Wasi-wari (Vâsi-vari, Vâsi-veri) is the language of the Wasi people, spoken in a few villages in the Pārūn Valley (Prasun Valley) in Afghanistan. It also goes by the name Prasun or Pārūni.

Wasi-wari belongs to the Indo-European language family, and is on the Nuristani group of the Indo-Iranian branch. Wasi-wari is the most divergent of the Nuristani languages.

The Prasuni people are now mostly Muslim since the imposition of Islam by the Afghan ruler Abdur Rahman Khan in 1896.^[2] They first followed out of intimidation, then became more devout as younger generations studied Islamic scriptures in Pakistan and India and came back to preach Islam,^[3] but they also keep some vestiges of their indigenous pre-Islamic religion.^[4] Literacy rates are low: below 1% for people who have it as a first language, and between 15% and 25% for people who have it as a second language.

Name

The name of the language derives from its endonym Vâsi [waˈsi], with cognates such as Kamviri Přâsü̃ [pɽaˈsỹ] (whence the alternative name Prasun) and Kata-vari Přâsiu [pɽaˈsju]. Pārūni comes from the two national languages of Afghanistan, Pashto and Dari.

Demographics

Wasi-wari is a language spoken by the Vâsi (Prasuni) people who are located in the Pârun Valley, known as Vâsi-gul, at the beginning of the Pech River basin in Nuristan Province of northeastern Afghanistan. The native names of the language are Vâsi-vari in the Ṣupu dialect, and Vâsi-veri in the Seć dialect, but it is also known as Prasuni, Prasun, Vasi-vari, Pārūni, Pārūn, Veron, Verou, and Veruni. The population of Vâsi-gul is between 3,000-6,000, and there are approximately 8,000 native speakers within the valley and other areas, which makes it a vulnerable language.

Dialects

Wasi-wari is broken up into three dialects that are spoken in six villages. The upper dialect, Ṣupu-vari, is spoken in the northernmost village, Ṣupu. The central dialect, üšüt-üćü-zumu-vari, is spoken in the middle four villages, Seć, Üćü, Üšüt, and Zumu. The lower dialect, Uṣüt-vare, is spoken in Uṣüt, the lowest village. For this article, most cited forms will be based on the Seć dialect unless specified otherwise.^[5]

One characteristic feature defining all Wasi-wari dialects is the shift of ancient *d to l, which was lost in intervocalic position in other Nuristani languages, such as vazala "shoe", compared to Ashkun vâćâ, Kamviri vâćo, and Waigali oćä, and the pervasive lenition of initial stops, such as viṭa "wing", compared to Ashkun pâṭu "feather", Kamviri pâṭü "feather", and Waigali paṭä "feather, wing".

Classification

Wasi-wari is part of the Nuristani branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, which show both Iranian and Indo-Aryan influences, but are otherwise not closely related.^[6] Nuristani languages were formerly considered to be Dardic languages,^[7] however, they are dissimilar enough from the other Dardic languages to constitute their own branch of the Indo-Iranian language tree. There was also previously confusion on whether Wasi-wari and Prasun were the same or separate languages, but it was determined that both names referred to the same language.^[8] Although it is substantially different from the other Nuristani languages, Wasi-wari forms the northern cluster of Nuristâni languages with Kamkata-vari, so they share some similarities.^[9]

Phonology

Vowels

Wasi-wari has eight vowels, â, u, o, i, e, ü, ö, and the unmarked vowel, a, which is pronounced as a high central vowel, [ɨ]. Long vowels are denoted with the IPA symbol /:/, such as [iː].

Vocabulary

Pronouns

Numerals

^[10]