Hindkowan

Hindkowans speak Hindko, a Lahnda language that is primary in northern Pakistan. Their northern neighbors, however, speak Pashto, the language of the Afghans.^[10] In Afghanistan, Hindus still continue to speak Hindko and are referred to as Hindkowan.^[11]^[12]

Origin

H.A. Rose, author of Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North West Frontier has defined Hindkowans :

The NWFP Imperial Gazetteer (1905) regularly refers to the language as Hindko, which means "Indian language."^[14] More than one interpretation has been offered for the term Hindko. Some associate it with Hindustan, others with the Hindu people, and still others with the Sindhu River, which is of course the etymological source of all these terms.^[15]

Long before the partition of India, Grierson, in the Linguistic Survey of India, employed the term Hindko to mean "the language of Hindus" (viii, 1:34).^[10] Farigh Bukhari and South Asian language expert and historian Christopher Shackle believe that Hindko was a generic term applied to the Indo-Aryan dialect continuum in the northwest frontier territories and adjacent district of Attock in the Punjab province to differentiate it in function and form from Pashto. Linguists classify the language into the Indic subgroup of the Indo-Iranian languages, which is in turn a subgroup of Indo-European languages.

Demographics

An estimated 2.4 per cent of the total population of Pakistan speak Hindko as their mother tongue, with more rural than urban households reporting Hindko as their household language.

The largest geographically contiguous group of Hindko-speakers (Hindkowans) is concentrated in the districts of Abbottabad, Haripur, Mansehra and Kaghan valley of Pakistan, while there are a number of geographically isolated speakers of Hindko in cities like Peshawar^{citation needed}, Nowshera and Kohat.

People here tend to associate themselves with larger families instead of a language (or caste as it was formerly known) like Awan, Tanoli, Jadoon, Abbasi, and Karlal. People who speak Hindko are referred to by some academics as Pathans^{citation needed} probably because many tribes, for example Swatis, Jadoons, and Tanolis who settled in Districts like Abbotabad, Haripur and Mansehra town, adopted Hindko as their first language and had gained political power in these areas during the British rule and also because of many ethnic Pushtun people who speak Hinkdo as their first language in Peshawar and Kohat^{citation needed}. The Hindko speaking people living in major cities Peshawar, Kohat, Mardan are bilingual in Pashto and Hindko.^{citation needed} Similarly many Pashto speaking people in districts like Mansehra especially in Agror Valley and northern Tanawal (Shergarh), have become bilingual in Pashto and Hindko.^{citation needed}

The speakers of Hindko live primarily in seven districts in NWFP: Mansehra, Mardan, Abbottabad, Haripur, Peshawar, Nowshera and Kohat in NWFP, as well as Attock Rawalpindi districts in the Punjab and parts of Kashmir; Jonathan Addleton states that "Hindko is the most significant linguistic minority in the NWFP, represented in nearly one-fifth of the province's total households." In Abbottabad District 98 per cent of households reported speaking Hindko, in Mansehra District 77 per cent, in Peshawar District 27 per cent, and in Kohat District 10 per cent (1986).^{citation needed} Testing of inherent intelligibility among Hindko dialects through the use of recorded tests has shown that there is a northern (Hazara) dialect group and a southern group. The southern dialects are more widely understood throughout the dialect network than are the northern dialects. The dialects of rural Peshawar and Talagang are the most widely understood of the dialects tested. The dialect of Balakot is the least widely understood.

In most Hindko-speaking areas, speakers of Pashto live in the same or neighbouring communities (although this is less true in Abbottabad and Kaghan Valley than elsewhere). In the mixed areas, many people speak both languages. The relationship between Hindko and Pashto is not one of stable bilingualism. In the northeast, Hindko is the dominant language both in terms of domain of usage and in terms of the number of speakers, whereas in the southwest, Pashto seems to be advancing in those same areas.

Historically, there were two languages each in upper Afghanistan and lower Afghanistan: Persian and Pashto and Hindko and Pashto. Chach Hazara was a great centre of resistance to the British.

The Gandhara Hindko Board has published the first dictionary of the language and its launching ceremony was held on March 16, 2003. According to a press release, Sultan Sakoon, a prominent Hindko poet, has compiled the dictionary.

Notable Hindkowans

Contents

Origin

Demographics

Notable Hindkowans

See also

Other Information

References