Torwali written in Perso-Arabic in Nastaliq style.
Region
Swat District
Ethnicity
Torwali people
Native speakers
130,000 (2020)[1]
Language family
Indo-European
Indo-Iranian
Indo-Aryan
Dardic
Ghandhari languages
Torwali
Writing system
Arabic script (primarily Nastaliq)
Language codes
ISO 639-3
trw
Glottolog
torw1241
ELP
Torwali
Torwali is a minor language of Pakistan which is mainly spoken by Torwali nation of Central Swat District, it is given a space in this map.
Bahrain, the main town of the Torwali community
Torwali (توروالی) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Torwali people, and concentrated in the Bahrain and Chail areas of the Swat District in Pakistan.[2][3][4][5] The Torwali language is said to have originated from the pre-Muslim communities of Swat.[6] It is the closest modern Indo-Aryan language still spoken today to Niya, a dialect of Gāndhārī, a Middle Indo-Aryan language spoken in the ancient region of Gandhara.[7][8]
Torwali is an endangered language: it is characterised as "definitely endangered" by UNESCO's Atlas of Endangered Languages,[9] and as "vulnerable" by the Catalogue of Endangered Languages.[10] There have been efforts to revitalize the language since 2004, and mother tongue community schools have been established by Idara Baraye Taleem-o-Taraqi (IBT).[11]
^Torwali at Ethnologue (26th ed., 2023)
^Kreutzmann, Hermann (2005). "Linguistic diversity in space and time: A survey in the Eastern Hindukush and Karakoram". Himalayan Linguistics. 4. Center for Development Studies, Free University of Berlin: 7.
^Torwali, Zubair (2016). "Reversing Language Loss through an Identity Based Educational Planning: The Case of Torwali language" (PDF). Eurasian Journal of Humanities. 1 (2): 24.
^Biddulph, John (1880). Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh(PDF). Graz, Austria: 1971 edition Akadmeische Druck u Verlagasasntalt. p. 69.
^Barth, Fredrik (1956). Indus and Swat Kohistan: an Ethnographic Survey. Oslo. p. 52.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) The Pathans call them, and all other Muhammadans of Indian descent in the Hindu Kush valleys, Kohistanis.
^Torwali, Zubair (4 March 2019). "Revitalization of Torwali poetry and music". We Mountains – Regional Website of North Pakistan. IBT. Retrieved 5 March 2019.
^Burrow, T. (1936). "The Dialectical Position of the Niya Prakrit". Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London. 8 (2/3): 419–435. ISSN 1356-1898. JSTOR 608051. ... It might be going too far to say that Torwali is the direct lineal descendant of the Niya Prakrit, but there is no doubt that out of all the modern languages it shows the closest resemblance to it. A glance at the map in the Linguistic Survey of India shows that the area at present covered by "Kohistani" is the nearest to that area round Peshawar, where, as stated above, there is most reason to believe was the original home of the Niya Prakrit. That conclusion, which was reached for other reasons, is thus confirmed by the distribution of the modern dialects.
^Salomon, Richard (1998-12-10). Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan Languages. Oxford University Press. p. 79. ISBN 978-0-19-535666-3.
^Torwali, Zubair (2016). "Reversing Language Loss through an Identity Based Educational Planning: The Case of Torwali language" (PDF). Eurasian Journal of Humanities. 1 (2): 24.
^Hammarström, Harald. "Torwali". Glottolog. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
^Liljegren, Henrik (2018). "Supporting and Sustaining Language Vitality in Northern Pakistan". The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization. pp. 427–437. doi:10.4324/9781315561271-54. ISBN 978-1-315-56127-1.
Torwali (توروالی) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Torwali people, and concentrated in the Bahrain and Chail areas of the Swat District in Pakistan...
people there. There are efforts to retain a record of the language by linguist Zubair Torwali among others. In 2018, BBC reporters found three old men...
that is played using the sitar. They speak an Indo-Aryan language called Torwali. The Torwalis inhabit the Swat River valley between Laikot (a little south...
Look up Torwali in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Torwali or Turvali may refer to: Torwalilanguage spoken in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Torwali people, who...
Keane (2004:111) Lunsford (2001:11–16) "ٹیگیل". Online Torwali Dictionary. Center for Language Engineering. Archived from the original on 2024-03-28....
World's Languages, Oxford: Blackwell, ISBN 0-631-19815-6 Lunsford, Wayne A. (2001), "An overview of linguistic structures in Torwali, a language of Northern...
promote Pakistan's Dardic cultures and languages. He has authored and supervised a number of books in and about Torwali. His book in English, Muffled Voices...
Lunsford, Wayne A. (2001). An overview of linguistic structures in Torwali, a language of Northern Pakistan (PDF) (M.A. thesis). Arlington: University of...
other languages in Pakistan have also been found to have tonal distinctions, including Burushaski, Gujari, Hindko, Kalami, Shina, and Torwali, though...
in Torwali, a language of Northern Pakistan" (PDF), M.A. Thesis, University of Texas at Arlington Kordić, Snježana (2006), Serbo-Croatian, Languages of...
Dravidian languages, but are found in other languages of the region as well, such as the Munda languages and Burushaski. The Nuristani languages of eastern...
by Iranian languages brought in by later migrants, such as Pashto. Among the modern day Indo-Aryan languages still spoken today, Torwali shows the closest...
Bureau of Statistics. Eberhard, Simons & Fennig 2022. "Endangered Languages Project - Torwali - Challenges to the linguistic diversity of North Pakistan"....
significant numbers of Kashmiris, Chitralis, Shina, Baltis, Kohistanis, Torwalis, Hazaras, Burusho, Wakhis, Kalash, Siddis and other various minorities...
to the dominance of the Pashto language in the region, especially in Swat. Ushojo is written in a variety of the Torwali and Shina alphabets in the Perso-Arabic...
some living Dardic languages, particularly Torwali and other Kohistani languages. There is limited evidence that the Kohistani languages are descended from...
An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use, generally because it has few surviving speakers. If it loses all of its native...
Lunsford, Wayne A. (2001), "An overview of linguistic structures in Torwali, a language of Northern Pakistan" (PDF), M.A. Thesis, University of Texas at...
World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19815-6. Lunsford, Wayne A. (2001), "An overview of linguistic structures in Torwali, a language of Northern...
north-western zone of Indo-Aryan languages, along with several closely related languages in its geographical vicinity: Torwali (in Swat south of Kalam), Indus...
rare among the Indo-Aryan languages, but not unheard of, e.g. in Punjabi, Dogri, Chittagonian, Gawri (Kalam Kohistani), Torwali, some Eastern Bengali varieties...
Pashayi or Pashai (پشه اې ژبه) is a group of Indo-Aryan languages spoken by the Pashai people in parts of Kapisa, Laghman, Nangarhar, Nuristan, Kunar...
Chail (meteorite), an 1814 meteorite fall Chail, a dialect area of the Torwalilanguage in Pakistan All pages with titles containing Chail Challa (disambiguation)...
Shuthun but these names are not known locally. It is very similar to Torwalilanguage that is spoken in Bahrain and Chail Swat. As it is hilly area and surrounded...
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