23-407: Upper Chitral District ( Khowar : توری ݯھیترارو ضلع ; Urdu : ضلع چترال بالا ) is an administrative district in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa , Pakistan. Kho people are the dominant ethnic group in the district, forming 99.84% of the total population. Chitral River flows across the length of the district. Upper Chitral District along with Lower Chitral District were part of
46-499: A standard Khowar script continued for decades into the 1970s. This process was not without controversy either. Some literaturists were advocating for keeping the number of letters to a minimum, or in other words removing Arabic letters that do not represent distinct sounds in Khowar and are homophone with other letters (for example ث، ذ، ص , being homophone with س، ز، س respectively). In total, 6 new letters were added to
69-478: Is a sports festival held annually from 7 to 9 July in the Shandur Polo Ground. The polo tournament is played between the teams of Gilgit-Baltistan Districts and Chitral District, under freestyle rules. The tournament is held at Shandur Top which is the world highest polo ground at an altitude of 3,700 meters (the pass itself is at 3,800 meters). Traditional Chitrali clothing includes
92-600: Is also spoken in the Gupis-Yasin and Ghizer districts of Gilgit-Baltistan, as well in the Upper Swat district . Speakers of Khowar have also migrated heavily to Pakistan's major urban centres, with Peshawar , Islamabad , Lahore and Karachi having significant populations. It is also spoken as a second language by the Kalash people . The native name of the language is Khō-wār , meaning "language" ( wār ) of
115-581: Is derived from Urdu alphabet , with additional letters created to represent sounds unique to Khowar. Similar to Urdu, Khowar is typically written in the calligraphic Nastaʿlīq script . From the end of the 19th century onwards, literaturists and rulers of Chitral princely state have put in much effort to popularize literacy, reading, and writing in Khowar. Initially, Mirza Muhammad Shakur and Prince Tajumal Shah Mohfi adopted Persian alphabet , used in neighbouring Afghanistan . However, Persian alphabet did not have letters for many unique sounds in Khowar. By
138-603: Is represented by one elected MPA in the provincial assembly who represent the following constituencies:PK-1 Khowar language Khowar ( Khowar : کھوار زبان , romanized: khowār , IPA: [kʰɔːwaːr] ), or Chitrali , is a Dardic language of the Indo-Aryan language family primarily spoken in Chitral and surrounding areas in Pakistan . Khowar is the lingua franca of Chitral , and it
161-854: Is the headquarters of the Chitral Upper District. It shares a border with Gilgit-Baltistan to the east, with Badakshan province of Afghanistan to the north and with the Upper Dir District to the southwest and with Swat District to the southeast. A narrow strip of Wakhan Corridor separates Chitral from Tajikistan in the north. Chitral has a warm steppe climate influenced by the Hindu Kush mountain range. Summers are pleasantly warm without ever getting too hot. Winters are extremely cold; longer periods with subzero temperatures are not uncommon. Precipitation figures here are higher than in other regions in Pakistan . As of
184-494: The 2023 census , Upper Chitral district has 26,365 households and a population of 195,528. The district has a sex ratio of 105.75 males to 100 females and a literacy rate of 73.83%: 84.87% for males and 62.11% for females. 44,351 (22.73% of the surveyed population) are under 10 years of age. The entire population lives in rural areas. In the 2023 census, 782 (0.40% of the surveyed population) people were from religious minorities, half Christians and half 'Other' religions. 99.84% of
207-493: The Gandhari language , it likely came from further south in the first millennium BC, possibly through Swat and Dir . Georg Morgenstierne noted, "Khowar, in many respects [is] the most archaic of all modern Indian languages , retaining a great part of Sanskrit case inflexion, and retaining many words in a nearly Sanskritic form". Khowar has a variety of dialects, which may vary phonemically. The following tables lay out
230-666: The Kho people . The word Khō-wār is a cognate with the Serbian and Bulgarian говор (pronounced "govor," meaning "speech"), with the unstable "г" subject to palatalization (as in other related languages, such as the Czech cognate hovor ). During the British Raj it was known to the English as Chitrālī (a derived adjective from the name of the Chitral region ) or Qāshqārī . Among
253-629: The Shalwar Kameez and the Pakol (Chitrali hat). According to Aziz et al. 2019, the western Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups were observed predominantly and mostly shared in Kho samples with overall frequency of 50%. These include HV8, H19, H57, H24, C and, C4a haplogroups. The South Asian haplogroups and its relevant subgroups including U4, U4c, U6, U5a, and W were also found in Kho samples with overall 37.5% frequency. Another South Asian haplogroup, M30
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#1732771922422276-539: The Yasin and Ghizer valleys under the Khushwaqt dynasty in the 17th century. In ancient times the Kho people practised a faith akin to that observed by the Kalash today. In the 14th century, many of the Kho converted to Islam though some previous customs continue to persist. With respect to Islam, the Kho are primarily Hanafi Sunni Muslims although there exists a substantial population of Ismaili Muslims in
299-689: The 37-letter Urdu Alphabet, to create the 43-letter Khowar script. Kho people The Kho ( / k oʊ / , Khowar : کھو ), or Chitrali people , are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group native to the Chitral District in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa , Pakistan and the Gupis-Yasin and Ghizer districts of Gilgit-Baltistan . They speak an Indo-Aryan language called Khowar . The Kho people are likely descendants of those who migrated to their present location in Chitral from
322-465: The Khowar language, that: "Khowar, in many respects [is] the most archaic of all modern Indian languages, retaining a great part of Sanskrit case inflexion, and retaining many words in a nearly Sanskritic form.” Khowar is spoken by around 800,000 people in Pakistan. Most of the Kho people also use Urdu as a second language. Chitrali folklore lays great emphasis upon supernatural beings, and
345-646: The Pashtuns and Badakhshanis it is known as Kashkār . Another name, used by Leitner in 1880, is Arnyiá or Arniya , derived from the Shina language name for the part of the Yasin (a valley in Gilgit-Baltistan) where Khowar is spoken. The Khowar language expanded throughout Chitral from the northern part of the region, specifically from the Mulkhow and Torkhow Valley . According to Morgenstierne ,
368-541: The Upper Chitral region. The Khowar language shares a great number of morphological characteristics with neighbouring Iranian languages of Badakhshan , pointing to a very early location of proto-Khowar in its original abode in Upper Chitral, although from its links with the Gandhari language , it likely came from further south in the first millennium BC, possibly through Swat and Dir. The ethnologists Karl Jettmar and Lennart Edelberg noted, with respect to
391-505: The area is sometimes called "Peristan" because of the common belief in fairies ( peri ) inhabiting the high mountains. The Barmanou is a popular local legend, often referred as the indigenous equivalent of the Yeti of the Himalayas. Polo is a popular sport and pastime for the Kho people. Polo traditionally played by the Kho has little rules or organisation. The Shandur Polo Festival
414-728: The basic phonology of Khowar. Khowar may also have nasalized vowels and a series of long vowels /ɑː/ , /ɛː/ , /iː/ , /ɔː/ , and /uː/ . Sources are inconsistent on whether length is phonemic, with one author stating "vowel-length is observed mainly as a substitute one. The vowel-length of phonological value is noted far more rarely." Unlike the neighboring and related Kalasha language , Khowar does not have retroflex vowels. Allophones of /x ɣ h ʋ ɾ/ are heard as sounds [χ ʁ ɦ w ɹ] . /q x ɣ f/ are restricted to Perso-Arabic loanwords in most IA languages but they occur natively in Khowar. Khowar, like many Dardic languages , has either phonemic tone or stress distinctions. Khowar orthography
437-481: The early 20th century, as under British Colonial rule, Urdu education and literacy became ever more popular among Indian Muslims (see Hindi–Urdu controversy ), Chitrali literaturists, namely Sir Nasir ul-Mulk and Mirza Muhammad Ghafran saw Urdu script as a better fit for Khowar. Nonetheless, Urdu also lacked sounds that existed in Chitrali. Thus, new letters were proposed and created. But the process of settling on
460-640: The erstwhile Chitral District which was the largest district in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, covering an area of 14,850 km. Previously, it formed part of the Chitral princely state that encompassed the region until its incorporation into the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan in 14 August 1947. The erstwhile Chitral District was bifurcated into Upper Chitral and Lower Chitral Districts in November, 2018. The town of Buni
483-427: The original abode of the Khowar language was northern Chitral in the valleys around Mastuj . The Khowar language started expanding into southern Chitral around the early 14th century. Khowar shares a great number of morphological characteristics with neighbouring Iranian languages of Badakhshan , pointing to a very early location of proto-Khowar in its original abode in Upper Chitral, although from its links with
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#1732771922422506-629: The population spoke languages recorded as 'Other' on the census. The main language is Khowar , sometimes called Chitrali, spoken by the Dardi Kho . Wakhi is spoken in the northern regions along the Afghan border. The district along with Lower Chitral District is represented by one elected MNA (Member of National Assembly) in Pakistan National Assembly . Its constituency is NA-1 . The district along with Lower Chitral District
529-471: The south. The Kho people spread throughout Chitral from the northern part of the region, specifically from the Mulkhow and Torkhow Valley . According to Morgenstierne , the original abode of the Kho was northern Chitral in the valleys around Mastuj . The Kho started expanding into southern Chitral around the early 14th century under the Rais Mehtars . Later on, the Kho expanded eastwards into
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