Wakhi
زبان وخی / زبان واخانی ښیکوار زیک X̌ikwor zik, х̆икв̆ор зик
Wakhi written in Arabic script in Nastaliq style, Latin script and in Cyrillic script
Native to	Afghanistan, China, Pakistan, Tajikistan
Ethnicity	Wakhi
Native speakers	(20,000 in Pakistan (2016); 58,000 cited 1992–2012)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Iranian Eastern Wakhi
Early forms	Scythian Saka[2][3][4]
Writing system	Perso-Arabic, Cyrillic, Latin
Language codes
ISO 639-3	wbl
Glottolog	wakh1245
ELP	Wakhi
Linguasphere	58-ABD-c
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Wakhi (Wakhi: وخی/В̌aхi, IPA: [waχi]) is an Indo-European language in the Eastern Iranian branch of the language family spoken today in Wakhan District, Northern Afghanistan, and also in Tajikistan, Northern Pakistan and Western China.

Wakhi is one of several languages that belong to the areal Pamir language group. It is believed to be a descendant of the Scytho-Khotanese language once spoken in the Kingdom of Khotan.

The Wakhi people are occasionally called Pamiris and Guhjali. It is spoken by the inhabitants of the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan, parts of Gilgit-Baltistan (the former NAs) of Pakistan, the Gorno-Badakhshan region of Tajikistan, and Xinjiang in Western China. The Wakhi use the self-appellation 'X̌ik' (ethnic) and suffix it with 'wor'/'war' to denote their language as 'X̌ik-wor' themselves. The noun 'X̌ik' comes from *waxša-ī̆ka- (an inhabitant of *Waxša- 'Oxus', for Wakhan, in Wakhi 'Wux̌.' There are other equivalents for the name Wakhi (Anglicised) or Wakhani (Arabic and Persian), Vakhantsy (Russian), Gojali/Gojo (Dingrik-wor/Shina), Guyits/Guicho (Burushaski), Wakhigi/Wakhik-war (Kivi-wor/Khow-wor) and Cert (Turki).

The language belongs, as yet to be confirmed according to studies and sources, to the southern group of the Pamir languages, in the Iranian group of the Indo-European family (450) of languages, where the Ishkashmi, Shighni/...nani and Wakhi languages are included. A very rough estimate of the population of Wakhis is 58,000 worldwide. The Wakhi live in six countries. In the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan, the Wakhi people mainly live in Gojal, Ishkoman, and Darkut, as well as in Chitral District's Broghol. They live in parts of Wakhan in Afghanistan, Gorno-Badakhshan in Tajikistan, and the Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County in China, Russia, and Turkey.

In the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan, Wakhi is spoken from Putur, near Ishkashim, to the upper reaches of the Wakhan River.^[5]

In Tajikistan, the Wakhi and other communities that speak one of the Pamir languages refer to themselves as Pamiri or Badakhshani, and there has been a movement to separate their identity from that of the majority of Persian-speaking Tajiks. Linguists universally refer to Wakhi as an East Iranian language independent of Tajik Persian, but many Tajik nationalists insist that Wakhi and other Pamir languages are dialects of Tajik.^[6]

In Gilgit-Baltistan, Wakhi is spoken in the sparsely populated upper portions of five of the northernmost valleys: Hunza, Gojal, Ishkoman, Yasin, Gupis, and Yarkhun. The Hunza Valley has the largest Wakhi population in Pakistan. The Wakhis of Ishkoman lives primarily in the Karambar valley, the town of Imit, and beyond. In Yasin, they live mainly in the vicinity of Darkot, and in Yarhkun, they are found in Baroghil and a few other small villages in the high, upper portion of the valley.

In Pakistan, the central organization of the Wakhi is the Wakhi Cultural Association Pakistan (WCA). This organization is registered with the Government of Pakistan and collaborates with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Lok Virsa Pakistan. The Association is working to preserve the Wakhi language and culture and document their poetry and music.

Radio Pakistan Gilgit relays the Wakhi radio programme "Sadoyah Boomy Dunyo", the voice of the roof of the world. The Wakhi Cultural Association has arranged more than twenty programmes since 1984, which include cultural shows, musical nights, and large-scale musical festivals with the collaboration of Lok Virsa Pakistan, the Aga Khan Cultural Service Pakistan (AKCSP), and Pakistan television. In 2000, the WCA won a "Best Programme" organizer award in the Silk Road Festival from the President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf. A computerized codification of the Wakhi script has been released, which will help to promote the language development program and documentation of Wakhi poetry, literature, and history.^[7]

Wakhi is also spoken in the Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County, in Xinjiang of China, mainly in the township of Dafdar.

There are approximately 6,000 Wakhi in Russia, Most of them have migrated from Tajikistan and Afghanistan.

There are some Wakhi villages in Turkey in the eastern regions, where they have migrated from Afghanistan in 1979 during the Afghan and Russian war.^[8]

Traditionally, Wakhi was not a written language. Wakhi people live in 4 countries, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, and China, and are in contact with speakers of various other languages. Writing systems have been developed for the language using Arabic, Cyrillic, and Latin scripts, each with inspirations from neighboring languages and orthographic conventions. However, due to the pluricentric nature of Wakhi dialects, marginalization in favour of a more significant national/regional language, remoteness, and political instability, no one orthographic standard has managed to rise to the level of a singular unifying writing system.

The Perso-Arabic script for the Wakhi language has been derived from the Persian alphabet used in Afghanistan. However, there are sounds in Wakhi that are not found in Persian. Here, two diverging conventions have emerged, one in Afghanistan and another in Pakistan (and Pakistani-controlled Gilgit-Baltistan). Pashto has inspired letters in Afghanistan to represent missing sounds in Wakhi, especially the various retroflex sounds missing in Persian. Urdu and orthographies of other languages of Gilgit-Baltistan have been the inspiration in Pakistan.^{[9][10][11][12]}

The below table is the Afghan version of the Perso-Arabic alphabet for the Wakhi language. The alphabet has been derived from the alphabet of Dari (Persian), one of Afghanistan's national languages. Pashto, the other national language of Afghanistan, has been the source of letters for phonemes that don't exist in Persian. This orthographic standard has similarities to the orthographies of other Pamir languages, such as Shughni and Munji.^[10]

Notes:

1. Letter alef at the beginning of a word can serve two functions. First, it precedes vowel letters "ایـ‎" [e] and [i], or "او‎" [u]. Second, it acts as a vowel carrier for diacritics of the vowel, "اَ‎" [a].
2. Vowel phoneme [ɔ] is represented with "آ‎" when at the beginning of a word, and with "ـا / ا‎" when in the middle or end of a word.
3. While the letter se "ث‎" represents the phoneme [θ] in Arabic, this letter in Arabic loanwords that have entered Dari (Persian) have come to be pronounced as [s]. Due to consistent contact with Dari (Persian), Arabic loanwords have entered Wakhi via Persian, with their modified Persian pronunciation. Unlike Persian, Wakhi does have a separate phoneme [θ]. Some sources use the letter se "ث‎", whereas others use a new letter, te with 4 dots "ٿ‎" that has been introduced so that there can be distinguishment between the native sound [θ] and the sound [s] produced by the letter se "ث‎" in loanwords.
4. While the letter zal "ذ‎" represents the phoneme [ð] in Arabic, this letter in Arabic loanwords that have entered Dari (Persian) have come to be pronounced as [z]. Due to consistent contact with Dari (Persian), Arabic loanwords have entered Wakhi via Persian, with their modified Persian pronunciation. Unlike Persian, Wakhi does have a separate phoneme [ð]. Some sources use the letter zal "ذ‎", whereas others use a new letter, dal with 3 dots "ڎ‎" that has been introduced so that there can be distinguishment between the native sound [ð] and the sound [z] produced by the letter zal "ذ‎" in loanwords.
5. Represents two phonemes based on context, [w] and [u]. If used at the beginning of a word, if representing consonant [w], it will be written standalone "و‎", if representing a vowel [u], it will be preceded by alef "او‎".
6. Represents a vowel phoneme. But even if at the beginning of a word, it is written standalone, and without a preceding alef; "ؤ‎".
7. At the end of a word, the letter he "ـه ه‎" can either represent a consonant sound [h] or a vowel sound [a] depending on context.
8. The letter ye represents three phonemes based on context, [e], [i] and [j]. If used at the beginning of a word, if representing consonant [j], it will be written standalone "یـ‎", if representing a vowel [e] or a vowel [i], it will be preceded by alef "ایـ‎".
9. There are two types of final ye. in At the end of a word, if representing the consonant [j], the dotless final ye "ی‎" is ued. If representing the vowel [i], the double dot final ye "ي‎" is used.

The below table is the Pakistani version of the Perso-Arabic alphabet for the Wakhi language.[1] This alphabet has also been derived from the alphabet of Dari (Persian). However, Urdu, Pakistan's national language, has been the source of letters for phonemes that don't exist in Persian. The vowels are shown to reflect Urdu pronunciations and not the Dari/Tajik pronunciation. Meaning that, for example, the phoneme [ɔ], which is equivalent to Iranian Persian[ɒː] after having undergone a chain shift, is not written with alef "آ / ا /ا ـا‎", but with the letter waw "او / و / ـو‎".^[9][13]

Stylistically, while in Afghanistan Naskh is the more common script, in Pakistan, similar with Urdu and other orthographies of Northern Pakistan and Pakistani-controlled Gilgit-Baltistan, Nastaliq is the more common script.

Notes:

1. Letter alef at the beginning of a word can serve two functions. First, it precedes vowel letters "ایـ" [e] and [i], or "او" [ɔ]. Second, it acts as a vowel carrier for diacritics of the vowel, "اُ" [ɨ].
2. Vowel phoneme [a] is represented with "آ" when at the beginning of a word, and with "ـا / ا" when in the middle or end of a word.
3. While the letter se "ث" represents the phoneme [θ] in Arabic, this letter in Arabic loanwords that have entered Dari (Persian) have come to be pronounced as [s]. Due to consistent contact with Dari (Persian), Arabic loanwords have entered Wakhi via Persian, with their modified Persian pronunciation. Unlike Persian, Wakhi does have a separate phoneme [θ]. Some sources use the letter se "ث", whereas others use a new letter, te with 4 dots "ٿ" that has been introduced so that there can be distinguishment between the native sound [θ] and the sound [s] produced by the letter se "ث" in loanwords.
4. While the letter zal "ذ" represents the phoneme [ð] in Arabic, this letter in Arabic loanwords that have entered Dari (Persian) and Urdu have come to be pronounced as [z]. Due to consistent contact with Dari (Persian) and Urdu, Arabic loanwords have entered Wakhi via Persian and Urdu, with their modified pronunciation. Unlike Persian and Urdu, Wakhi does have a separate phoneme [ð]. Some sources use the letter zal "ذ", whereas others use a new letter, dal with 2 dots "ڌ" that has been introduced so that there can be distinguishment between the native sound [ð] and the sound [z] produced by the letter zal "ذ" in loanwords.
5. Represents three phonemes based on context, [w], [ɔ], and [u]. If used at the beginning of a word, if representing consonant [w], it will be written standalone "و". If representing a vowel [ɔ], it will be preceded by alef "او". If representing the vowel [u], it will be preceded by a [w] consonant, carrying a zammah diacritic "وُو".
6. At the end of a word, the letter he "ـہ ہ" can either represent a consonant sound [h] or a vowel sound [a] depending on context.
7. The letter ye represents three phonemes based on context, [e], [i] and [j]. If used at the beginning of a word, if representing consonant [j], it will be written standalone "یـ", if representing a vowel [e] or a vowel [i], it will be preceded by alef "ایـ".
8. There are two types of final ye. in At the end of a word, if representing the consonant [j] or the vowel [i], the small ye "ی" is used. If representing the vowel [e], the big ye "ے" is used.

When Wakhi is written in Cyrillic, the sounds are usually represented by these letters:^{[citation needed]}

A Latin alphabet, which in some variants includes Cyrillic and Greek letters, was developed in 1953 by I.I. Zaroubine and V. S. Sokolova, and further developed by A.L Grünberg and I.M Stéblinn-Kamensky in the early 1960s:^[15][14]

Sample text from a Bible translation published in 2001 is shown below:^[15]

The Wakhi lexicon exhibits significant differences with the other Pamir languages. Gawarjon's comparison of the dialects of Sarikoli and Wakhi spoken in China is reproduced below.

In Pakistan multiple books have been published since 1980s. X̌ikwor zik by Master Haqiqat, Religious hymes by Riaz Ahmed Riaz. Qaida e Wakhi Zaban by Ahmed Jami Sakhi. Magazines and Parlon Wakhi by Karim Khan Saka. "Beyoz-e-Bulbul" by Nazir Ahmad Bulbul. A collection of old and new poems folklores compiled by Bulbulik Heritage Center, Gulmit.

• Wakhi people

• Kaufman, Daniel. "Double oblique case and agreement across two dialects of Wakhi." First North American Conference in Iranian Linguistics (NACIL). Vol. 1. 2017.

Wakhi language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

• English-Ishkashimi-Zebaki-Wakhi-Yazghulami Vocabulary
• Wakhi poetry