Southeastern Katë dialect

Southeastern Katë is a dialect of the Katë language spoken by the Kom and Kata in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It also includes the so-called Kamviri and Mumviri (spoken in Mangul, Sasku and Gabalgrom in the Bashgal Valley) dialects.

Southeastern Katë
Native to	Afghanistan
Region	Nuristan, Kunar
Native speakers	20,000 (2011)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Nuristani Katë Southeastern Katë
Writing system	Arabic script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bsh
Glottolog	kati1270

Innovations

According to Halfmann (2024), the primary innovations of the Southeastern dialect include secondary vowel length from monophthongization of vowel + v, a progressive suffix -n-, intervocalic consonant lenition (usually sibilants and velars), post-nasal voicing, and merger of Proto-Nuristani pre-tonic *a and *ā as a.

Phonology

The inventory as described by Richard Strand.^[2] In addition, there is stress.

The neutral articulatory posture, as in the reduced vowel /a/, consists of the tip of the tongue behind the lower teeth and a raised tongue root is linked with a raised larynx, producing a characteristic pitch for unstressed vowels of about an octave above the pitch of a relaxed larynx.

Consonants

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Retroflex	Post- Alveolar	Velar
Plosive	voiceless	p	t	ʈ		k
	voiced	b	d	ɖ		ɡ
Affricate	voiceless		t͡s	t͡ʂ	t͡ʃ
	voiced		d͡z	d͡ʐ	d͡ʒ
Fricative	voiceless	(f)	s	ʂ	ʃ	(x)
	voiced	v	z	ʐ	ʒ	ɣ
Nasal		m	n	ɳ		ŋ
Tap			ɾ	(ɽ)
Approximant	lateral		l
	central			ɻ	j

• Sounds [f, x, q, ɢ, ħ, ʕ, h, ʔ] are found in loanwords.
• Between vowels, /s, ʂ, ʃ/ voice to [z, ʐ, ʒ].
• /v/ can also be heard as bilabial [β] or a labial approximant [w].
• For most speakers, and especially in Kombřom, /ʈ/ becomes a retroflex flap [ɽ].
• /k/ becomes a velar tap [ɡ̆].

One suffix /ti/ voices to [di] for most speakers.

[ʈɭ, ɖɭ] are phonetic affricates.

Nasals voice a following obstruent.

Laminal consonants change a following /a/ from [ɨ] to [i].

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i y	(ɨ ⟨a⟩)	u
Mid	e	ə ⟨a⟩	o
Low		a ⟨â⟩	(ɔ)

⟨a⟩ is [ː] after another vowel, [i] after a laminal consonant and after /ik, ek, iɡ, eɡ/. For some speakers, it is [u] after /uk, yk, uɡ, yɡ/. Otherwise it is [ə] or [ɨ].

Vocabulary

Pronouns

Person		Direct	Genitive	Oblique
1st	sg.	õ, õċ	yĩ	yī̃
	pl.	yimó		yimṓ
2nd	sg.	tü	tu	tū
	pl.	šo		šō

Numbers

1. e, ev, ē
2. dü
3. tre
4. što
5. puč
6. ṣu
7. sut
8. vuṣṭ
9. nu
10. duċ
11. yaníċ
12. diċ
13. triċ
14. štreċ
15. pačíċ
16. ṣeċ
17. satíċ
18. aṣṭíċ
19. neċ
20. viċí

Further reading

• Halfmann, Jakob (2024). A Grammatical Description of the Katë Language (Nuristani) (PhD thesis). Universität zu Köln.