Re: Odp: Afro-Asiatic

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 1323
Date: 2000-02-01

 
----- Original Message -----
From: Alexander Stolbov
To: cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2000 7:30 PM
Subject: [cybalist] Re: Afro-Asiatic

> >[Alexander]
> > BTW just now I have taken notice of the fact that the best book on South
Asian
> > ethnology I have, "Etnogenes i etnicheskaya istoriya narodov Yuzhnoi Asii"
is
> > edited by Sergei Arutyunov. The book is really good in many aspects but only
6
> > lines are devoted to Burushaski.
> >
>[Gerry]
> Also, if you have the text edited by Sergei, could you possibly send me
> the 6 lines?
>

These 6 lines are from the article by M.K.Kudryavtsev "Severnye oblasti Yuzhnoi
Asii" (translation from Russian):

"To the North from Gilgit in the Yasin region Burishi live, who are well known
mainly due to the fact that their language, Burishki or Burushaski, has not find
yet a certain place in existing lunguistic classifications. The number of
Burishi is estimated from 20000 to 50000 people. Burishi are Muslims - Shiites
and Ismailites."

Alexander
Here are a few more lines from the SIL register of languages:
 
BURUSHASKI (BRUSHASKI, BURUSHAKI, BURUCAKI, BURUSHKI, BURUCASKI, BILTUM, KHAJUNA, KUNJUT) [BSK] 55,000 to 60,000 (1981). Hunza-Nagar area and Yasin area in Gilgit District, Northern Areas. Scattered speakers also in Gilgit, Kashmir, and various cities. Only a few in India. Language Isolate. Dialects: NAGAR (NAGIR), HUNZA, YASIN (WERCHIKWAR). People are called Burusho. Nagar and Hunza dialects have 91% to 94% lexical similarity. Werchikwar has 67% to 72% lexical similarity with Hunza, 66% to 71% with Nagar, and may be a separate language. It is geographically separated from the others. Werchikwar speakers are somewhat bilingual in Khowar. Knowledge of Urdu is limited among women and some others. 20% literate. Typology: SOV. Ismaili Muslim, Shi'a Muslim (Nagar). Needs survey.
 
Piotr