is really bad. In the next line, bo ‘much’ is also pronounced with a creaky voice, again to emphasise that the weather is bad.
110 In conjunct verbs that denote weather phenomena, the vector verb is dyek ‘put’.
111 The adjectivising suffix -i is probably a loan from Persian.
112 There is a very strong creaky voice in the phrase bo moc, which indicates that there were a lot of people inside the ship.
113 Used with durative verbs, the present perfect denotes a progressive meaning.
114 The verb parik ‘go’ is here used as a vector verb in a compound verb construction, anga hik parik, which gives an additional meaning of ‘completely’ to the negated verb anga ne hik ‘not be awake’ (see Grammar, Section 6.6.5). In addition, to emphasise even more that he was not at all awake, the narrator uses a creaky voice in pay.
115 Bo ‘much’ is pronounced with a creaky voice, indicating that what follows occured a long time after the narrator had fallen asleep.
116 It seems as if the function of pay here is merely to create cohesion as it cannot refer to any motion mentioned before; see also Section 7.8.
117 The narrator uses a creaky voice with an emphasising effect throughout this sentence.
118 Until the word nisikeynani, the narrator has an emphasising creaky voice.
119 The suffix -eyn denotes a place where a certain activity (here a sitting activity) is going on.
120 The participle thi ‘being, becoming’ can be used in an ablative context in order to emphasise the source location in a motion away from somewhere.
121 This sentence is also spoken with an emphasising creaky voice.
122 The hearsay-past asta in the initial sentence of the narrative signals that the story is set in a non-actual world.
123 A kut’u is a small and simple construction used as a temporary shelter and built near one’s field for protection and rest.
124 This means that the old man was so poor that he could only live in a kut’u and not in a proper house.
125 Suffixed to a recently mentioned word, the particle -o functions as a marker of sequentiality.
126 The participle verb form dhui functions here as a conjunctive participle, expressing the manner in which the leading character of the story was living. The vowel lengthening, marked with ‘ːː’, expresses intensification or prolongation of an activity. Here it is used as a means of expressing that the protagonist indeed lived the simple and poor life of a shepherd, milking goats and living from the milk. This connotation is rendered in English by the adverb ‘solely’.
127 In contrast to its previous use, the particle -o has a contrastive function in this clause, marking information that is contrastive to something either mentioned or (as here) expected.
128 Like many other Indo-Aryan languages Kalasha lacks a verb ‘have’ to indicate possession. Possession is expressed with the possessor in the oblique case, the possessed entity in the nominative, and a copula verb that agrees with the possessed item in number: may ek dur shiu ‘I have a house’ (literally ‘my one house is’).
129 The verb chiaik ‘dry up’ can be used for a spring or for milk-giving animals such as goats and cows.
130 The participle thi ‘being, becoming’ functions here as conjunctive participle in the typical narrative use. It repeats the previously mentioned action or state of affairs as background information for the following action or state of affairs. This use of the conjunctive participle occurs throughout the narrative, frequently by use of the verb form pay ‘going, having gone, gone’, from parik ‘go’.
131 Suyr- is a root allomorph of suri ‘sun’, where the palatal /i/ shifts to /j/, ‘y’ in the Kalasha orthography.
132 The participle word form dyay, from dyek ‘put’, is here a conjunctive participle with a subordinating function. It subordinates the action ‘placing something in the sun’ to the syntactically primary action ‘letting dry’.
133 With the conjunctive participle, -o expresses temporal sequentiality (Bashir Citation1988a, 51). This function can be seen throughout all of the narratives.
134 Word repetition, here of the verb form citi aaw ‘(he) thought’, is a means of expressing a repeated or a prolonged activity, implying here that the protagonist thought a lot about what to do.
135 This use of -o expresses counter-expectation: Although many people were present, none of them noticed the poor man.
136 The vowel lengthening expresses intensification, translated here in English with a repetition of the adverb ‘very’.
137 With the causative suffix -a-, the intransitive verb us’t’ik ‘climb, ascend, get up from lying position’ here means ‘bring in up-lying position’.
138 The word form au-mau is an m-reduplication in which the word form is repeated, m- inserted before a word-initial vowel (or replacing a word-initial consonant), and the accent shifted to the reduplicated word part. The m-reduplication renders the meaning ‘and stuff’, indicating that the actants consumed food and that which belonged to it. Another meaning of the m-reduplication is ‘vehemence’ (cf. Bashir Citation1988a, 393; Heegård Petersen Citation2006a, 48).
139 Anga hik ‘wake up, stay awake, remember’ is a conjunct verb that consists of the adjective anga ‘awake, alert, aware’ and the intransitive vector verb hik ‘become’. As this example shows, a conjunct verb is negated by inserting the negation between the nominal element and the vector verb.
140 Harik means ‘take, take away something (inanimate)’. In the past actual tense, it can have the forms aher- and air-. The narrative contains several other words for ‘take’ and ‘bring’.
141 With durative verbs, the present perfect denotes a state, here ‘being asleep’ (Bashir Citation1988a, 67).
142 The conjunctive verb phrase s’ong-s’ongay tyay ‘hitting the branches’ denotes the cause of the sound’s appearance. The reduplication of the stem renders the idea of a moreness of branches. The locative ending -ai renders the idea of inexact or dispersed location, that the cowhide hit the branches all the way through the tree; see Grammar, Section 6.3.5.
143 The quotative ghõi here indicates ‘indirect thought’, i.e. what the people thought for themselves when the cowhide hit the water.
144 Following a nominal phrase with an ablative ending, as in asmanani thi, thi ‘being, becoming’, indicates a natural relationship or stable contact between the entity moving away from somewhere and the source of the motion (here the sky) (Heegård Petersen Citation2006a, 240–242). In this use, thi invokes the idea that something belonging to the sky falls down upon the crowd of people, who are naturally very frightened.
145 The vowel lengthening emphasises that all of the people jumped into the water (out of fear).
146 The phrase anday-al’ay is composed of anday ‘here (non-specific)’ and al’ay ‘there (distant, non-specific)’ but is lexicalised to mean ‘here and there’.
147 The verb tyek ‘hit’ may be used instead of a regular action verb, here ‘look’, in order to emphasise the intensity of the action.
148 With the past-hearsay asta, this sentence expresses the old man’s thought or conclusion. The cowhide is not present, and he has not seen where it went, so (by inference) it must have been taken away.
149 The quotative particle indicates that the sentence expresses the old man’s thought.
150 Tai ‘3p (remote, oblique)’ is a casual form of tasi.
151 As a relational adverb (Grammar, Section 6.7.2), tad- denotes the projective location of something or someone in relation to a ground location (Heegård Petersen Citation2006a, 247–262). The entity to which a relational noun indicates a location is always in the oblique case. The root tad- can thus be translated as ‘(something’s) near’.
152 The narrator uses the noun us‘is’ ‘top, upper portion of something’ (here the herd of animals) and its counterpart prago ‘lower portion of something’ perhaps in order to indicate a sloping location for the herd of animals, which is located along a river bank. One portion of the herd is located upriver, and the end of the herd is located downriver.
153 The use of -o in the phrase ‘NP-o ... NP-o’, here with NPs expressing time, renders the meaning ‘and even’, ‘it was NP, and even NP’.
154 Trail and Cooper (Citation1999) translate kharca as ‘spending money, expense’. Used in this specific context, it seems to mean ‘things to give (to animals)’, i.e. ‘food’ or ‘fodder’.
155 The m-reduplication denotes an indefinite number or mass of the entity denoted by the noun, here ‘fodder’, and in the following line ‘luggage and stuff’ (Bashir Citation1988a, 393; Heegård Petersen Citation2006b, 48).
156 The verb rumbek has the specific meaning of gathering animals in a line.
157 The word gordok ‘donkey’ is Khowar but is frequently used by the Kalasha. The Kalasha word is gardok.
158 The vowel lengthening emphasises that there were many animals and other things present.
159 Sohorum means ‘gold, precious metal, precious things’. The plural verb form shows that it is a plural word.
160 The use of the conjunctive participle pay ‘going’ is a means of creating cohesion between the clauses in a narrative. Repeating the main verb of the previous sentence, it seems to be semantically redundant as the listener is already aware of what action is taking place.
161 Kawel’a ‘from where’ is made up of the adverbial root kaw- ‘where’, the ‘across edge’ derivative -el’-, and the Loc1 suffix -a (see Grammar, Section 6.7.1.1, Table ).
162 The quotative particle ghõi marks indirect speech.
163 The noun gec is Khowar for ‘eye’ but adopted into Kalasha as part of a conjunct verb meaning ‘to wait’.
164 The particle -o here indicates that the people who were taken away by the river have been mentioned before.
165 Trail and Cooper (Citation1999) translate taza karik ‘heal’ in the participle form ‘healed’. In the context here, it seems to mean ‘alive’.
166 The construction pe ... dya gives the meaning ‘if ...., then ....’.
167 Meaning ‘having sold that skin while the cow had been alive’.
168 Trail and Cooper (Citation1999) give the construction warego kia ‘what else’ (literally, ‘another-o’ + ‘what’). The construction warego kura (literally, ‘another who’, with possible g-drop) seems to be built upon the same pattern, meaning ‘who else’. Like other fixed constructions, this can also be broken up by other words.
169 Pata ne, literally ‘knowledge not’, is here translated as ‘nothing happened’. In normal speech, pata ne can also mean ‘I don’t know’.
170 Mamila has vague semantics. Trail and Cooper (Citation1999) translate it as ‘situation, condition, happening’. It can be used as a sort of dummy noun meaning ‘an event, situation, or condition of some sort’.
171 The truncated forms of the demonstrative pronouns with elided an intervocalic consonant, here ei for emi, are frequent in everyday language but are by no means obligatory. Note the full form emi in the following clause.
172 Used with a sentential complement only, without a matrix verb, ghõi can indicate the meaning ‘intention’ (Bashir Citation1988a, 284–185).
173 The speaker here uses the Khowar word gocu for ‘cowhide’ instead of Kalasha gaw in order to indicate the language of the bazaar.
174 The line “goču ispa kyaa ajat” is Khowar, here used to imitate the language of the people in the bazaar. The Kalasha equivalent would be gaw homa kia atyat hiu.
175 The repetition of the movement verb expresses that the walking took place for a long time and perhaps that it was tedious (indicated in English here by the adverb ‘finally’) since the village people had no luck selling the cowhide.
176 This somewhat dramatic line is followed by the complimenting heckle khay baca ‘alright king’ from a member of the audience.
177 Meaning ‘who cares for him except God’.
178 The compound verb dui nisik, literally ‘burnt go’, indicates that nisik ‘sit down’ can also function as a vector verb, as a supplement to the three vector verbs dek ‘give’, parik ‘go’, and dyek ‘put’ identified by Bashir (Citation1988a, 220). The meaning seems to be that of ‘completion of event’ and ‘negative outcome’. Nisik thus seems to compete with parik in function (Bashir Citation1988a, 242).
179 Duik means ‘get burnt’ and junkik ‘to burn’.
180 The repetition of the verb dunion ‘thought’ indicates iterative or prolonged activity.
181 Kibaw, here translated as ‘event’, is a high-frequency word that can substitute for practically all nouns or phrases that denote events or situations of some sort, meaning ‘an event or situation of some kind’.
182 In this and the following sentences, the narrator says uk and not ukai with the locative ending -ai, indicating encompassed (and hidden) location (Grammar, Section 6.3.5). One language consultant prefers ukai because the shepherd “is totally surrounded by the water.” Another language consultant explains that -ai is not grammatically compulsory with nouns denoting liquids.
183 The interjection abayo expresses recognition that something bad has happened.
184 Due to the lability of voiced aspiration, see Section 6.2.1, the past tense form of harik ‘take something (inanimate) away’ shows considerable variation: ahirau, hairau, airau.
185 A hundur or undur is the hollowed piece of timber that functions as a channel leading the water from the irrigation canal to the water mill.
186 The matrix verb duniis or acitis ‘thought’ is omitted, and direct speech is indicated by the quotative ghõi.
187 The construction ne-o ... ne-o ... (‘not-top ... not-top’) means ‘neither ..., nor ...’.
188 The Abl2-ani can be used to denote the belonging of someone or something to someone or something (here ‘the people of the village’).
189 This line is followed by the heckle khay, baca! ‘OK, king!’ from a member of the audience.
190 Meaning that he must be from another world since he can do these things that we cannot.
191 With asik ‘be (animate)’, the construction with the emphasising suffix -mi and the optative -oria means ‘let it happen that …, let it be that … ’.
192 The narrator here uses Khowar somaniaw saruzo ‘(ashes) of somani juniper’ to imitate the language of the people in the bazaar. Somani is a kind of wild bush, probably of the juniper type, the ashes of which are used in making naswar, a sort of tobacco that is placed in the mouth behind the upper or lower lip. We are grateful to Elena Bashir for explaining this Khowar phrase.
193 According to one informant, to take off one’s hat or to go around without a hat can be seen as a symbol of being young, i.e. possessing the strength of youth.
194 Sitting on a horse implies wealth and power, hence no need for donkeys.
195 The narrator uses Khowar lochiu zhe pociu instead of the Kalasha equivalent wis’iu zhe paciu-day (‘boils and cooks’) as an effective means of finishing the story. It is an idiomatic phrase meaning that someone has no worries.
196 The repetition of the auxiliary aini ‘(they) were’ indicates intensification of the characteristics of the village people.
197 The narrator again uses a Khowar expression, (ia) kisa khatum (‘story finished’) as a sort of emphasis. The Kalasha version is at’s’o’ĩk khul.
198 Wakti may wakt ashis is a formulaic expression used to introduce a fictious story. It varies in form (see another variant in Line 5) and signals traditional storytelling.
199 The narrator says Khana nom Mirota, without putras ‘son’s, descendant’s’, which seems to be implicitly understood, as in the next sentence Mirotaa nom (putras) Sudrum Khan, with the same structure. By mentioning the names of his ancestors and an unknown distant grandfather in Lines 3–4, the narrator connects the (mythical) events to be reported with a known history of descent.
200 Wawa is treated as a proper noun with the oblique ending -a instead of -as; see Grammar, Section 6.3.7.
201 Due to its focus-marking function, the particle -o establishes the temporal setting of events; see Grammar, Section 6.10.4.
202 The vowel lengthening emphasises that the series of event to be told unfolded right there in the Mumoret valley where the narrator lives. This is a means of making the mythical story more real and relevant to the audience.
203 In Lines 13–14, sak ‘very’ is spoken with a creaky voice as a means of emphasis.
204 Meaning that it was the period when apricots were ripening.
205 Yasi is a ritual performed by women in Mumuret. According to language consultants, after or during a rainy period, the women go singing to Darazguru, the village farthest downstream in Mumoret (see Map ), to call on the gods to bring back the sun.
206 The locative ending -ai may also be used in ablative contexts, often marking a specific place as the point of departure for a motion.
207 The verb tyek ‘hit’ may be used as a general motion or activity verb, often with the connotation of emphasis.
208 The particle -o clearly has a topic-contrastive function here. After reporting the women’s activity, we are told about the grandfather’s state of mind and activities.
209 The noun pariawan ‘of the ones who are going’ is constructed with the verbal root par- ‘go’, the formant vowel -i-, the agentive derivative -aw, and the genitive-oblique plural -an. See Grammar, Section 6.10.3.5 for this relativisation strategy.
210 Weyrak ‘loved one, darling’ is suffixed with the possessor ending -as, usually used exclusively with family terms, perhaps in order to express a close relationship between wawa and his beloved one; see Grammar, Section 6.3.7.
211 The adverb d’aluna ‘in a group, as a group’ is a lexicalisation of d’al ‘group’ and the locative ending -una. The vowel lengthening emphasises that the women left as a group consisting of many women and not individually.
212 The word for ‘like, like this’ has the variant forms [ɕẽ], [ˈɕẽẽ], [ɕẽˈẽ], and [ɕẽˈɦẽ] as well as forms without nasalisation.
213 Meaning ‘as he counted the (remaining) women in Kraka’.
214 The name Ac’uyak Awa is literally ‘key grandmother’.
215 The narrator miscalculates as he only mentions six names. All of these personal names are known as names from the old days.
216 By telling the audience that these names are ‘true’, the narrator emphasises the trustworthiness of the story.
217 The adverbial phrase ‘for a long time’ is expressed by lengthening the final vowel in the verb form pai ‘going’.
218 These place names denote places outside of the Kalasha valleys.
219 Tsiam is a mythical country from which the Kalasha believe they emigrated in the distant past.
220 The vowel lengthening in moːːcuna ‘in the middle’ emphasises that the man is totally surrounded and hidden by the wheat (and consequently that the wheat grows well in this place).
221 Notice the plural of the copula verb shiik ‘be (inanimate)’ although ghum ‘wheat’ is grammatically singular (as in the following sentence). The plural must be due to the fact that the speaker is referring to many wheat fields.
222 The phrase tagaro kawa ne is lexicalised to mean ‘nowhere else’.
223 This compound noun is composed of sujak ‘small’ and bi ‘seed’.
224 In combination with a conjunct verb, uk ‘water’ and dyek ‘put’ have lexicalised to mean ‘irrigate’.
225 Meaning the water running through the irrigation channel to the fields.
226 The ablative suffixes can function as possessive markers, as in c’hetmocani istrizha ‘woman of the middle of the field’.
227 Achinal’ is a variant form of achinaw ‘stopped (pst.a.3s)’, which often occurs before e ‘as, when’ or haw ‘subj’. The morphophonological alternation between a word-final -u or -w and the lamino-dental lateral -l’(-) is common. For nouns, it occurs word internally before case suffixes: haw ‘plough (dir.sg/pl)’ – hal’as ‘plough (obl.sg)’. For verb endings in -l, we see the alternation before vowel initial clitics like -e ‘as’ or in reduplication of the third person ending -aw.
228 The phrase parim ghõi cak hawaw shows an interesting change of perspective. With cak hawaw in the third person singular, the narrator describes the scene from outside, so to speak. With parim in the first person and the quotative ghõi, he cites the thoughts of the woman. The phrase should literally be translated ‘she has become ready, “I shall go,” it was said’.
229 The ending -as on dust ‘friend’ is here analysed as a kinship suffix, indicating that dust in the meanings ‘girlfriend’ and ‘boyfriend’ can also be treated as a term denoting close relationship; Grammar, Section 6.3.7.
230 Onjes’t’a denotes the concept of religious purity, and pragat’a denotes the contrasting concept of impurity. Gods, the high pastures, and the goat stables are considered onjes’t’a, and boys and men serving religious practices can become onjes’t’a through a purifying ritual. Typical pragat’a places are graveyards and the women’s menstrual house, the bashali. Women in childbirth and menstruating women are also considered pragata. See Maggi (Citation2001) and Fentz (Citation2010) for discussions of these concepts and their impact on Kalasha daily life. The fact that the woman in this story is or becomes onjes’t’a indicates that she is divine. In addition, the strong connection with wheat may suggest that the story is actually about a fertility goddess and the myths about how this divinity gave the fertile wheat to the Kalasha.
231 Kibaw has vague semantics. It is frequently used for referring to an event, situation, or mental state of any type.
232 The second person singular -as may be a mistake for the third person singular -aw.
233 The phrase a pe ne l’awem-dai haw, literally ‘If I am not lying’, is an idiom meaning ‘trust my words, read my lips’. Because of her boyfriend’s insistence, the woman finally lets him touch her, but only with the tip of his finger.
234 Bazuyr- is an allomorph of bazuri ‘sleeve’, with a shift of the palatal segment /i/ to /j/, ‘y’ in the Kalasha orthography.
235 The form azhal’aw-aw is an example of -aw-reduplication, a process that may occur on the homophonous third person singular -aw and the ablative -aw.
236 Notice that the woman throws the piece of cloth. She cannot hand it over to him because that would involve contact, which is impossible when she is onjes’t’a.
237 The phrase sucaun para is a rare example of the passive constructed by the accented suffix -un and the auxiliary verb parik ‘go’; see Grammar, Section 6.6.1.
238 The phrase ek ponj milet’ (literally ‘one five minutes)’ is lexicalised to mean ‘for a little while, for a few minutes’.
239 The use of te indicates that ghum ‘wheat’ is a plural noun in Kalasha.
240 The repetion of chini ‘having cut’ is an example of how word repetition can be used for intensification, here meaning that a lot of cutting was going on and thus that a lot of wheat was being cut. An alternative translation would be ‘(he) cut (wheat) for long time’.
241 With five cps and another five in the preceding sentence, the narrator encapsulates a multi-faceted sequence of action in one sentence. With the three cps in the following sentences, this expanded cp construction can also be seen as a means of dramatically building up the event that leads to the important transmission of the wheat from the onjes’t’a woman to the grandfather.
242 The narrator presents the primary male character of the story as a ‘mixed person’ who can also fly, i.e. as a supernatural being.
243 Here ghum ‘wheat’ is treated as a singular noun.
244 A mand is a measurement of approximately 80 kg.
245 Khon’d’a ghum is literally ‘half-wheat’, denoting a wheat variety with short hairs that is grown in the Kalasha valleys.
246 A ser is measurement of 1 kg.
247 A paw is a 1/4 kg container.
248 Haw is a short form of hawaw.
249 Shato mashkulgi (literally ‘exactly that conversation’) is a means of ending a conversation or a narrative, corresponding to ‘and that’s the way it is’.
250 Malgiri and yardust (and dust) are synonyms. In this initial introduction, the narrator forgets to mention the third friend, the crow, ka’ga’. Yardustan occurs with (stressed) -an as a means of emphasising the unity of the three friends.
251 With the past inferential asta, the narrator sets the story in an unreal, fictitious world from the start.
252 The inferential meaning indicated by ‘it seems’ is expressed by hul’a, the past-inferential verb form of hik ‘become’. With events expressed in a non-past tense, hul’a functions as a hearsay-marker, locating the narrated event in a fictitious world (Bashir Citation1988a, 77). Hul’a often has no direct equivalent in the English translation, but in some cases the inferential meaning will be expressed in English by ‘would’ or ‘it seems (that …)’.
253 The co-occurrence of the past-inferential hul’a with actual-past amaaw is peculiar since according to Bashir (Citation1988a, 76), “the marked meaning of direct experience [as encoded by past-actual] is incompatible with the inferential meaning added by hul’a.”
254 The counterfactive or subjunctive meaning comes about through the particle dya.
255 According to Trail and Cooper (Citation1999), afsus means ‘sorrow, regret’, but language consultants agree that afsus kariu-day is to be translated as ‘is very eager’.
256 With the cp, here nashay ‘having killed’, the topicaliser -o gives the meaning ‘after’.
257 The topicaliser -o has a contrastive function here: The markhor is caught, yet the fox and the crow, in contrast, go to sleep in the cave.
258 Bas parik (literally ‘night go’) is a conjunct verb with the meaning of ‘spend the night, sleep (somewhere)’.
259 The animate copula and auxiliary asik is here used to give the meaning‘let it be’.
260 With this line, the narrator addresses the audience.
261 The information that the man is smoking a chillum, i.e. smoking hashish, is clearly included for the sake of entertaining the audience.
262 The construction gri pai is analysed as a compound verb (Grammer, Section 6.6.5), with parik ‘go’ as the vector verb. The semantics of finality of event (the throwing) and the negative outcome (a partly missed throw) accord with Bashir’s (Citation1988a, 242) observations regarding the function of parik in compound verbs.
263 The accumulation of cp constructions (gri pay and tyay) and the fact that the story is about to come to an end are means of dramatising the events.
264 The formulaic phrase kaymina kaymina is equivalent to the English ‘once upon a time’, a frequent means of starting a fictional narrative.
265 Baca ‘king’ seems to be the preferred word for ‘king’ in stories (Trail and Cooper Citation1999, 23). Another word for ‘king’ is s’a.
266 Kalasha lacks a ‘have’ verb. Possession of the type ‘have children’ is constructed using an ‘experiencer construction’, with the (experiencing) subject, the ‘possessor’ in the oblique, the ‘possessed’ entity (put ‘sons’ in the direct case), and the verb in agreement with the possessed entity (here in the past-inferential) (the auxiliary verb is omitted in the third person). The literal meaning is ‘to him no sons were born’.
267 A construction with a verb in the infinitive, with the oblique -as and the verb hik ‘become’, as in (akhabir) hikas hul’a, gives an inchoative meaning, ‘start to’. The inferential hul’a sets the action in a fictitious world.
268 The narrator uses actual aspect here, not inferential, perhaps because the story is already set in a fictional universe by asta and hul’a, so there are no strict discourse demands for a continuous use of the inferential. The inferential aspect is used elsehwere in this part of the story though, so it could also be a mistake.
269 A phaker or faker is an ascetic phrophet-like person who wanders around and lives from alms. As seen in this line, the pronunciation can be [phaˈker] or [faˈker]. In the English translation, this word is rendered faker.
270 The construction with kimon ‘how many’ and a number or quantity gives the imprecise ‘some’ meaning. The construction hawaw kia haw with hik ‘become’ in the past-actual tense, the indefinite pronoun kia, and the subjunctive particle haw gives the meaning of ‘or so, or whatever’.
271 Sabak maik (literally ‘lesson say’) is lexicalised to mean ‘study (in school, etc.)’. The narrator changes briefly to the present tense for stylistic reasons.
272 The ending -aw ‘3s.p/f’ has a facultative, perhaps stylistically conditioned allomorph -al’ before an enclitic with an initial vowel, here -e ‘as, when’. The change of /u/ to /ɫ/ follows the obligatory change of stem-final /w/ to /ɫ/ before a suffix with an initial vowel, for example, haw ‘plough’ > hal’as ‘plough-obl.sg’.
273 Note that a conjunct verb may be split by a negator, here ne ‘not’.
274 In the phrase eg-o NP .. eg-o NP, the repeated topic marker -o has a coordinating function, meaning ‘both NP and NP’ or ‘NP and also NP’.
275 Precona is clarified butter that resembles ghee. It is highly esteemed among the Kalasha.
276 With three cp-constructions in one sentence (l’abe’ thi, tara pay, and ger ne kay), the narrator builds up a sense of tension before the next dramatic turning point in the narrative in Line 72.
277 Language consultants suggest that the inferential asta ‘be.pst.i.3s’ should be used instead of the perfective thi aaw.
278 The vowel lengthening is probably used here as a means of emphasising the dramatic turn in the story, that the faker is actually taking away children in order to fatten them up and to stock them in his house.
279 The phrase dura puyrak thi shiu with the subject dur ‘house’ in the locative case illustrates that locative endings can be used in what can be called a ‘locative subject construction’, in which the locative marks an inanimate entity that undergoes a change. This is similar to the so-called ‘dative subject construction’, common in South Asian languages, where an experiencing subject is in the dative case or, in the case of Kalasha, in the oblique case, for example, may osh thi shiu ‘I have become cold’.
280 In the old woman’s speech, the narrator uses four cp constructions in one sentence (zhui ‘having eaten’, aya hali ‘having brought here’, kamraay day ‘putting in room’, and band kay ‘closing’) as a means of emphasising the dramatic fact that the old woman has been kept as a prisoner.
281 The vowel lengthening indicates that the faker should boil in the precona soup for a long time.
282 The phrase pas ne hiu has here been translated as ‘will not pass’ (about time) and analysed as consisting of the English loanword ‘pass’ alongside ne and the intransitive vector verb hik, productively used for forming intransitive verbs. Trail and Cooper (Citation1999, 231) translate pas hik as ‘to pass (in an examination or test)’. Here, however, the meaning seems temporal.
283 Meaning that they will be bored if there is nothing going on.
284 This is an example of the infinitive used as a command, here following an imperative construction.
285 The phrase NP-as tada kay pashik means ‘watch somebody’.
286 Udzaki dek ‘spill out-cp + give’ is a compound verb construction with dek ‘give’ as the vector verb (see Grammar, Section 6.6.5).
287 The phrase hic kia NP ne means ‘no one, nobody, nothing at all’, taking its exact meaning from the inserted noun.
288 The conjunct verb ja karik (literally ‘wife’ + ‘do’) means ‘marry a woman’.
289 It seems a bit strange that the central figure will go on a journey immediately after having solved the problematic situation and married the now-young woman. However, with this line, the narrator introduces a new chapter of the story with a new plot, and the events to follow will portray the central male character as a true hero.
290 The endearment suffix -la has a downtoning effect when used to address someone. When used on the inquit verb as here, the narrator constructs the falcon’s line as being downtoned.
291 The narrator clearly repeats the thematic structure of the narrative: After solving a complex situation, our hero goes on to meet and solve another complex situation.
292 The conjunct verb mas griik ‘be attached’ implies that the two attached entities have grown together.
293 The inferential hearsay hul’a, used with a verb in a non-past tense, may indicate that the situation with the lion attached to a tree is annoying or regrettable (see Bashir Citation1988a, 73–74).
294 The infinitive is here used as an imperative.
295 We again see a repetition of the thematic structure: The hero solves a complex situation, gets a reward, and sets osut on another adventure.
296 Kanduri is a Khowar word.
297 Jagayuna is a variant form of jaygauna.
298 The inferential hul’a is used to mark as new and unexpected that the hero hangs up a hammock and lies in it (Bashir Citation1988a, 73).
299 That is, the lion kid and the falcon kid that he had been given.
300 This is clearly another story that the narrator weaves into the current one. As will become evident below, the narrator does so elegantly by taking up the situation with the central figure, our hero, in his watching position from the hammock.
301 That is, they are (still) unmarried.
302 The -ta … -o constuction has a contrrastive meaning: In the daytime he is engaged in one activity, in the night time another.
303 The narrator now describes the (idle) activity of the central figure, the hero of the story. The inferential hul’a, with the non-past tense, indicates new information (Bashir Citation1988a, 73–74).
304 The inferential hul’a is again used with non-past tense in order to give the sense of new and surprising information.
305 L’andraos is a compound consisting of l’andra ‘skin disease that attacks animal’ and os a combinatorial allomorph of post ‘skin’ (see Trail and Cooper Citation1999). It can be translated ‘sick skin dress’. Our hero takes on this skin as a dress to hide himself when he goes away from his hiding place (with the hammock), but when in his hiding place, he takes it off (see the following line). As the youngest daughter has seen him in the hammock, she knows that he uses the skin dress to hide himself, that the skin is fake and is not his real skin. The narrator refers to the man with l’handra or l’handra moc.
306 L’andraos ‘sick skin’ is here treated as a plural word, indicating that it consists of several pieces.
307 The meaning being that the king gives his daughters free hands to marry whoever they will or rather to marry the one man who receives the thrown flowers.
308 The superlative is formed with the pronoun saw ‘all’, in the oblique case sawin, followed by the postposition pi ‘from, of’ and the noun phrase that denotes the person or thing being described.
309 The narrator uses the plural kinship suffix -ay, denoting both son-in-law and the daughter.
310 Meaning that the king does not expect that his new son-in-law, our hero, is a good hunter.
311 Meaning 'let them fly away'.
312 It is unclear who te ‘they’ refer to in this sentence: the falcon and the lion kid or the two other sons-in-law. While the two other sons-in-law go hunting with no success, our hero is simply sitting and waiting, l’abe’ hik ‘play’, while his two trophies from the previous actions, the falcon and the lion kid, hunt two pheasants for him and make the rest fly away. As such, he is playing, l’abe’ hik, with the other two sons-in-law.
313 The conjunct verb nasi chal’ek (literally ‘end’ + ‘pull out’) means ‘do something in vain for something’.
314 That is, the man dressed in the skin-sick clothes and his wife, the king’s youngest daughter.
315 The repetition of zhui indicates that the eating activity took place over some time.
316 The construction histi oni aaw shows that onik ‘bring’ can occur as a vector verb in a compound verb construction: a two-action reading of the construction seems strange (see Bashir Citation1988a, 225–233) with an element of completeness and intensity involved in the expression (Bashir Citation1988a, 242–243).
317 Asa gagric’ tasa ashuna hawaw literally means ‘the cowshit have become in his mouth’, meaning that his mouth has become full of the cowshit food.
318 Consequently, the king must have realised by this time that he had eaten cowshit.
319 Since the events are repeated in this part of the story, the narrator is less explicit in her description.
320 The m-reduplication indicates here the indefinite moreness of an entity.
321 Gal is a traditional hockey-like game, played by the Kalasha on a large plain field during winter. Hãshgal is then, of course, polo, a popular sport in the northern regions of Pakistan.
322 That is, up to his hiding place with the hammock.
323 In a non-literal sense, bihot’i can mean ‘being thrown away, in a curve’, as if one walks up to a mountain pass, across it, and down on the other side.
324 The inferential hul’a here indicates that the information had just occurred to the people.
325 The person being beaten in a game is always marked with the postposition pi ‘from’.
326 Meaning that they had no success at all.
327 The two unfortunate sons-in-law, along with their wives. It is not quite clear why they should be placed in a ‘bad room’: Perhaps the narrator wishes to underline the difference in how the king treats our hero, who has appeared as a handsome man, and the two other sons-in-law, who have not been as good sons-in-law.
328 Hinduistrizha ‘Hindu woman’ is a term used for a woman who has magical powers. She is later referred to as jaduistrizha ‘magic woman’.
329 Idrõ’ is a game resembling fivestones.
330 With this sudden change in location, back to the hero’s childhood house, the narrator connects the present situation with our hero’s instruction (Lines 50–52) to his little brother that he shall take notice if blood appears on his sword.
331 Suffixation with Loc2-una to a case-suffixed noun (and here even an animate noun) is peculiar. It occurs only once in the data and is not normally accepted by informants.
332 A literal translation would be something like ‘You came, having gone where? – such a long time you have been late’, meaning, ‘You have come back after just going away, for such a long time you were away’.
333 The phrase nasen dras’nek (literally ‘side’ + ‘come out’) means ‘leave something without taking further notice of it’.
334 Because she wondered whether he was her husband or not.
335 Pretending that nothing had happened as a means of finding out whether he was her husband.
336 Histik ‘throw’, used with the meanings ‘put’ or ‘place’, connotes forceful activity.
337 The introduction of a veil, as if the woman was wearing it, can be seen as a Muslim influence in a Kalasha narrative discourse.
338 Meaning ‘what happened to you?’.
339 Meaning ‘be a good human being by making the people alive again’.
340 The reduplication of the conjunctive participle kay underlines the meaning of the plurality of the stones, that an enormous number of human beings had been turned into stones.
341 The ‘evidential’ hul’a emphasises the overwhelming and unpleasant information that many people had been turned into stones.
342 Mashkul ‘conversation’ may actually here mean courtship or a sexual relationship, suspected by the brother. This will explain the rather surprising and violent jealous act of killing the brother, who otherwise has saved him.
343 One’s grain being finished is a metaphor for one’s life coming to an end, that it is time to die.
344 Used as -o … -o, the repeated topicaliser -o clearly has a contrastive function: 25 years for one brother, 25 for the other.
345 The compound verb phazhi dek (‘dividing’ + ‘give’; see Grammar, Section 6.6.5) adds a sense of completion to the semantics of the sentence: He, the phaker, surely divided the 50 years of his life and brought the brother back to life.
346 The narrator here returns to the previous part of the story where our hero, dressed in sick-skin clothes, won the king’s daughter.
347 The woman is the old woman who turned into a young woman from the beginning of the story.
348 Meaning that their lives started over again.
349 This phrase is a conventionalised way of closing a story, as if it degrades the storyteller that she has been given a lame (and useless) horse.
References
- Alaudin . 1992. Kalash. The Paradise Lost . Lahore: Progressive.
- Baart, Joan L. G . 1999. A Sketch of Kalam Kohistani Grammar [Studies in Languages of Northern Pakistan. Vol. 5]. Islamabad: National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-e-Azam University, Summer Institute of Linguistics.
- Baart, Joan L. G. 2003. “Tonal Features in Languages of Northern Pakistan.” In Pakistani Languages and Society: Problems and Prospects , edited by Joan L. G. Baart and G. H. Sindhi , 132–144. Islamabad: National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-e-Azam University and Summer Institute of Linguistics.
- Baart, Joan L. G. , and Muhammad Zaman Sagar . 2004. Kalam Kohistani Texts [ Studies in Languages of Northern Pakistan, Vol. 9]. Islamabad: National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-e-Azam University and Summer Institute of Linguistics.
- Bashir, Elena . 1988a. “Topics in Kalasha Syntax: An Areal and Typological Perspective.” PhD diss., University of Michigan.
- Bashir, Elena . 1988b. “Inferentiality in Kalasha and Khowar.” In Papers from the 24th Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Part 1: The General Session , edited by Lynn MacLeod , Gary Larson , and Diane Brentari , 15–30. Chicago, IL : Chicago University Press.
- Bashir, Elena . 1990. “Involuntary Experience in Kalasha.” In Experiencer Subjects in South Asian Languages , edited by Manindra K. Verma and K. P. Mohanan , 297–318. Stanford, CA: The Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University.
- Bashir, Elena . 1993. “Causal Chains and Compound Verbs.” In Complex Predicates in South Asian Languages , edited by Manindra K. Verma , 1–30. Delhi: Manohar.
- Bashir, Elena . 1996. “Mosaic of Tongues: Quotatives and Complementizers in Northwest Indo-Aryan, Burushaski, and Balti.” In Studies in Pakistani Popular Culture , edited by William L. Hanaway and Wilma Heston , 187–286. Lahore: Sang-e-Meel and Lok Virsa.
- Bashir, Elena . 2001. “Khowar-Wakhi Contact Relationships.” In Tohfa-e-Dil. Festschrift Helmut Nespital , edited by Dirk W. Lönne , 3–17. Reinbek: Dr. Inge Wezler Verlag für Orientalistische Fachpublikationen.
- Bashir, Elena . 2003. “Dardic.” In The Indo-Aryan Languages , edited by Georges Cardona and Dhanesh Jain , 818–894. London: Routledge.
- Bashir, Elena . 2006a. “Contact-induced Change in Khowar.” In New Perspectives on Pakistan: Contexts, Realities and Visions of the Future , edited by S. Saeed , 205–238. Karachi: Oxford University Press.
- Bashir, Elena . 2006b. “Evidentiality in South Asian Languages.” In Proceedings of the LFG06 Conference, Workshop on South Asian Languages, Konstanz Universität , edited by Miriam Butt and Tracy Holloway King . Stanford: CSLI.
- Bashir, Elena . 2010. “Traces of Mirativity in Shina.” Himalayan Linguistics 9 (2): 1–55.
- Bashir, Elena . 2011. “Kalasha: Past, Present, and Possible Futures.” In Selected Papers from the International Conference on Language Documentation and Tradition – With a Special Interest in the Kalasha of the Hindu Kush Valleys, Himalayas , edited by Carol Everhard and Elizabeth Mela-Athanosopoulou , 13–36. Thessaloniki: School of English and Department of Theoretical and Applied Lingustics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
- Bazik, Yazir . 2011. “Our Customs Are Greek.” In Selected Papers from the International Conference on Language Documentation and Tradition – With a Special Interest in the Kalasha of the Hindu Kush Valleys, Himalayas , edited by Carol Everhard and Elizabeth Mela-Athanosopoulou , 283–284. Thessaloniki: School of English and Department of Theoretical and Applied Lingustics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
- Biddulph, John . (1880) 1971. Tribes of the Hindo Koosh . Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing.
- Blake, Barry J. 2001. Case . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Cacopardo, Augusto S. 2006. “Anthropomorphic Representations of Divinities among the Kalasha of Chitral (Pakistan).” Acta Orientalia 67: 127–158.
- Cacopardo, Augusto S. 2008. “The Winter Solstice Festival of the Kalasha of Birir: Some Comparative Suggestions.” Acta Orientalia 69: 77–120.
- Cacopardo, Augusto S. 2010. “Texts from the Winter Feasts of Kalasha.” Acta Orientalia 71: 187–242.
- Cacopardo, Augusto S. 2011. “Are the Kalasha Really of Greek Origin? The Legend of Alexander the Great and the Pre-Islamic World of the Hindu Kush.” Acta Orientalia 72: 47–92.
- Cacopardo, Alberto M. , and Augusto S. Cacopardo . 1989. “The Kalasha (Pakistan) Winter Solstice Festival.” Ethnology 28: 317–329.
- Cacopardo, Alberto M. , and Augusto S. Cacopardo . 1991. “The Other Kalasha: A Survey of Kalashamun-speaking People in Southern Chitral. Part I–II.” East and West 41: 273–350.
- Cacopardo, Alberto M. , and Cacopardo, Augusto S . 2001. Gates of Peristan. History, Religion and Society in the Hindu Kush [ Reports and Memoirs. Series Minor, Vol. V]. Rome: IsIAO.
- Cardona, Georges , and Dhanesh Jain , eds. 2003. The Indo-Aryan Languages . London: Routledge.
- Cooper, Greg . 2005. “Issues in the Development of a Writing System for the Kalasha Language.” PhD diss., Macquarie University.
- Cooper, Greg . 2011. “History is Being Written: Documenting, Revitalizing and Developing the Kalasha Language.” In Selected Papers from the International Conference on Language Documentation and Tradition – With a Special Interest in the Kalasha of the Hindu Kush Valleys, Himalayas , edited by Carol Everhard and Elizabeth Mela-Athanosopoulou , 85–88. Thessaloniki: School of English and Department of Theoretical and Applied Lingustics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
- Coupe, A. R. 2006. “Converbs.” In Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics , edited by K. Brown , 145–152. Oxford: Elsevier.
- Decker, Kendall D . 1992. Languages of Chitral [ Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan, Vol. 5]. Islamabad: National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-e-Azam University, and Summer Institute of Linguistics.
- Degener, Almuth . 2002. “The Nuristani Languages.” In Indo-Iranian Languages and Peoples , edited by Nicholas Sims-Williams , 103–118. Oxford: Oxford University.
- Di Carlo, Pierpaolo . 2009. “I Kalasha del Hindu-Kush: ricerche linnguistiche e antropologiche.” [The Kalasha of the Hindu Kush: Linguistica and anthropological investigations.] PhD diss., University of Florence.
- Di Carlo, Pierpaolo . 2010. “Take Care of the Poets! Verbal Art Performances as Key Factors in the Preservation of Kalasha Language and Culture.” Anthropological Linguistics 52 (2): 141–159.
- Di Carlo, Pierpaolo . 2011. “Two Clues of a Former Hindu Kush Linguistic Area.” In Selected Papers from the International Conference on Language Documentation and Tradition – With a Special Interest in the Kalasha of the Hindu Kush Valleys, Himalayas , edited by Carol Everhard and Elizabeth Mela-Athanosopoulou , 101–114. Thessaloniki: School of English and Department of Theoretical and Applied Lingustics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
- Dixon, Robert M. W. 1997. The Rise and Fall of Languages . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Fentz, Mytte . 1996. “Natural Resources and Cosmology in Changing Kalasha Society.” NIAS-Reports 30 . Copenhagen: Nordic Institue of Asian Studies.
- Fentz, Mytte . 2010. The Kalasha. Mountain People of the Hindu Kush . Copenhagen: Rhodos.
- Fentz, Mytte , and Torben Stroyer . 1995. Daily Life among the Kalasha. A Photo Book by Mytte Fentz and Torben Stroyer, with Help from Ingineer Khan . Private publication.
- Fussman, Gérard . 1972. Atlas linguistique des parlers dardes et kafirs . Paris: Publications de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient.
- Ghufram, Mohammad Mirza . 1962. A History of Chitral . [ In Urdu.] Peshawar.
- Grierson, George A. , ed. 1903–1927. Linguistic Survey of India . Calcutta: Superintendant Government Printing.
- Grierson, George A. , ed. 1919. Linguistic Survey of India. Vol. 8, Part II. Specimens of the Dardic or Pisacha Languages . Calcutta: Superintendant Government Printing.
- Gurdon, B. E. M . 1904. Military Report on Chitral . Simla Hill.
- Haspelmath, Martin . 1995. “The Converb as a Cross-linguistic Valid Category.” In Converbs in Cross-linguistic Perspective: Structure and Meaning of Adverbial Verb Forms – Adverbial Participles, Gerunds [Empirical Approaches to Language Typology, Vol 13], edited by Martin Haspelmath and Ekkehard König , 1–55. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
- Heegaard, Jan . 1996. “Et alfabet bliver til.” [An alphabet comes into being.] Exam paper, University of Copenhagen.
- Heegaard, Jan . 1998. “Variational Patterns in Vowel Length in Kalashamon.” In Language Contact, Variation, and Change , edited by Jussi Niemi , Terence Odlin , and Janni Heikkinen , 125–135. Joensuu: Faculty of Humanities, University of Joensuu.
- Heegård, Jan . 2000. “Linguistic and Political Aspects of Alphabet-making for a Threatened Language.” In 17th Scandianvian Conference of Linguistics II, Odense Working Papers in Language and Communication 19 , edited by Carl-Erik Lindberg Lindberg and Steffen Nordahl Lund , 161–176. Odense: University of Southern Denmark: Institute of Language and Communication.
- Heegård, Jan . 2005. “Postpositioner og polysemi i kalasha.” [Postpositions and Polysemy in Kalasha.] In Grammatikalisering og struktur , edited by Heltoft, Lars , Jens Nørgård–Sørensen , and Lene Schøsler , 129–144. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanums Forlag.
- Heegård, Jan . 2012. “Animacy, Vedic Accent and Case Allomorphy in Kalasha.” Münchener Studien Zur Sprachwissenschaft 66 (1): 55–80.
- Heegård, Jan . 2014. “Local Case Semantics in Kalasha.” Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics 2: 187–216.
- Heegård, Jan , and Taj Khan . Forthcoming. “Dynamics of Cultural Survival of the Kala-sha.” In In the Footsteps of Halfdan Siiger – Danish Research in Central Asia , edited by Ulrik Joensen , Svend Castenfeldt , Peter Andersen , and Armin Geerts . Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
- Heegård, Jan , and Ida E. Mørch . 2004. “Retroflex Vowels and Other Peculiarities in Kalasha.” In Himalayan Languages. Past and Present , edited by Anju Saxena , 57–76. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
- Heegård, Jan , and Nabaig . Forthcoming. “Ek akhabir sher ays – ‘There was an old lion. A linguistic analysis of a Kalasha narrative as told by Sher John of Kraka, Mumoret.” Manuscript submitted for publication.
- Heegård Petersen, Jan . 2006a. “Local Case-marking in Kalasha. Vol. 1.” PhD thesis, University of Copenhagen.
- Heegård Petersen, Jan . 2006b. “Local Case-marking in Kalasha. Vol. 2: Appendices.” PhD thesis, University of Copenhagen.
- Jan, Saifullah . 1996. “History and Development of the Kalasha.” In Proceedings of the Second International Hindukush Cultural Conference , edited by Elena Bashir and Israruddin , 239–245. Karachi: Oxford University Press.
- Khan, Taleem , and Elizabeth Mela Athanasopoulou . 2011. “How Many Are We? A Demographic Survey of the Kalash of the Hindu Kush Valleys, Himalayas.” In Selected Papers from the International Conference on Language Documentation and Tradition – With a Special Interest in the Kalasha of the Hindu Kush Valleys, Himalayas , edited by Carol Everhard and Elizabeth Mela-Athanosopoulou , 247–256. Thessaloniki: School of English and Department of Theoretical and Applied Lingustics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
- Klimburg, Max . 1999. The Kafirs of the Hindu Kush: Art and Society of the Waigal and Ashkun Kafirs . Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.
- Labov, William , and Joshua Waletzky . 1967. “Narrative Analysis.” In Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts , edited by June Helm , 12–44. Seattle, WA : University of Washington Press.
- Leitner, G. W . 1880. “Kafiristan: Section 1. The Bashgali Kafirs and Their Language.” Journal of the United Service Institute of India 43.
- Leitner, G. W . 1893. The Hunza and Nagyr Handbook. Being an Introduction to a Knowledge of the Language, Race, and Countries of Hunza, Nagyr, and a Part of Yasin . Woking: Oriental University Institute.
- Lièvre, Viviane , and Jean Yves Loude . 1990. Le chamanism des Kalash du Pakistan. Des montagnards polythéistes face à l'Islam. . Paris: Editions du CNRS. (In French)
- Liljegren, Henrik . 2008. “Towards a Grammatical Description of Palula. An Indo-Aryan Language of the Hindu Kush.” PhD thesis, University of Stockholm.
- Liljegren, Henrik , and N. Haider . 2015. Palula Texts [FLI Language and Culture Series 8]. Islamabad : Forum for Language Initiatives.
- Lorimer, David Lockhart Robertson . 1958. The Wakhi Language. Vol. 1–2. (Introduction, Phonetics, Grammar and Texts) . London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
- Loude, Jean Yves , and Viviane Lièvre . 1987. Kalasha Solstice . Islamabad: Lok Virsa.
- Maggi, Wynne . 2001. Our Women Are Free. Gender and Ethnicity in the Hindukush . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
- Masica, Colin P. 1991. The Indo-Aryan Languages . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Mela-Athanopoulous, Elizabeth . 2011. “A Morphological Description of Kalasha as an Indo-Aryan Language with Greek Roots.” In Selected Papers from the International Conference on Language Documentation and Tradition – With a Special Interest in the Kalasha of the Hindu Kush Valleys, Himalayas , edited by Carol Everhard and Elizabeth Mela-Athanosopoulou , 179–200. Thessaloniki: School of English and Department of Theoretical and Applied Lingustics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
- Mock, John . Forthcoming. “Dards, Dardistan and Dardic: An Ethnographis, Geographic and Linguistic Conundrum.” In Northern Pakistan. Karakoram Conquered , edited by Nigel J. R. Allan . New York : St. Martin’s Press.
- Mørch, Ida Elisabeth . 1995. “Vokaler i kalashamon.” [Vowels in Kalashamon.] Exam paper, University of Copenhagen.
- Mørch, Ida Elisabeth . 2000a. “How Fast Will a Language Die When It is Officially No Longer Spoken?” In 17th Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics II [ Odense Working Papers in Language and Communication 19], edited by Carl-Erik Lindberg and Steffen Nordahl Lund , 161–176. Odense: University of Southern Denmark, Institute of Language and Communication.
- Mørch, Ida Elisabeth . 2000b. “Et pakistansk bjergfolks orientering i forhold til floden og bjergsiden.” [A Pakistani Mountain Tribe’s Way of Orientation in Relation to the River and the Mountain Slope.] Mål Og Mæle 23: 7–9.
- Mørch, Ida Elisabeth , and Heegaard, Jan . 1997. “Retroflekse vokalers oprindelse i kalashamon fra et historisk og areallingvistisk perspektiv. Variation i sprogbeskrivelsen: Vokaler i kalashamon.” [The Origin of Retroflex Vowels in Kalashamon in Historical and Areal-Linguistic Perspective. Variation in Language Description: Vowel Length in Kalashamon.] MA thesis, University of Copenhagen.
- Morgenstierne, Georg . 1926. Report on a Linguistic Mission to Afghanistan [ Serie C I–2]. Oslo: Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning.
- Morgenstierne, Georg . 1932. Report on a Linguistic Mission to North-Western India [ Serie C III–I]. Oslo: Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning.
- Morgenstierne, Georg . 1938. Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages. Vol. II. Iranian Pamir Languages (Yidgha-Munji, Sanglechi-Ishkashmi and Wakhi.) [ Instituttet for sammenlignende kulturforskning. Serie B: Skrifter XXXV]. Oslo: H. Aschehoug.
- Morgenstierne, Georg . 1940. “Notes on Bashkarik.” Acta Orientalia 18: 206–257.
- Morgenstierne, Georg . 1941. Notes on Phalura: An Unknown Dardic Language of Chitral [ Skrifter utgitt av Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi I Oslo II. Hist.-Filos. Klasse: No. 5]. Oslo: Jacob Dybwad.
- Morgenstierne, Georg . 1945. “Notes on Shumashti.” Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskap 14: 5–28.
- Morgenstierne, Georg . 1947. “Some Features of Khowar Morphology.” Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprogvidenskab 14: 5–28.
- Morgenstierne, Georg . 1961. “Dardic and Kafir Languages.” In The Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition , Vol. 2. 138–139, edited by H. A. R. Gibb et al. . Leiden: E. J. Brill.
- Morgenstierne, Georg . 1973a. Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages. Vol. III. The Pashai Language [ ISK Serie B: Skrifter 40]. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
- Morgenstierne, Georg . 1973b. Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages. Vol. IV. The Kalasha Language . Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
- Morgenstierne, Georg . 1974. “Languages of Nuristan and Surrounding Regions.” In Cultures of the Hindu Kush. Selected Papers from the Hindu-Kush Cultural Conference Held at Moesgård 1970 , edited by Karl Jettmar and Lennart Edelberg , 1–10. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.
- Nelson, David Niles . 1986. “The Historical Development of the Nuristani Languages.” PhD thesis, University of Michigan.
- Pandharipande, Rajeshwari . 2002. “Minority Matters: Issues in Minority Languages in India.” MOST Journal of Multicultural Societies 4 (2): 1–30.
- Parkes, Peter . 1983. “Alliance and Elopement: Economy, Social Order, and Sexual Antagonism among the Kalasha (Kafirs) of Chitral.” PhD thesis, Oxford University.
- Parkes, Peter . 1987. “Livestock Symbolism and Pastoral Ideology among the Kafirs of the Hindu Kush.” Man 22: 673–660.
- Parkes, Peter . 1990. “Kalasha Oral Literature and Praise Songs.” In Proceedings from the 2nd International Hindu Kush Cultural Conference, held in Chitral 1990 , edited by Elena Bashir and Israr-ud-Din , 315–328. Karachi: Oxford University Press.
- Parkes, Peter . 2001. “The Kalasha of Pakistan. Problems of Minority Development and Environmental Management.” the-south-asian.com, http://www.the-south-asian.com/June2001/Kalasha3.htm.
- Perder, Emil . 2013. “A Grammatical Description of Dameli.” PhD thesis, University of Stocholm.
- Radloff, Carla , and Shakil Ahmad Shakil . 1998. Folktales in the Shina of Gilgit (Text, Grammatical Analysis and Commentary) [ Studies in Languages of Northern Pakistan 2]. Islamabad: National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-e-Azam University and Summer Institute of Linguistics.
- Robertson, Sir George Scott . (1896) 1987. The Kafirs of the Hindu Kush . London: Metheun.
- Schmidt, Ruth Laila . 2006. “A Naga-prince Tale in Kohistan.” Acta Orientalia 67: 159–188.
- Schmidt, Ruth Laila , and Razwal Kohistani . 2008. Beiträge zur Kenntnis südasiatischer Sprachen und Literaturen [A Grammar of the Shina Language of Indus Kohistan]. Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz Verlag.
- Schmidt, Ruth Laila , and Omkar N. Koul . 1983. Kohistani to Kashmiri: An Annotated Bibliography of Dardic Languages . Patiala: Indian Institute of Language Studies.
- Schomberg, Reginald Charles Francis . 1938. Kafirs and Glaciers. Travels in Chitral . London: Martin Hopkinson.
- Sharakat, Kizar , and Sherwali Bumburdari . 2011. “The Wedding Procedure in the Kalasha Valleys, Al’as’ing.” In Selected Papers from the International Conference on Language Documentation and Tradition – With a Special Interest in the Kalasha of the Hindu Kush Valleys, Himalayas , edited by Carol Everhard and Elizabeth Mela-Athanosopoulou , 279–282. Thessaloniki: School of English and Department of Theoretical and Applied Lingustics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
- Siiger, Hafdan . 1956. Ethnological Field-research in Chitral, Sikkim, and Assam [ Historisk-filologiske Meddelelser, Det Kongelige Danmarks Videnskabernes Selskab, Vol. 41]. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.
- Siiger, Halfdan . 1963. “Shamanism among the Kalash Kafirs of Chitral.” Folk 5: 295–303.
- Siiger, Halfdan . 1967. “Shamanistic Ecstasy and Supernatural Beings. A Study Based on Field-work among the Kalash Kafirs of Chitral from the Third Danish Expedition to Central Asia 1947–54.” Scripta Instituti Donneriani Aboensis 1: 69–81.
- Starosta, Stanley . 1985. “Relator Nouns as a Source of Case Inflections.” In For Gordon Fairbanks [Oceanic Linguistic Special Publication 29], edited by R. L. Veed and V. Z. Acsan , 111–133. Honolulu : University of Hawaii Press.
- Strand, Richard F. 1973. “Notes on the Nûristânî and Dardic Languages.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 93: 297–305.
- Strand, Richard F . 2001. “The Tongues of Peristân.” In Gates of Peristan. History, Religion and Society in the Hindu Kush , 251–259. Rome: IsIAO.
- Svorou, Soteria . 1994. The Grammar of Space [ Typological Studies in Language 25]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
- Tikkanen, Bertil . 1988. “On Burushaski and Other Ancient Substrata in Northwestern South Asia.” Studia Orientalia 64: 303–325.
- Tikkanen, Bertil . 1999. “Archaeological–Linguistic Correlations in the Formation of Retroflex Typologies and Correlating Areal Features in South Asia.” In Archaeology and Language IV. Language Change and Cultural Transformation , edited by Roger Blench and Matthew Spriggs , 139–148. London: Routledge.
- Topper, Uwe . 1977. “Beobachtungen Zur Kultur Der Kalas (Hindukusch).” Zeitschrift Für Ethnologie 102: 216–296.
- Trail, Ronald L. 1996. “Case Marking in Kalasha.” In Proceedings from the 2nd International Hindu Kush Cultural Conference, held in Chitral 1990 , edited by Elena Bashir and Israr-ud-Din , 149–158. Karachi: Oxford University Press.
- Trail, Ronald L. , and Cooper, Gregory R . 1999. Kalasha Dictionary – With English and Urdu [ Studies in Languages of Northern Pakistan. Vol. 7]. Islamabad: National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-e-Azam University, and Summer Institute of Linguistics.
- Trail, Ronald L. , and Hale, Austin . 1995. A Rhetorical Structure Analysis of a Kalasha Narrative . South Asia Work Papers.
- Turner, Ralph L. 1966. A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages . London: Oxford University Press.
- Turner, Ralph L . (1973) 1927. “Notes on Dardic.” In Indo-Aryan Linguistics – Collected Papers 1912–1973 , 301–309. Delhi: Disha Publications. [ Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 7.8.284–294].
- Zoller, Claus-Peter . 2005. A Grammar and Dictionary of Indus Kohistani. Volume I: Dictionary [ Trends in Linguistics. Documentation 21.1]. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.