QuoteReplyTopic: Forgotten people of south asia Posted: 23-May-2011 at 20:36
I want to create a thread where i want to post the forgotten minorities of south asia, and perhaps we can have discussion about them and about their histories, south asia as a whole is diverse place
Parpola (1999) identifies "Proto-Dardic" with "Proto-Rigvedic", suggesting that the Dards are the linguistic descendants of the bearers of proto Rigvedic culture ca. 1700 BC, pointing to features in certain Dardic dialects that continue peculiarities of Rigvedic Sanskrit, such as the gerund in -tvī (p. 189).
Moreover, the Dard people are mentioned in the Vishnu Purana.[1] They now occupy the area called Dardu, supposed by Herodotus to be the Dardicæ.[1] As such, during Swati rule, the Dard people were dominantly Hindu and frequent small scale jihad against Dard might have been a routine.[2] Dards of Dras, Gilgit, Skardu, etc., embraced Islam after the Muslim invasion of India during the 14th century A.D. whereas the Dards of Da, Hanu, Bema, Darchik and Garkon did not accept this and gradually later accepted Buddhism.[3] The Dards are also among the descendants of Greek Bactrians.
Geographic distribution
The term "Dard" is an outdated one that has been used to describe various groups of often unrelated mountain tribesmen who inhabit a region between Badakhshan, Northern Pakistan and Kashmir. Although the Dardic languages do show similarities they are mostly very distinct from one another often living in remote mountain valleys. The cultures of the Dardic peoples are also quite varied but they do share similarities due to their common mountainous environment and intertwined history.
The Shina language is spoken in Pakistan's Northern Areas apart from Gilgit where most of the speakers live. Other areas with significant Shina speakers include Punial, Darail, Tangair and Astore, which are located adjacent to the Gilgit region. It is also spoken in Gurez, Drass and Ladakh in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. It has many dialects, most of which are found in Pakistan, including Gilgiti Shina, Astori Shina, Ponyali Shina, Chilasi Shina and Gurezi Shina. The pronunciation of this language is very different. It is very important to make changes in the script of this language to make it easy.
Khowar is principally spoken in the Pakistani regions of Chitral, Yasin, Gupis, Koh-o-ghizar and Ishkoman. Many Khowar speakers have migrated and set up colonies in Pakistan's urban centres such as in Peshawar, Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi. A small number of Khowar speakers can be found in the adjacent regions of Afghanistan.
Two non-Dardic languages which are spoken in Northern Pakistan are Balti, a Sino-Tibetan language and Burushaski a language isolate and still the topic of considerable interest for Pakistani and international linguists.
The Baloch people mainly speak Balochi, which is a branch of the Iranian languages, and more specifically of the North-western Iranian languages, that is highly influenced by that of Mesopotamia and shares similarities with Kurdish and other languages of the region. It also contains archaic features reminiscent of Old Persian and Avestan.[8] They inhabit mountainous terrains and deserts, and maintain a very distinct cultural identity.
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