IRANIAN LANGUAGES

ISHKASHMI

The Ishkashmi language belongs to the Pamir southern group of the Eastern-Iranian languages group of the Indo-European family of languages.

Different dialects have been recorded: Ishkashmi proper, Zebak and Sanglechi. The latter two are spoken in Afghanistan. The Tadzhik influence on the speakers of Ishkashmi proper is very strong. Ishkashmi is still commonly used as a language for everyday communication. 

Schools, official communications, publications and broadcasting programmes are in Tadzhik. All the Ishkashmis, except young children, speak Tadzhik, and it is also used in communicating with the neighbouring Wakhis and Shughnis. According to T. Pakhalina. Ishkashmi is surviving, although its sphere of use is narrowing.

The first data on the Ishkashmi language was published by R. Shaw in his well-known work "On the Ghalchah Languages (Wakhi and Sarikoli)" (Journal of the Asiatic Society, vol. XIV, 1876). A systematic research of the language is relatively recent (1920s).

The Ishkashmi writing, like the other small nations in the Pamirs, the Ishkashmi have no written language, and for this purpose Tadzhik is used. There has been little research on the Ishkashmi language. The material by R. Shaw has been collected in the area of the Sanglichi dialect. For a long time this was the only information which European philologists had at their disposal. 

In 1914 R. Gauthiot happened to write down some Ishkashmi words heard from a chance passer-by. After the death of the linguist these were published. The first text in Ishkashmi was published only in 1920.