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, 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, Darkut and in Chitral District's Broghol. They also live in some parts of Wakhan in Afghanistan, Gorno-Badakhshan in Tajikistan, the Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County in China, Russia and Turkey.
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 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 actually dialects of Tajik.[6]
In Pakistan
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 live primarily in the Karambar valley, in the town of Imit and beyond. In Yasin, they live mostly in the vicinity of Darkot and in Yarhkun, they are found in Baroghil and in a few other small villages in the high, upper portion of valley.
In Pakistan, the central organization of the Wakhi is the Wakhi Cultural Association Pakistan (WCA), an organization that is registered with the Government of Pakistan and which works with the collaboration of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Lok Virsa Pakistan. The Association is working for the preservation of the Wakhi language and culture, as well as documenting their poetry and music.
Radio PakistanGilgit 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 includes 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 RoadFestival 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 programme and documentation of Wakhi poetry, literature and history.[7]
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]
Orthography
Traditionally, Wakhi was not a written language. Writing systems have been developed for the language using Arabic, Cyrillic and Latin scripts.
Arabic script
This Arabic alphabet is mainly used in Afghanistan and Pakistan:[9][10]
The new Wakhi Alphabet, which includes some Cyrillic and Greek letters, which was developed in 1984 by Haqiqat Ali:[11]
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:[12][13]
2Yiso yavər x̌atəy: «Sayišt ʒi dəo carəv, x̌anəv: „Ey bzыrgwor Tat ki də osmonət cəy! Ti bəzыrg nung bər olam ыmыt! Ləcər dəwroni Ti podšoyi γ̌at-ət, zəmin-ət zəmon də hыkmi taw ыmыt!
2And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, "Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.
4And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil."
Vocabulary
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.
Magzines 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.
^Frye, R.N. (1984). The History of Ancient Iran. p. 192. ISBN9783406093975. [T]hese western Saka he distinguishes from eastern Saka who moved south through the Kashgar-Tashkurgan-Gilgit-Swat route to the plains of the sub-continent of India. This would account for the existence of the ancient Khotanese-Saka speakers, documents of whom have been found in western Sinkiang, and the modern Wakhi language of Wakhan in Afghanistan, another modern branch of descendants of Saka speakers parallel to the Ossetes in the west.
^Bailey, H.W. (1982). The culture of the Sakas in ancient Iranian Khotan. Caravan Books. pp. 7–10. It is noteworthy that the Wakhi language of Wakhan has features, phonetics, and vocabulary the nearest of Iranian dialects to Khotan Saka.
^Carpelan, C.; Parpola, A.; Koskikallio, P. (2001). "Early Contacts Between Uralic and Indo-European: Linguistic and Archaeological Considerations: Papers Presented at an International Symposium Held at the Tvärminne Research Station of the University of Helsinki, 8–10 January, 1999". Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura. 242: 136. ...descendants of these languages survive now only in the Ossete language of the Caucasus and the Wakhi language of the Pamirs, the latter related to the Saka once spoken in Khotan.
^Payne, John (1989). "Pamir Languages". In Schmitt, Rüdiger (ed.). Compendium Linguarum Iranicum. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag. p. 419. ISBN3-88226-413-6.
