Hindko and Gujari. c - SIL International

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Calinda E. Hallberg and Clare F. O’Leary
toward Western forms of Gujari. Two of the men interviewed
independently in Azad Kashmir spoke of “two dialects” of Gujari
within Pakistan, separating the Gujari spoken in Swat and Chitral
(one included Gilgit in this dialect group as well) from that
spoken in Hazara and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. 18
The issue of “pure” versus “mixed” Gujari was often
mentioned by RTT subjects and interviewees, lending further
support to the East-West split hypothesis described in the word
list analysis. RTT subjects repeatedly commented regarding
code-mixing in the recorded texts. Several subjects from the
West described the Gujari in the Eastern recorded texts as mixing
Hindko, Pahari, Panjabi, or Urdu. As mentioned above, the
Eastern word lists do display higher similarity counts with these
other languages than do the Western ones. Two respondents also
mentioned the influence of Kashmiri in the Trarkhel text. Some
subjects in the East describe the Peshmal text as mixing Pashto,
though the word list counts do not support this pattern. 19 Some
subjects also mentioned the influence of Swat Kohistani words in
the Peshmal text, and one subject mentioned some Khowar
words in the Chitral Gujari text. Lexical borrowing from regional
languages is to be expected, but we have no measure as to the
extent that borrowed forms actually occur in the recorded texts to
compare with the perceptions mentioned by some subjects. It is
likely that even a few unfamiliar loan words would stand out and
provoke comment by listeners from regions where the loaning
language is not spoken.
Lexical influence on some Gujari varieties from the national
language, Urdu, and from the widely spoken Panjabi could
improve the comprehension of such varieties by those Gujars
with education or greater contact with those languages. The
18 One of these men mentioned that the Gujari spoken in “Occupied
Kashmir” made up a third dialect.
19 As mentioned previously, this may be due to the relatively more
obvious contrast between Gujari and Pashto, than between Gujari and Hindko,
Panjabi, or Urdu. Perhaps it was easier for the Western Gujari speakers to
identify and eliminate any apparent Pashto loans from these Western word lists
than it would be for Eastern Gujari speakers to do the same for loans from more
closely related languages.