Hindko and Gujari. c - SIL International

Hindko 55
(4.1) Percentages of Phonetically Similar Lexical Items
Shared by Pairs of Hindko Dialects
BA Balakot
SH 89 Sherpur
MA 87 92 Mansehra
SI 87 89 90 Singo Di Garhi
JA 82 85 84 89 Jammun
AT 71 76 77 79 82 Attock
TA 67 70 73 77 75 85 Talagang
KO 69 70 68 70 76 79 76 Kohat
WA 70 75 74 74 76 81 73 76 Wad Pagga
PA 73 76 76 77 78 81 75 76 93 Pakha Gholam
PE 70 73 74 71 73 70 66 71 79 81 Peshawar
From the percentages of similarity displayed in figure (4.1)
it can be seen that the dialects of certain Hindko areas are
especially similar. The two rural dialects of Peshawar District,
Wad Pagga and Pakha Gholam, are especially similar to each
other (93 percent) but not particularly so to that of Peshawar
City. 20 It is interesting to note the moderate lexical distance
between Peshawar rural dialects and the city dialect, which
contrasts with the fact that they are geographically close —
Pakha Gholam, for example, being a mere five kilometers from
the city of Peshawar. An examination of the lexical items which
are interpreted as different in the Pakha Gholam and Peshawar
20 “The language of Pe. [Peshawari]-speaking villages near the city,
where many of the villagers commute to work, shows minor differences only
from the less sophisticated varieties of urban speech. There is, however, at least
one important rural dialect of Pe. which does show significant differences from
the city standard … spoken in a large group of Pe.-speaking villages known as
Tappa Khalsa … along the Grand Trunk Road east of Peshawar” [e.g., Wad
Pagga] (Shackle 1980:497).
“Such rural base as it [Peshawari] can be said to possess is itself
apparently the product of relatively recent immigration, (ftn: The settlement of
the important Tappa Khalsa area is … dated by its inhabitants to the time of the
emperor Aurangzeb.) and it is not to be compared straightforwardly with the
usual NIA pattern of an urban speech surrounded by quite closely related
village dialects” (Shackle 1980:509).