Madaklashti dialect

Madaklashti (also known as Madaglashti) is a dialect of Persian spoken in the Madaklasht Valley of the Chitral region in northern Pakistan. It is closely related to the Dari-Tajik dialects spoken in the Badakhshan region of Afghanistan and Tajikistan.^[1][2]

Madaklashti
مدگلاشتی
Native to	Pakistan
Region	Lower Chitral
Ethnicity	Madaklashti/Tajiks
Native speakers	3,964 (2013)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Western Southwestern Persian Dari or Tajik Madaklashti
Writing system	Persian alphabet (Nastaliq)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–

The total population of Madaklashti speakers is estimated to be about 4,000.^[2] They are believed to have migrated from Badakhshan to Chitral in the 18th century.^[1] Madaklashti is completely isolated from other languages in the area and rarely draws any loanwords from Khowar, the dominant language of Chitral, although the community itself has undergone influences from the Kho culture.^[1]

See also

• Dehwari, a Persian dialect spoken in Balochistan, southwestern Pakistan
• Hazaragi, a Persian dialect spoken by the Hazara diaspora in Pakistan