50-679: Dardi may refer to: Dardi people , in India, Pakistan & Afghanistan Dardic languages , several of which have sometimes been known as "Dardi" Dardi school , a tradition within the Italian school of swordsmanship Jagjit Singh Dardi (born 1949), journalist and an educationist from the Indian State of Punjab Teja Singh Dardi (died 1998), Indian politician See also [ edit ] Dardis (disambiguation) Topics referred to by
100-511: A few more decades, before finally converting to Islam as well. The final known non-converted Kafir was settled in a Chitrali village known as Urtsun. This Kafir's name was Chanlu, and he converted in 1938, several months after being interviewed about the cosmology of the Kati. In Chitral, the Nuristanis are known either as Bashgalis (as most migrated from a valley of Nuristan called Bashgal in
150-532: A form of ancient Hinduism , infused with accretions developed locally". They acknowledged a number of human-like deities who lived in the unseen Deity World (Kâmviri d'e lu; cf. Sanskrit deva lok'a- ). Mitch Weiss and Kevin Maurer describe the Nuristanis of having traditionally practising a "primitive" form of Hinduism , up until the late nineteenth century, before their conversions to Islam . Certain deities were revered only in one community or tribe, but one
200-706: A linguistic expression. Taken literally, it allows one to believe that all the languages spoken in Dardistan are Dardic . It also allows one to believe that all the people speaking Dardic languages are Dards and the area they live in is Dardistan . A term used by classical geographers to identify the area inhabited by an indefinite people, and used in Rajatarangini in reference to people outside Kashmir, has come to have ethnographic, geographic, and even political significance today. George Morgenstierne's scheme corresponds to recent scholarly consensus. As such,
250-405: A long period. Earlier, it was surrounded by Buddhist states and societies which temporarily extended literacy and state rule to the region. The journey to the region was perilous according to reports of Chinese pilgrims Fa-hsien and Sung Yun . The decline of Buddhism resulted in the region becoming heavily isolated. The Islamization of the nearby Badakhshan began in the 8th century and Peristan
300-651: A marked tendency towards metathesis where a "pre- or postconsonantal 'r' is shifted forward to a preceding syllable". This was seen in Ashokan rock edicts (erected 269 BCE to 231 BCE) in the Gandhara region, where Dardic dialects were and still are widespread. Examples include a tendency to spell the Classical Sanskrit words priyad ar shi (one of the titles of Emperor Ashoka ) as instead priyad ra shi and dh ar ma as dh ra ma . Modern-day Kalasha uses
350-516: A much larger region, stretching from the mouth of the Indus (in Sindh ) northwards in an arc, and then eastwards through modern day Himachal Pradesh to Kumaon. However, this has not been conclusively established. Dardic languages have been organized into the following subfamilies: Virtually all Dardic languages have experienced a partial or complete loss of voiced aspirated consonants. Khowar uses
400-631: A number of other deities, semi-gods and spirits. The Kalash pantheon is thus one of the few living representatives of Indo-European religion. They believed in many deities, whose names resembled those of Iranian and old Vedic sources. There was a supreme deity named Mara or Imra , plus a multitude of lesser gods and goddesses known locally as Mandi or Moni , Wushum or Shomde, Gish or Giwish, Bagisht, Indr , Züzum, Disani , Kshumai or Kime etc. According to Michael Witzel, some of these gods, especially Disani, Moni, and Gish, have direct parallels in Shinto ,
450-445: A number of striking archasisms, which had already disappeared in most Prakrit dialects... There is not a single common feature distinguishing Dardic, as a whole, from the rest of the [Indo-Aryan] languages... Dardic is simply a convenient term to denote a bundle of aberrant [Indo-Aryan] hill-languages which, in their relative isolation, accented in many cases by the invasion of Pathan tribes, have been in varying degrees sheltered against
500-568: A period of time, Emir Abdur Rahman Khan conducted a military campaign to secure the eastern regions and followed up his conquest by imposition of Islam; the region thenceforth being known as Nuristan , the "Land of Light". Before their conversion, the Nuristanis practised a form of ancient Hinduism . Non-Muslim religious practices endure in Nuristan today to some degree as folk customs. In their native rural areas, they are often farmers, herders, and dairymen. The Nuristan region has been
550-469: A prominent location for war, which has led to the death of many indigenous Nuristanis. Nuristan has also received abundance of settlers from the surrounding Afghan regions due to the borderline vacant location. Noted linguist Richard Strand , an authority on Hindu Kush languages, observed the following about pre-Islamic Nuristani religion: "Before their conversion to Islâm the Nuristânis practiced
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#1732800874906600-525: A stubborn and prolonged resistance, describing them as being distinct culturally and religiously from other peoples of the region. Nuristanis were formerly classified into "Siah-Posh ( black-robed ) and "Safed-Posh ( white-robed )/Lall-Posh ( Red-Robed ). Timur fought with and was humbled by the Siah-Posh. Babur advised not to tangle with them. Genghis Khan passed by them. In 1014, Mahmud of Ghazni attacked them: Another crusade against idolatry
650-473: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Dardi people The Dardic languages (also Dardu or Pisaca ), or Hindu-Kush Indo-Aryan languages , are a group of several Indo-Aryan languages spoken in northern Pakistan , northwestern India and parts of northeastern Afghanistan . This region has sometimes been referred to as Dardistan . Rather than close linguistic or ethnic relationships,
700-470: Is similar to many Germanic languages, such as German and Dutch , as well as Uto-Aztecan O'odham and Northeast Caucasian Ingush . All other Dardic languages, and more generally within Indo-Iranian, follow the subject-object-verb (SOV) pattern. Academic literature from outside South Asia Academic literature from South Asia Nuristanis The Nuristanis are an ethnic group native to
750-649: The Afghan Armed Forces . Led by the Koms tribe, the Nuristani were the first citizens of Afghanistan to revolt against Saur Revolution in 1978. They played an important role in the conquering of some provinces, including Kunar , Nangarhar , Badakhshan , and Panjshir . Thereafter, Nuristan remained a scene of some of the bloodiest guerrilla fighting with the Soviet forces from 1979 through 1989. Following
800-456: The Gandhara civilization , from circa 1500 BCE, was Dardic in nature. Linguistic evidence has linked Gandhari with some living Dardic languages, particularly Torwali and other Kohistani languages. There is limited evidence that the Kohistani languages are descended from Gandhari. Leitner 's Dardistan , in its broadest sense, became the basis for the classification of the languages in
850-672: The Mughal period . In 1839, the Kafirs sent a deputation to Sir William Macnaghten in Jalalabad claiming relationship with the fair skinned British troops who had invaded the country At the time of the Afghan conquest of Kafiristan, a small number of Kom and Kati Kafirs fled east to Chitral (modern Pakistan) where they were allowed to settle by the Mehtar. There they practised their faith for
900-792: The Nuristan Province of northeastern Afghanistan and Chitral District of northwestern Pakistan . Their languages comprise the Nuristani branch of Indo-Iranian languages . In the mid-1890s, after the establishment of the Durand Line when Afghanistan and the British Indian Empire reached an agreement regarding the Indo-Afghan border as the region of Kafiristan became part of the Great Game and for
950-482: The towers of the skulls of the Kators which he built on the mountain in the auspicious month of Ramazan A.H. 800 (1300 CE) Again, according to Timur's autobiography ( Tuzak-i-Timuri ), a military division of ten thousand Muslim soldiers was sent against the Siah-Posh (Kam) Kafirs under the command of General Aglan Khan to either slay these infidels or else to convert them into Islam. Tuzak-i-Timuri frankly admits that
1000-655: The Chitrali Khowar language ), or alternatively as Sheikhan (a generic term for recent converts to Islam). The exact population size of Nuristanis in Chitral is unknown, but members of the community estimate that they number at least 12 000. All of them are speakers of the Kamkata-vari language , also known locally as Sheikhani . Prior to 1895, the Kafirs of the Hindu Kush were classified into two groups:
1050-690: The Kata Family and Janaderi Branch. However, there are other Nuristani tribes as well, some of the Kata of Janaderi people live in Ozhor (now Karimabad ), Gobor, Buburat, Ayun, Broze and Mastuj . There is a very popular rock associated with this tribe located in Karimabad (Juwara) called kata bont (Kata is the name of the tribe; bont meaning "stone" in the Chitrali language ). The Nuristani do not have
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#17328008749061100-801: The Katirs as well as the Kam sections of the Siah-Posh (black-robed) Kafirs of the Hindukush mountains. Timur invaded Afghanistan in March 1398. On the basis of local complaints of ill-treatment and extortions filed by the Muslims against the Kafirs , Timur personally attacked the Kators of the Siah-Posh group located north-east of Kabul in eastern Afghanistan. The Kators left their fort Najil and took refuge at
1150-524: The Punjabi word drakhat 'tree' (from Persian darakht ). Dardic languages also show other consonantal changes. Kashmiri, for instance, has a marked tendency to shift k to ch and j to z (e.g. zon 'person' is cognate to Sanskrit jan 'person or living being' and Persian jān 'life'). Unique among the Dardic languages, Kashmiri presents "verb second" as the normal grammatical form. This
1200-629: The Ramgul Valley, in the westernmost part of Kafiristan on the Afghan frontier. All Siah-posh groups of Kafirs were regarded as of common origin. They all had a common dress and customs and spoke closely related dialects of Kati . Nicholas Barrington et al. reported that the Waigulis and Presungulis referred to all Siah-posh Kafirs as Katirs. While the Kamtoz of the lower Bashgul valley were
1250-592: The Siah-Posh, or black-vested by the Muslims of later times. In Nardain there was a temple, which the army of Ghazni destroyed; and brought from thence a stone covered with certain inscriptions, which were according to the Hindus, of great antiquity. The first reference to Siah-Posh Kafirs occurs in Timur's invasion of Afghanistan in 1398 CE. Timur's autobiography (Tuzak-i-Timuri) amply attests that he had battled both with
1300-479: The Siah-Poshes as he does for the Katirs and numerous other communities of India proper. Also, he gives no further details of his conflict with the Siah-Poshes in his Tuzak-i-Timuri after this encounter, which clearly shows that the outcome of the fight against the Siah-Poshes was very costly and shameful for Timur. Other references to these Kafirs are made in the fifteenth and later in sixteenth century during
1350-721: The Siah-posh (black clad) and the Safed-posh (white clad) Kafirs, also known as the Lal-posh (red-clad), so-called because of the colour of the robes they wore. But the British investigator George Scott Robertson who visited Kafiristan and studied the Kafirs for about two years (1889–1891) improved upon the old classification by recognising that the Safed-posh Kafirs were actually members of several separate clans, viz,
1400-579: The Waigulis, Presungulis or Viron, and the Ashkuns. The later three groups of the Kafirs used to be collectively known as Sped-Posh Kafirs. The term Siah-posh Kafirs used to designate the dominant group of Hindu Kush Kafirs inhabiting the Bashgal Valley . The Siah-posh Kafirs have sometimes been confused with Kalasha people of the neighbouring Chitral region in Pakistan . The Siah-Posh tribe
1450-428: The expand influence of [Indo-Aryan] Midland ( Madhyadesha ) innovations, being left free to develop on their own. Due to their geographic isolation, many Dardic languages have preserved archaisms and other features of Old Indo-Aryan . These features include three sibilants , several types of clusters of consonants, and archaic or antiquated vocabulary lost in other modern Indo-Aryan languages. Kalasha and Khowar are
1500-648: The greater part of its vocabulary is now of Indian origin, and is allied to that of Sanskritic Indo-Aryan languages of northern India". While it is true that many Dardic languages have been influenced by non-Dardic languages, Dardic may have also influenced neighbouring Indo-Aryan lects in turn, such as Punjabi , the Pahari languages , including the Central Pahari languages of Uttarakhand , and purportedly even further afield. Some linguists have posited that Dardic lects may have originally been spoken throughout
1550-534: The historic Dardic's position as a legitimate genetic subfamily has been repeatedly called into question; it is widely acknowledged that the grouping is more geographical in nature, as opposed to linguistic. Indeed, Buddruss rejected the Dardic grouping entirely, and placed the languages within Central Indo-Aryan . Other scholars, such as Strand and Mock, have similarly voiced doubts in this regard. However, Kachru contrasts "Midland languages" spoken in
Dardi - Misplaced Pages Continue
1600-446: The latter, but soon recanted and attacked the regiment of Muslim soldiers during night. The latter being on guard, fought back, killed numerous Kators and took 150 as prisoners and put them to death afterwards. Next day, Timur ordered his troops to advance on all four sides to kill all men, enslave the women and children and plunder or lay waste all their property . In his autobiography called Tuzak-i-Timuri , Timur proudly boasts of
1650-563: The most archaic of all modern Indo-Aryan languages , retaining a great part of Sanskrit case inflexion, and retaining many words in a nearly Sanskritic form. For example driga "long" in Kalasha is nearly identical to dīrghá in Sanskrit and ašrú "tear" in Khowar is identical to the Sanskrit word. French Indologist Gérard Fussman points out that the term Dardic is geographic, not
1700-569: The most numerous, the Kam of the upper Bashgul valley were the most intractable and fierce and dreaded for their military prowess. General Issa Nuristani was second in command following the King during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan , being the commander of the 1st Central Army Corps. Before his assassination, General Issa called the Nuristani people in a " Jihad " against the Soviet Army and
1750-471: The native religion of Japan , indicating a shared history dating back to 2000 BCE. Each village and clan had its guardian deity, with shamans advising those seeking help and priests officiating at religious services. The cult centered on the sacrifice of animals, mostly goats. The area extending from modern Nuristan to Kashmir was known as "Peristan", a vast area containing a host of Nuristani cultures and Indo-European languages that became Islamized over
1800-621: The north-west of the Indo-Aryan linguistic area (which includes present-day eastern Afghanistan , northern Pakistan , and Kashmir ). George Abraham Grierson , with scant data, borrowed the term and proposed an independent Dardic family within the Indo-Iranian languages . However, Grierson's formulation of Dardic is now considered to be incorrect in its details, and has therefore been rendered obsolete by modern scholarship. Georg Morgenstierne , who conducted an extensive fieldwork in
1850-493: The original term Dardic was a geographical concept, denoting the northwesternmost group of Indo-Aryan languages. There is no ethnic unity among the speakers of these languages nor can the languages be traced to a single ancestor . After further research, the term "Eastern Dardic" is now a legitimate grouping of languages that excludes some languages in the Dardistan region that are now considered to be part of different language families. The extinct Gandhari language , used by
1900-539: The plains, such as Punjabi and Urdu , with "Mountain languages", such as Dardic. Kogan has also suggested an 'East-Dardic' sub-family; comprising the 'Kashmiri', 'Kohistani' and 'Shina' groups. The case of Kashmiri is peculiar. Its Dardic features are close to Shina , often said to belong to an eastern Dardic language subfamily. Kachru notes that "the Kashmiri language used by Kashmiri Hindu Pandits has been powerfully influenced by Indian culture and literature, and
1950-400: The regiment was badly routed by a small number of Siah-Posh Kafirs. The Muslim forces had to flee from the battle-field leaving their horses and armour. Another detachment had to be sent under Muhammad Azad which fought gallantly and recovered the horses and the armour lost by General Aglan and came back home, leaving the Siah-Posh alone. Timur does not boast of any killings or imprisonment of
2000-472: The region during the early 20th century, revised Grierson's classification and came to the view that only the "Kafiri" ( Nuristani ) languages formed an independent branch of the Indo-Iranian languages separate from Indo-Aryan and Iranian families, and determined that the Dardic languages were unmistakably Indo-Aryan in character. Dardic languages contain absolutely no features which cannot be derived from old [Indo-Aryan language]. They have simply retained
2050-549: The related word "Kafir" means one who does not believe in Islam. The majority were converted to Islam during Abdur Rahman Khan 's rule around 1895. The province is now known as Nuristan and the people as Nuristanis. However, among the rural population many old customs and beliefs like occasional production of wine have continued. In the 4th century BC, Alexander the Great encountered them and finally defeated them after they put up
Dardi - Misplaced Pages Continue
2100-407: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Dardi . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dardi&oldid=1121641278 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
2150-534: The top of the hill. Timur razed the fort to ground, burnt their houses and surrounded the hill where the Kator had collected for shelter. The relic of the historic fort is said to still exist a little north to Najil in the form of a structure known as Timur Hissar (Timur's Fort). After a tough fight, some of the Kators were defeated and were instantly put to death while the others held out against heavy odds for three days. Timur offered them death or Islam . They chose
2200-745: The withdrawal of the Soviet troops in 1989, the Mawlawi Ghulam Rabbani was declared as governor of the Kunar Province. The Nuristanis inspired others to fight and contributed to the demise of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1992. In a 2012 research on Y-chromosomes of five Nuristani samples, three were found to belong to the Haplogroup R1a , and one each in R2a and J2a . Most Nuristanis are from
2250-565: The word buum for 'earth' (Sanskrit: bhumi ), Pashai uses the word duum for 'smoke' (Urdu: dhuān , Sanskrit: dhūma ) and Kashmiri uses the word dọd for 'milk' (Sanskrit: dugdha , Urdu: dūdh ). Tonality has developed in most (but not all) Dardic languages, such as Khowar and Pashai, as a compensation. Punjabi and Western Pahari languages similarly lost aspiration but have virtually all developed tonality to partially compensate (e.g. Punjabi kár for 'house', compare with Urdu ghar ). Both ancient and modern Dardic languages demonstrate
2300-447: The word driga 'long' (Sanskrit: dirgha ). Palula uses drubalu 'weak' (Sanskrit: durbala ) and brhuj 'birch tree' (Sanskrit: bhurja ). Kashmiri uses drạ̄lid 'impoverished' (Sanskrit: daridra ) and krama 'work' or 'action' (Sanskrit: karma ). Western Pahari languages (such as Dogri ), Sindhi and Lahnda (Western Punjabi) also share this Dardic tendency to metathesis, though they are considered non-Dardic, for example cf.
2350-488: Was at length resolved on; and Mahmud led the seventh one against Nardain, the then boundary of India , or the eastern part of the Hindu Kush; separating as Firishta says, the countries of Hindustan and Turkistan and remarkable for its excellent fruit. The country into which the army of Ghazni marched appears to have been the same as that now called Kafirstan, where the inhabitants were and still are, idolaters and are named
2400-408: Was completely surrounded by Muslim states in the 16th century. The Kalash people of lower Chitral are the last surviving heirs of the area. The region was called Kafiristan because while the surrounding populations were converted to Islam , the people in this region retained their traditional religion, and were thus known as "Kafirs" to the Muslims. The Arabic word "Kufr" means disbelief and
2450-657: Was divided into Siah-posh Katirs or Kamtoz, Siah-posh Mumans or Madugals, Siah-posh Kashtoz or Kashtan, Siah-posh Gourdesh or Istrat, and Siah-posh Kams or Kamoze. The Siah-posh Katirs were further divided into the Katirs, who occupied twelve villages of the lower Bashgul (Kam) country, the Kti or Katawar, who lived in two villages in the Kti Valley, the Kulam, and the Ramguli, the most numerous group, living in twenty four villages in
2500-598: Was universally revered as the creator: the Hindu god Yama Râja called imr'o in Kâmviri. There is a creator god, appearing under various names, as lord of the nether world and of heaven: Yama Rājan, or Māra ('death', Nuristani), or Dezau (ḍezáw) whose name is derived from Indo-European *dheiǵh- i.e. "to form" (Kati Nuristani dez "to create", CDIAL 14621); Dezauhe is also called by the Persian term Khodaii . There are
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