Dardic Languages - Position Among The Indo-Iranian Languages

Position Among The Indo-Iranian Languages

The Dardic group has traditionally been defined as a sub-group of the Indo-Aryan languages which experienced strong influence from the Nuristani and East Iranian languages. Nuristani, a group of languages spoken in northeast Afghanistan, has sometimes been included in Dardic, but is today generally regarded as an independent group, as one of the three sub-groups of Indo-Iranian, following the studies of Georg Morgenstierne in 1973 to 1975.

There is still some dispute regarding the ultimate classification of the Dardic languages. The very existence of the family has been called into question by some, though the Dardic languages share common features different from Indo-Aryan, such as the so-called Dardic metathesis (karma => krama).

Except for Kashmiri, all of the Dardic languages are small minority languages which have not been sufficiently studied. In many cases they are spoken in areas difficult to access due to mountainous terrain and/or armed conflicts in the region. All of the languages (including Kashmiri) have been historically influenced by more prominent (non-Dardic) neighboring languages.

While it is true that many Dardic languages have been influenced by non-Dardic neighbors, Dardic may in turn also have left a discernible imprint on non-Dardic Indo-Aryan languages, such as Punjabi and allegedly even far beyond. It has also been asserted that some Pahari languages of Uttarakhand demonstrate Dardic influence. Although it has not been conclusively established, some linguists have hypothesized that Dardic may, in ancient times, have enjoyed a much bigger linguistic zone, stretching from the "mouth of the Indus" (i.e. Sindh) northwards in an arc, and then eastwards through modern day Himachal Pradesh to Kumaon.