Kalami
| Kalami | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
Pakistan | |
| speaker | 40,000 | |
| Linguistic classification |
||
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-3 |
gwc |
|
Kalami (also Gawri or Garwi) is a Dardic language spoken by 40,000 people in northern Pakistan. It is divided into several dialects, which in some cases are mutually incomprehensible.
Kalami knows six vowels, all of which can appear short, long and nasalized. It has 38 consonants, five of which are only used in foreign words. Kalami is also a tonal language and has five tones (high, high falling, delayed high falling, low, low rising).
The sentence order is SOV , but can be changed for emphasis.
Until recently, Kalami was not a written language. In 1995 a committee of seven Kalami speakers developed a written language for the Kalami, which is based on the Perso-Arabic alphabet , but sometimes uses special characters such as ݭ or ݪ to represent special Kalami sounds.
Web links
- The Gawri language of Kalam and Dir Kohistan ( Memento from December 16, 2004 in the Internet Archive )