Region Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Writing system Arabic script Glottolog torw1241 | Native speakers 80,000 (2001) ISO 639-3 trw | |
Language family Indo-European
Indo-Iranian
Indo-Aryan
Dardic
Kohistani
Torwali | ||
Torwali (Urdu: توروالی) , or Turvali, is a Dardic language spoken in Kohistan and Swat districts of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan. The language is indigenous to the Torwali people who live in scattered hamlets in the mountainous upper reaches of the Swat valley, above the Pashto-speaking town of Madyan up to the Gawri-speaking town of Kalam. There are two main dialects of Torwali: Bahrain and Chail.
Contents
Phonology
Although descriptions of Torwali phonology have appeared in the literature, some questions still remain unanswered.
Vowels
Edelman's analysis, which was based on Grierson and Morgenstierne, shows nasal counterparts to at least /e o a/ and also found a series of central (reduced?) vowels, transcribed as: ⟨ä⟩, ⟨ü⟩, ⟨ö⟩.
Lunsford had some difficulty determining vowel phonemes and suggested there may be retracted vowels with limited distribution: /ɨ/ (which may be [i̙]), /e̙/, /ə̙/. Retracted or retroflex vowels are also found in Kalash-mondr.
Consonants
The phonemic status of the breathy voiced series is debatable.
Sounds with particularly uncertain status are marked with a superscript question mark.