Quasnik Vanessa. A micro-typological study of Pashai varieties in Afghanistan

Stockholm University, 2019. — 81 p.The Hindu Kush region stretches from Afghanistan over Pakistan to North India and is home to what is commonly known as the Dardic languages. The Dardic langagues are a group of Indo-Aryan languages that have in isolation and under contact developed or retained features that can not be found in Indo-Aryan languages outside the region. In the ongoing project ”Language contact and relatedness in the Hindu Kush region” data on over 50 languages has been collected including nine varieties of northwest Indo-Aryan Pashai spoken in west Afghanistan. A cognate analysis and an analysis of phonological, morphological, syntactical and lexical features were conducted. The cognate analysis shows that the Pashai varieties build two clusters, a western group consisting of the three western Pashai varieties and an eastern group consisting of six eastern varieties. The structural analysis shows a more diverse picture with three potential clusters, a group of the two most western varieties, a northeastern group and a central group consisting of one western variety and two southeastern varieties. Some features found to be shared by languages in the region are also found in all Pashai varieties like a subject-object-verb order and postpositions.