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Shughni language
Pamir language of Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and China From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Shughni[a] is one of the Pamir languages of the Southeastern Iranian language group.[2][3] Its distribution is in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region in Tajikistan, Badakhshan Province in Afghanistan, Chitral district in Pakistan and Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County in China.[2][4]
Shughni-Rushani tends towards SOV word order, distinguishes a masculine and feminine gender in nouns and some adjectives, as well as the 3rd person singular of verbs. Shughni distinguishes between an absolutive and an oblique case in its system of pronouns. Rushani is noted for a typologically unusual 'double-oblique' construction, also called a 'transitive case', in the past tense. Normally Soviet school scientists consider Rushani as a close but independent language to Shughni, while Western school scientists codes Rushani as a dialect of Shughni due to Afghanistan Rushani speakers living in the Sheghnan district of Badakhshan Province.
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Dialects
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Rushani, Bartangi, Oroshori (Roshorvi), Khufi and Shughni proper are considered to be dialects. However, Bartangi and Khufi are quite distinct and may be separate languages.
Phonology
Vowels
The following are the vowels of Shughni:
Consonants
The following are the consonants of Shughni:[5]
- /r/ can be realised as a trill [r] or a tap [ɾ].
- Velar sounds /x, ɣ/ can also be realised as more fronted palatal sounds [ç, ʝ].
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Orthography
Summarize
Perspective
 | This section may contain material unrelated to the topic of the article. (September 2025) |
Shughni people live in both Afghanistan and Tajikistan. For the past 100 years, each country has had diverging literary traditions and orthographic standards. On either side of the border, Shughni literaturists, being previously an unwritten language, has relied heavily on the existing orthographic standards and conventions in coming up with an orthography for Shughni language.
In Tajikistan, Persian alphabet was discarded in 1928, being replaced by Latin alphabet, and 11 years afterwards in 1939, Latin alphabet being replaced by Cyrillic alphabet. Tajik Cyrillic alphabet is of course based on Russian orthography, and similar to that of Uzbek language in neighboring Uzbekistan. Thus, the alphabets developed in Tajikistan for Shughni language, have been Cyrillic and Latin.
In Afghanistan, Dari (Afghan Persian), with the well-established Persian script, is the literary language of the nation. Pashto language too, with its own alphabet, derived from Persian, but with unique features and conventions, is the co-official language of Afghanistan. Thus, the Shughni orthography being developed by literaturists in Afghanistan has been derived from Persian, and borrowing letters from Pashto as needed.
Historical development
The question of whether the Shughni people possessed an ancient writing system is disputed. The only recorded mention of a possible ancient Shughni script comes from the Chinese traveler Xuanzang in the 7th century CE. In his work Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, he mentions a country called Shiqini, which researchers identify with Shughnan[6]. According to Xuanzang, the writing system of Shiqini was similar to that of the Tocharians, probably referring to the Bactrian alphabet[6].
From the second half of the 19th century, attempts were made to adapt the Arabic script for Shughni. Some poetry (e.g., by the poet Mullo Lochin, 1860–1920) and medical or historical works (e.g., by Shohzoda Muhammad) were written in it, but the practice never became widespread[7].
During the same period, Shughni began to attract scholarly attention. The first Shughni grammar was compiled by the English researcher Robert Shaw in 1877, using a Latin-based transcription with diacritics. In 1883, the Russian scholar D. L. Ivanov produced the first Shughni dictionary; his manuscripts used Cyrillic with additional Latin letters, while the published version employed the Anders Johan Sjögren's Cyrillic alphabet. In the early 20th century, further publications on Shughni appeared, though the language itself remained largely unwritten[8].
Latin alphabet
The Latin-based writing system used for the Shughni language comprises 39 letters, combining standard Latin characters with diacritical marks and several letters adopted from the Greek alphabet. Although this alphabet has never been officially standardized, it has been widely employed in books, academic articles, and linguistic studies devoted to the Shughni language and related Pamir languages:[9]
Persian alphabet
The process of compiling a Persian derived alphabet for Shughni has been a long and iterative one, over a period starting from 2004, with the publication of the first book on phonology and orthography of Shughni language by Khair Mohammad Haidari.[10]
This was followed by a 2011 publication by Dr. Nur Ali Dost from Montreal-based "Sohravardi Foundation for Iranian Studies".,[11] a 2011 compilation by Mazhab Shah Zahoori[12] and two other by Alishah Sabbar and Calgary-based Dr. Khush Nazar Parmerzad.[13]
This led to controversy, correspondence, and collaboration between Shughni literaturists and academics, who over the following years, agreed upon specific set of consonants, and a specific standardized way of representing vowels.[14][15]
The Afghan government has officially adopted Shughni orthography as well, and the Ministry of Education has created textbooks to be used in Badakhshan Province.[16]
Letters
Below table demonstrates the 44-letter Persian-derived Shughni alphabet.[15][17][18]
Vowels
Shughni language consists of 10 vowels. There are 3 short vowels, which have 3 corresponding long vowels, and there are 4 additional long vowels. One of the topics of controversy in the process of compiling and standardizing Shughni orthography, was how to express all 9 of the vowels. In this process, letters from Pashto and Urdu have been borrowed (ې and ے), a new letter has been created (اۈ) and due to a lack of the sound [h], the letter he (هـ ـهـ) has been repurposed from a consonant grapheme to a vowel one.[15]
Below tables demonstrate how vowels are to be written in different positions within a word. Note that some vowels don't occur in specific positions in Shughni phonology. Also note that diacritics are generally dropped in writing. Also note that there exists free variation between the short vowels in colloquial Shughni.[15]
Cyrillic and Latin alphabets
Sample Text
Below is a sample text, the first few passages from translations of a British nursery rhyme, The Old Woman and Her Pig.[19]
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Notes
Literature
- Edelman, D. (Joy) I. and Leila R. Dodykhudoeva (2009). "Shughni." In: Gernot Windfuhr (ed.), The Iranian Languages, 787-824. London & New York: Routledge.
- Olson, Karen (2017). Shughni Phonology Statement. SIL International.
- Zarubin, I. I. (1960). Shugnanskie teksty i slovar. Moskva: Izd-vo Akademii nauk SSSR.
References
Further reading
External links
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