Pashayi - also known as Pashai - is a language (or a group of languages) spoken by the Pashai people in parts of Kapisa, Laghman, Nuristan, Kunar, and Nangarhar Provinces in Northeastern Afghanistan.
It belongs to the Indo-European language family, and is on the Dardic group of the Indo-Aryan branch.
It was spoken by over 216,842 people who are predominantly Muslim. Most of them are bilingual in Pashto with a literacy rate of about 25%, with the Pashai language having no written form prior to 2003. There are four main varieties, which are all mutually unintelligible: the Northeastern, the Northwestern, the Southeastern and the Southwestern. The inhabitants of the Korengal Valley in the Pech District of Kunar Province speak a variety of Pashai Language.
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“He never doubts his genius; it is only he and his God in all the world. He uses language sometimes as greatly as Shakespeare; and though there is not much straight grain in him, there is plenty of tough, crooked timber.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)