Talk:Dardic languages

Classification of Dardic Languages

Other than the studies of Morgenstierne, which took place almost a hundred years ago, when the study of lingusitics was considered an art rather than a science, very little research has been conducted into the Dardic languages. Ethnologue is clearly wrong in linking the Dardic langauges with the Northwestern Indo-Aryan group, so is SIL. If the Dardic languages are Indo-Aryan then they are a separate sub-group. Please refer to the page on Kashmiri to see the development of the Kashmiri languages (cited). As a speaker of several Dardic languages I would personally claim that most of them are unrelated langauges, about as different from one another as Romanian and Serbo-Croatian, but the only consensus their is about the Dardic languages is that they are a single group, so I will not refute that, but I am going to change the page format back to one which wass less biased in favor of the Northwestern Indo-Aryan classification, which is not accepted by most linguists who know anything about the Dardic langauges.-Fred Bolor

I am again going to put a question mark next to the where the Dardic languages are classified as both Indo-Aryan and the Northwestern sub-family of these langauges. More linguistic studies are required before this can be ascertained. That is the current consensus amongst linguists. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fred-Bolor (talk • contribs) 22:01, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Needs fixing

I have removed several sentences with spelling errors. Several sentences to not make sense or are not what is accepted by most linguists. As for the Ethnologue, I see Dardic as a branch of Indo-Aryan although they list several languages like Lahnda as a sister branch to Dardic which is not what is accepted by most linguists. Imperial78

Hi, please do tell which sentences do not make sense to you? Also when you state a fact such as so and so is/isnot accepted by most Linguists, do back up the claim with citations, or data and names. Dardic langauges are individual languages, however they show enough similarity in Lexicon and morphology so that some argue that these languages or some of them are a sub-set of Indo Aryan rather than an absolute independant. Sinceleivee it is not clear, the best solution is I believe isto mention the ambiguity regarding Indo-Aryan, and only mention Dardic as a clear subset of Indo Iranian. The articles definitely needs more expansion though. omerlivesOmerlives

The article looks great now. Imperial78

I've completely rewritten the article based on standard interpretation of Dardic as a genetic family, sub-group of Indo-Aryan. See Ethnologue.org, Oxford English Dictionary for support that this is standard. I also discuss alternatives - genetic family at top level of Indo-Iranian, areal grouping (at either level). There's absolutely no consensus on this issue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.205.210.226 (talk) 19:18, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

References

This article unfortunately completely lacks references or sources. Especially the claim about the Dardic languages forming their separate subfamily of the Indo-Iranian languages seems doubtful, since the literature available to me (e.g. Masica: The Indo-Aryan Languages, Cambridge 1991) mentions them as a sub-group of Indo-Aryan. --BishkekRocks 19:18, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

See my complete rewrite 7 Oct 2007 - I start with the standard Indo-Aryan categorization, and discuss alternatives most objectively!  : ) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.205.210.226 (talk) 19:22, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Linguistic diversity claim

I'm just a passerby, but can I suggest that the claim said to have been made by Morgenstierne '...that Chitral is the area of the greatest linguistic diversity in the world' be deleted? It's not referenced, it's plainly wrong, and it's not relevant to anything in the article. Dougg (talk) 02:30, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Just represent the disagreements properly

If we simply pick one set of viewpoints in this area (which has contention among linguists), the article will keep lurching left and right. If there is a dispute, represent the dispute. The text needs general cleanups also. Some sense of history would be useful too (eg past contention that links Dardic and Paisachi, denial of that, evolution of a more nuanced view, continuing uncertainity, etc). --Hunnjazal (talk) 04:43, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

"Verb position in Dardic

Unlike most other Indo-Aryan (or Iranian) languages, several Dardic languages present "verb second" as the normal grammatical form. This is similar to many Germanic languages, such as English. Most Dardic languages, however, follow the usual Indo-Aryan SOV pattern.[16] Language English (Germanic) This is a horse. We will go to Tokyo. Kashmiri (Dardic) Yi chhu akh gur. As gachhav Tokyo. Sanskrit (Indo-Aryan) Esha eka ashva asti.3 Vayaṃ Tokyo gacchāmaḥ. Dari Persian In yak hasb ast. Maa ba Tokyo khaahem raft. Hindi-Urdu (Indo-Aryan) Ye ek ghora hai.4 Hum Tokyo jaenge. Punjabi (Indo-Aryan) Ae ikk kora ai. Assi Tokyo javange."

English is not a V2 language. The fact that the verb comes in the second position in the two sentences chosen is merely a coincidence. Can we replace the English examples with German or Dutch equivalents, and change "This is similar to many Germanic languages, such as English." to "This is similar to many Germanic languages, such as German/Dutch". Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.97.107.52 (talk) 11:05, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Dardu

Though we have a redirect, a web search on Dardu doesn't lead to this page. Can we change the intro as given below?

The Dardic or Dardu languages are a sub-group...

--Vssun (talk) 23:57, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Added Dardu in intro. --Vssun (talk) 09:47, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Classification again

The Indo-Aryan languages, 2007, page 905:

'Dardic' is a geographic cover term for those Northwest Indo-Aryan languages which [..] developed new characteristics different from the IA languages of the Indo-Gangetic plain. Although the Dardic and Nuristani (previously 'Kafiri') languages were formerly grouped together, Morgenstierne (1965) has established that the Dardic languages are Indo-Aryan, and that the Nuristani languages constitute a separate subgroup of Indo-Iranian.

The Indo-Aryan languages by Masida (1993) agrees that we've got it basically backwards here: Grierson, with scarce data, had Nuristani and Dardic as a single group and called that an independent branch of Indo-Iranian. Morgenstierne split that into Nuristani and Dardic and placed Dardic within NW IA (pp 461-2). Apparently there's some dispute about whether Dardic is strictly genetically IA (ie, descended from Old Indo-Aryan) or if it split off from an Indo-Dardic(-Nuristani) branch of Indo-Iranian (see, eg, On the position of Nuristani within Indo-Iranian by Blažek & Hegedűs for a nice little summary) and even whether Dardic is a valid node, but I think calling it Indo-Aryan and then going into detail in the 'Classification' section will be the best option.

In any case, the individual Dardic language articles don't agree on Indo-Aryan versus Indo-Iranian, so something is wrong somewhere... KleptomaniacViolet (talk) 10:35, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Our Morgenstierne quote actually gives the impression that he did not accept Dardic as a genetic subgroup, but simply as a collection of various marginal archaic dialects. If this is correct, we need to re-write the later sections. Is there any reliable secondary or even primary source that does claim Dardic to be a single subgroup? Language classification often has a problem where the tertiary literature says something completely different from what has actually been established. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 18:20, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Epenthesis Examples

The examples given for Epenthesis are examples of palatalization or some other such change. I'm not familiar with the Romanization scheme (what sounds correspond to the transcription, e.g. Pinyin for Mandarin) so I can't say for sure, but they are definitively not Epenthesis. Epenthesis is just one of many types of sound change connoting, in the simplest definition of the term, only the insertion of a new sound that was not there prior..2601:7:5280:336:CC27:76D7:B17E:93B3 (talk) 06:03, 1 May 2014 (UTC)Tom in Florida

Clearer examples about verb position

The following sentence seems unnecessary, mentioning arbitrary examples: "This is similar to many Germanic languages, such as German and Dutch, as well as Uto-Aztecan O'odham and Northeast Caucasian Ingush." The reference to Japanese and its inclusion in the table also seem arbitrary and unnecessary.

All it needs to say is that some Dardic languages depart from the normal Indo-Aryan (or Iranian) SOV structure, instead putting the verb second (SVO). I'd say it's fine to say "as in English" as well and include English in the table, because this article is for English speakers.

On a separate note, it'd be nice to have a second example, besides Kashmiri, of a SVO language in the table, to support "...several Dardic languages present...".

Does this all seem reasonable? Also please let me know if this post is okay, it's my first time! SirLurksalot (talk) 03:48, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Strand on Dardic classification

https://www.jstor.org/stable/599462?seq=1

In light of the above link, I am proposing that the classification of Dardic needs to re-examined and updated accordingly on Wikipedia. According to the above source, 'Dardic' position's as a legitimate grouping is dubious and outdated. It appears that certain frontier languages that did not conform to the qualities of Nuristani lects were in turn grouped together (by Grierson), and more recent typological observations have cast doubt on this.

Is there any way we can establish consensus on this matter; and proceed with re-structuring these so-called 'Dardic' languages (Shina, Pashayi, Kashmiri) et-cetera as independent sub-families within the Indo-Aryan context?

Navistheman (talk) 16:53, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

"Dardic" is still a widely used concept, as you can tell from the article's sources. Yes, it's not a genetic grouping, at least not completely (Bashir has described it as "partly genetic and partly geographic"), but in this way it's not fundamentally different from the other groups of IA, like Central, Eastern, etc. – Uanfala (talk) 17:11, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Dardic is indeed listed as a subfamily of Indo-Aryan on this page. So I am not sure what change is being asked for. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:39, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

I think the change asked for is if Dardic should be treated as a single subfamily at all, or just as multiple separate archaic groups of Indo-Aryan. Actually besides Strand, this seems to be what our currently cited quotes from Morgenstierne and Masica state too. "To some extent geographical" seems like an understatement. Perder's recent grammar of Dameli cites Strand (2001), "The Tongues of Peristân" and Mock (2011) as even being in favor of abandoning the concept "Dardic" altogether. (From the latter: "The circularity of the logic employed in these designations is evident: the people are Dards, hence the area they live in is Dardistan, and the languages they speak are Dardic, hence the people are Dards.") It rather looks like to me that for more than half a century now there have been no reliable sources arguing in favor of Dardic as a distinct subfamily. If ever; the current definition is more or less from Morgenstierne who also already expresses some caution.

Recently Kogan (2013), (2015) argues in favor of the unity of an East Dardic group though, encompassing roughly Morgenstierne's Kashmiri + Shina + Kohistani groups (but excluding at least Khowar, Kalasha, Gawar-Pati and Pashai). --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 17:15, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I propose merging Dardic peoples and Dardistan into this page. I have expanded the Dardic peoples article and it esentially covers all these terms. "Dardic" is not even a proper ethnic or linguistic term to classify people speaking unrelated Indo-Aryan languages and it creates even more confusion leading one to believe an "ethnicity" or "peoples" called Dards and a "region" called Dardistan. Please share your thoughts. - FactsResearcher (talk) 11:27, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Yes, good idea. They are not really well-sourced. So large quantities of their text can be simply removed. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 11:51, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

+1 TrangaBellam (talk) 14:16, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

@Kautilya3 and TrangaBellam: Thanks guys for the response. Should we go ahead and proceed with the merger or can someone ping more experienced users to arrive to a final concensus. And can some of you perform the merger please I'm a bit new here. - FactsResearcher (talk) 14:57, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Wait for about a month. Advertise at WT:INB. TrangaBellam (talk) 15:36, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

There is no opposition and no reason to oppose the proposal. That being said,  Done FactsResearcher (talk) 20:57, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Merge Dardistan into a new article - Northern Pakistan (region) and keep Dardic peoples. Muhafiz-e-Pakistan (talk) 15:33, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Although I agree with the fundamental point (that Dardistan is an artificial and deficient term in a number of respects), I believe we should follow the example of Britannica and Iranica by documenting the history of the term and its problems, as opposed to simply merging this article into "Dardic languages". Full disclosure: I am a volunteer with the Dardistan Project. However, my goal is not to spread any specific concept of Dardistan, but rather my goal is to ensure that the online material about the region matches the reliable literature. This very likely will mean articles on Dardistan will cover the antiquated term, while the articles on the languages will increasingly document that they do not belong to a single "Dardic" family. Regardless of linguistic classification, the term "Dardistan" remains as an archaic term with a history that can be documented. Paristani (talk) 18:12, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

Classification

I just revised Glottolog and found something rather interesting. Harald recently revamped the Indic classification.

https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/indo1321

I like it, but it's quite complex. There is now an Eastern Dardic branch with Shinaic, Kashmiric and Kohistanic while the other groups are now placed independently within the Indo Aryan branch. It seems like the Eastern Dardic or "Dardic proper", a term mentioned by Strand (1973), could share some kind of relation, and I guess can be placed loosely in a subgroup excluding the other phylogenetic groups. Linguistically the label Dardic is not meaningful, but it has been in common use for a hundred years now, and hard to ged rid of even though it has been more than half a century now and there have been no reliable sources arguing in favor of Dardic as a distinct subfamily. Very good points were thrown into the room in the previous talk two years ago without reaching a final consensus. I think it's worth taking a look on that again and re examine and update the classification of Dardic, and if possible examine the proper classification of the whole Indo Aryan context accordingly on Wikipedia. I am in favour of Richard Strand on treating the several different phylogenetic groups as multiple separate subfamilies within the Indo Aryan context instead of a single subfamily called Dardic, and abandoning the term altogether, though the recent classification on Glottolog can also been taken into consideration. FactsResearcher (talk) 14:48, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

I am willing to work with you on this reclassification effort. I am not familiar with how the "canonical" linguistic categories are defined, however. Is it subject to controversy? Is there a primary authority? We can continue to store the history of the term Dardistan with its associated problems on that page, like Iranica does. We may want to keep Dardic languages around for a similar reason, but note the fact that the categorization is now considered out of date (if it is?) Paristani (talk) 18:21, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Move from Dardic languages to Eastern Dardic languages

Hey @HistoryofIran, I want to aim at a refactor that matches the current Glottolog classifications:Glottolog 4.8 - Eastern Dardic

Do you want me to just update all the individual pages with the new Glottolog classification (which they cite), but keep the "Dardic" term in tact? Do you want more sources that use the term "Eastern Dardic" before I make that the new term? Let me know, thanks. It just seems like "Dardic" is a bit misleading as that is no longer the genetic classification on Glottolog. Paristani (talk) 15:00, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi. Sorry, but Glottolog does not have monopoly on which names we use. What do other sources say about this? HistoryofIran (talk) 15:25, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

I'll review some research papers and get back to you. I don't mind keeping the old name. In the meanwhile, how do you want me to handle the language templates that all seem to be citing an outdated Glottolog for their familial classifications? My plan was updating them to be in accord to the latest version of Glottolog. What is the primary source for language classifications, given that most of the language templates reference Glottolog on the bottom? For instance, the top template on Dogri language seems to be referencing an outdated Glottolog classification which I had planned on updating. Let me know how you want me to proceed with these seemingly outdated language templates that seem to be citing an outdated Glottolog and nothing else. Thanks for your time. Paristani (talk) 15:49, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

There are generally always some authors who are a leading experts in x language, I'm not sure who it is when it comes to Dardic or other Indo-Aryan languages. If this claim regarding "Eastern Dardic" is new, then I would focus on looking what the newest sources say only. If it has been around for some time, I would look into what the current consensus is amongst scholars. The latest EI entry calls it "Dardic" [1]. Looking on this Taylor & Francis published source from 2023 [2], there still seems to be some doubt on what Dardic truly is, though I could be missing something here. If want to move a article, generally making a move request (see also WP:MOVE) is recommended, that way other editors can also tune in. HistoryofIran (talk) 16:11, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

I agree with @HistoryofIran overall and mainly based on the fact that The latest EI entry calls it "Dardic". LingoSouthAsia (talk) 04:20, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

LingoSouthAsia, what's your opinion on the pages that currently seem to cite Gottolog for their language taxonomy (on the top right template), but are using an outdated version? Like Dogri language? My plan was to update the taxonomy for ones that seem to be citing Glottolog in their template. I am not sure how many sources will agree on taxonomy perfectly, as the taxonomy of the Dardic languages seems to be highly contested and in flux. I don't feel strongly about the Eastern Dardic update per se. Paristani (talk) 14:36, 12 January 2024 (UTC)