Burushaski language
Encyclopedia
The Burushaski or Burushko language ( burū́šaskī), is a language isolate
(that is, not known to be related to any other language of the world). It is spoken by some 87,000 (as of 2000) Burusho people in the Hunza
, Nagar
, Yasin
, and Ishkoman
valleys, and some parts of the Gilgit
valley, in Gilgit–Baltistan in Pakistan
and by about 300 Burusho people in Srinagar
in Jammu and Kashmir
, India
. Other names for the language are Brugaski, Kanjut (Kunjoot), Verchikwār, Boorishki, Brushas (Brushias), and Miśa:ski.
Today Burushaski contains numerous loanword
s from Urdu
(including English
, Persian
and Sanskrit words received via Urdu), and from neighbouring Dardic languages
such as Shina
and Khowar
, as well as a few from Turkic languages
, and from the neighboring Sino-Tibetan
language Balti
, and Wakhi
and Pashto
. However, the original vocabulary remains largely intact. The Dardic languages also contain large numbers of loanwords from Burushaski.
There are three divergent dialects, named after the main valleys: Hunza
, Nagar
, and Yasin
(also called Werchikwār). The dialect of Yasin is thought to be the least affected by contact with neighboring languages
and is generally less similar to the other two than those are to each other; nevertheless all three dialects are mutually intelligible.
languages, with the Yeniseian languages
in a family called Karasuk
, as a non-Indo-Iranian Indo-European language, or to include Burushaski in the Dené–Caucasian proposal, which includes both Caucasic and Yeniseian. None of these efforts has been accepted by scholarly consensus. In 2008 Edward Vajda
attempted to demonstrate Merritt Ruhlen
's proposal that Yeniseian was most closely related to Na-Dene
in a Dené–Yeniseian family, but the evidence adduced has not been extended to Burushaski.
Following Berger (1956), the American Heritage
dictionaries suggested that the word *abel (apple), the only name for a fruit (tree) reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European
, may have been borrowed from a language ancestral to Burushaski. (Today "apple" and "apple tree" are /balt/ in Burushaski.) Others, however, reconstruct the Proto-Indo-European word for "apple (tree)" as *mel-, while yet others don't think Proto-Indo-European had a word for "apple" at all and consider the different words of different Indo-European subgroups to be separate loans from different unidentified non-Indo-European languages.
version of the Arabic alphabet
is used, but no fixed orthography
exists. Nasir al-Din Nasir Hunzai
has written poetry in Burushaski using the Urdu alphabet
.
Tibet
an sources record a Bru-śa language of the Gilgit valley, which appears to have been Burushaski. Although Burushaski may once have been a significant literary language
, no Bru-śa manuscripts are known to have survived.
Linguists working on Burushaski use various makeshift transcriptions based on the Latin alphabet, most commonly that by Berger (see below), in their publications.
Berger (1998) finds the following consonants to be phonemic
, shown below in his transcription and in the IPA:
Notes:
and word order is generally subject–object–verb.
Noun
s in Burushaski are divided into four genders
: human masculine, human feminine, countable objects, and uncountable ones (similar to mass noun
s). The assignment of a noun to a particular gender is largely predictable. Some words can belong both to the countable and to the uncountable class, producing differences in meaning. For example, when countable, balt means 'apple' but when uncountable, it means 'apple tree' (Grune 1998).
Noun morphology
consists of the noun stem, a possessive
prefix (mandatory for some nouns, and thus an example of inherent possession), and number
and case
suffixes
. Distinctions in number are singular, plural, indefinite, and grouped. Cases include absolutive
, ergative
/oblique
, genitive
, and several locatives
; the latter indicate both location and direction and may be compounded.
Burushaski verb
s have three basic stems: past tense, present tense, and consecutive. The past stem is the citation form and is also used for imperatives
and nominalization
; the consecutive stem is similar to a past participle and is used for coordination
. Agreement
on the verb has both nominative and ergative features: transitive verbs mark both the subject and the object of a clause, while intransitive verbs mark their sole argument as both a subject and an object. Altogether, a verb can take up to four prefixes and six suffixes.
es, similar to declensional classes in Indo-European languages
, but unlike Indo-European, the nominal classes in Burushaski are associated with four grammatical "genders":
Below, the abbreviation "h" will stand for the combination of the m- and f-classes, while "hx" will stand for the combination of the m-, f- and x-classes. Nouns in the x-class typically refer to countable, non-human beings or things, for example animals, fruit, stones, eggs, or coins; conversely, nouns in the y-class are as a rule uncountable abstractions or mass nouns, such as rice, fire, water, snow, wool, etc.
However, these rules are not universal – countable objects in the y-class are sometimes encountered, e.g. ha, 'house'. Related words can subtly change their meanings when used in different classes – for example, bayú, when a member of the x-class, means salt in clumps, but when in the y-class, it means powdered salt. Fruit trees are understood collectively and placed in the y-class, but their individual fruits belong to the x-class. Objects made of particular materials can belong to either the x- or the y- class: stone and wood are in the x-class, but metal and leather in the y-class. The article
, adjectives, numerals
and other attributes must be in agreement
with the noun class of their subject.
in Burushaski: singular and plural
. The singular is unmarked, while the plural is expressed by means of suffix, which vary depending on the class of the noun:
Some nouns admit two or three different prefixes, while others have no distinctive suffix, and occur only in the plural, e.g. bras 'rice', gur 'wheat', bishké, 'fur', (cf. plurale tantum
). On the other hand, there are also nouns which have identical forms in the singular and plural, e.g. hagúr 'horse(s)'. Adjectives have a unique plural suffix, whose form depends on the class of the noun they modify, e.g. burúm 'white' gives the x-class plural burum-išo and the y-class plural burúm-ing.
Examples of pluralisation in Burushaski:
The case suffixes are appended to the plural suffix, e.g. Huséiniukutse, 'the people of Hussein' (ergative plural). The genitive ending is irregular, /mo/, for singular f-class nouns, but /-e/ in all others (identical to the ergative ending). The dative ending, /-ar/, /-r/ is attached to the genitive ending for singular f-class nouns, but to the stem for all others. Examples:
The genitive is placed before the thing possessed: Hunzue tham, 'the Emir of Hunza.'
The endings of the secondary cases are formed from a secondary case suffix (or infix) and one of the primary endings /-e/, /-ar/ or /-um/. These endings are directional, /-e/ being locative (answering 'where?'), /-ar/ being terminative (answering 'where to?'), and /-um/ being ablative (answering 'where from?'). The infixes, and their basic meanings, are as follows:
From these, the following secondary or compound cases are formed:
The regular endings /-ul-e/ and /-ul-ar/ are archaic and are now replaced by /-ul-o/ and /-ar-ulo/ respectively.
The pronominal, or personal, prefixes agree with the person, number and – in the third person, the class of their noun. A summary of the basic forms is given in the following table:
Personal pronouns in Burushaski distinguish proximal and distal forms, e.g. khin 'he, this one here', but in, 'he, that one there'. In the oblique, there are additional abbreviated forms.
, i.e. based on the number 20. For example, 20 altar, 40 alto-altar (2 times 20), 60 iski-altar (3 times 20) etc. The base numerals are:
Examples of compound numerals:
11 turma-hin, 12 turma-altan, 13 turma-isken, ..., 19 turma-hunti;
20 altar, 30 altar-toorimi, 40 alto-altar, 50 alto-altar-toorimi, 60 iski-altar and so on;
21 altar-hik, 22 altar-alto, 23 altar-iski and so on.
, deletion
and accent shift
, which are unique for almost every verb. Here, we can only specify certain basic principles.
The Burushaski finite verb
falls into the following categories:
For many transitive verb
s, in addition to the subject, the (direct) object is also indicated, also by pronomimal prefixes which vary according to person, number and class. All verbs have negative forms, and many intransitive verbs also have derived transitive forms. The infinitive
forms – which in Burushaski are the absolutives of the past and present, the perfect participle, and two infinitives – admit all the finite variations except tense and mood. Infinitive forms are made together with auxiliary verbs and periphrastic forms.
The formation of the tenses and moods of the verb her 'to cry', without prefixes:
The personal prefixes are identical to the pronominal prefixes of nouns (mandatory with body parts and kinship terms, as above). A simplified overview of the forms of the affixes is given in the following table:
For example, the construction of the preterite of the transitive verb phus 'to tie', with prefixes and suffixes separated by hyphens, is as follows :
The personal affixes are also used when the noun occupies the role of the subject or the object, e.g. hir i-ír-i-mi 'the man died'. With intransitive verbs, the subject function is indicated by both a prefix and a suffix, as in:
Personal prefixes do not occur in all verbs and all tenses. Some verbs do not admit personal prefixes, others still do so only under certain circumstances. Personal prefixes used with intransitive verbs often express a volitional function, with prefixed forms indicating an action contrary to the intention of the subject. For example:
. The precise semantic function of the d-prefix is unclear. With primary transitive verbs the d-prefix, always without personal prefixes, forms regular intransitives. Examples:
Language isolate
A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
(that is, not known to be related to any other language of the world). It is spoken by some 87,000 (as of 2000) Burusho people in the Hunza
Hunza Valley
The Hunza Valley is a mountainous valley in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan. The Hunza valley is situated to the north of the Hunza River, at an elevation of around . The territory of Hunza is about...
, Nagar
Nagar Valley
The Nagar Valley is a valley near Gilgit Valley in the Gilgit Baltistan of Pakistan. The valley is part of Hunza Nagar District and is administratively subdivided into two tehsils namely Nagar-1 and Nagar-2. The valley is situated at an elevation of 2,438m . Nagar Khas is the main town and the...
, Yasin
Yasin Valley
The Yasin Valley, Tehsil Yasin or Babaye-i-Yasen or Worshigum is a high mountain valley in the Hindu Kush mountains, in the northwest region of Gilgit in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. Yasin is separated from the Ishkoman Valley by a high mountain pass...
, and Ishkoman
Ishkoman
The Ishkoman valley lies in the north of Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan and the Pamir corridor.-Political status:Administratively, Ishkoman valley constitutes a Tehsil of Ghizer District. It is located at a range of altitudes, from . The valley consists of 20 villages, with a total population of...
valleys, and some parts of the Gilgit
Gilgit Valley
Gilgit Valley is located in Gilgit, Pakistan. The Gilgit River flows here. 375 km of road connect it to Chitral via the Shandur Pass ....
valley, in Gilgit–Baltistan in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
and by about 300 Burusho people in Srinagar
Srinagar
Srinagar is the summer seasonal capital of Jammu and Kashmir. It is situated in Kashmir Valley and lies on the banks of the Jhelum River, a tributary of the Indus. It is one of the largest cities in India not to have a Hindu majority. The city is famous for its gardens, lakes and houseboats...
in Jammu and Kashmir
Jammu and Kashmir
Jammu and Kashmir is the northernmost state of India. It is situated mostly in the Himalayan mountains. Jammu and Kashmir shares a border with the states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab to the south and internationally with the People's Republic of China to the north and east and the...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. Other names for the language are Brugaski, Kanjut (Kunjoot), Verchikwār, Boorishki, Brushas (Brushias), and Miśa:ski.
Today Burushaski contains numerous loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s from Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
(including English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
and Sanskrit words received via Urdu), and from neighbouring Dardic languages
Dardic languages
The Dardic languages are a sub-group of the Indo-Aryan languages spoken in northern Pakistan, eastern Afghanistan, and the Indian region of Jammu and Kashmir...
such as Shina
Shina language
Shina is a Dardic language spoken by a plurality of people in Gilgit-Baltistan of Pakistan and Dras in Ladakh of Indian-Administered Kashmir. The valleys in which it is spoken include Astore, Chilas, Dareil, Tangeer, Gilgit, Ghizer, and a few parts of Baltistan and Kohistan. It is also spoken in...
and Khowar
Khowar language
For the ethnic group, see under Chitrali people.Khowar , also known as Chitrali, is a Dardic language spoken by 400,000 people in Chitral in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in the Ghizer district of Gilgit-Baltistan , and in parts of Upper Swat...
, as well as a few from Turkic languages
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken...
, and from the neighboring Sino-Tibetan
Sino-Tibetan languages
The Sino-Tibetan languages are a language family comprising, at least, the Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia. They are second only to the Indo-European languages in terms of the number of native speakers...
language Balti
Balti language
Balti is a language spoken in Baltistan, in Gilgit-Baltistan of Pakistan and adjoining parts of Ladakh. Baltistan, before 1948, was part of Ladakh province. The Balti language is a dialect of the Ladakhi language, a form of Tibetan. It is mutually intelligible with Ladakhi proper and Burig...
, and Wakhi
Wakhi language
Wakhi is an Indo-European language in the branch of Eastern Iranian language family and is intimately related to other Southeastern Iranian languages in the Pamir languages group.-Classification and Distribution:...
and Pashto
Pashto language
Pashto , known as Afghani in Persian and Pathani in Punjabi , is the native language of the indigenous Pashtun people or Afghan people who are found primarily between an area south of the Amu Darya in Afghanistan and...
. However, the original vocabulary remains largely intact. The Dardic languages also contain large numbers of loanwords from Burushaski.
There are three divergent dialects, named after the main valleys: Hunza
Hunza Valley
The Hunza Valley is a mountainous valley in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan. The Hunza valley is situated to the north of the Hunza River, at an elevation of around . The territory of Hunza is about...
, Nagar
Nagar Valley
The Nagar Valley is a valley near Gilgit Valley in the Gilgit Baltistan of Pakistan. The valley is part of Hunza Nagar District and is administratively subdivided into two tehsils namely Nagar-1 and Nagar-2. The valley is situated at an elevation of 2,438m . Nagar Khas is the main town and the...
, and Yasin
Yasin Valley
The Yasin Valley, Tehsil Yasin or Babaye-i-Yasen or Worshigum is a high mountain valley in the Hindu Kush mountains, in the northwest region of Gilgit in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. Yasin is separated from the Ishkoman Valley by a high mountain pass...
(also called Werchikwār). The dialect of Yasin is thought to be the least affected by contact with neighboring languages
Language contact
Language contact occurs when two or more languages or varieties interact. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics.Multilingualism has likely been common throughout much of human history, and today most people in the world are multilingual...
and is generally less similar to the other two than those are to each other; nevertheless all three dialects are mutually intelligible.
Relationships
No generally accepted connection has been demonstrated between Burushaski and any other language or language family. Several attempts have been made to establish a genealogical relationship between Burushaski and the CaucasicNorth Caucasian languages
North Caucasian languages is a blanket term for two language phyla spoken chiefly in the north Caucasus and Turkey: the Northwest Caucasian family and the Northeast Caucasian family North Caucasian languages (sometimes called simply Caucasic as opposed to Kartvelian, and to avoid confusion with...
languages, with the Yeniseian languages
Yeniseian languages
The Yeniseian language family is spoken in central Siberia.-Family division:0. Proto-Yeniseian...
in a family called Karasuk
Karasuk languages
Karasuk is a language family proposed by George van Driem of the University of Leiden that links the Yeniseian languages of central Siberia with the Burushaski language of northern Pakistan....
, as a non-Indo-Iranian Indo-European language, or to include Burushaski in the Dené–Caucasian proposal, which includes both Caucasic and Yeniseian. None of these efforts has been accepted by scholarly consensus. In 2008 Edward Vajda
Edward Vajda
Edward Vajda is a historical linguist at Western Washington University. He has become known for his work on the proposed Dené–Yeniseian language family, seeking to establish that the Ket language of Siberia has a common linguistic ancestor with the Na-Dené languages of North America...
attempted to demonstrate Merritt Ruhlen
Merritt Ruhlen
Merritt Ruhlen is an American linguist known for his work on the classification of languages and what this reveals about the origin and evolution of modern humans. Amongst other linguists, Ruhlen's work is recognized as standing outside the mainstream of comparative-historical linguistics...
's proposal that Yeniseian was most closely related to Na-Dene
Na-Dené languages
Na-Dene is a Native American language family which includes at least the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, and Tlingit languages. An inclusion of Haida is controversial....
in a Dené–Yeniseian family, but the evidence adduced has not been extended to Burushaski.
Following Berger (1956), the American Heritage
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language is an American dictionary of the English language published by Boston publisher Houghton Mifflin, the first edition of which appeared in 1969...
dictionaries suggested that the word *abel (apple), the only name for a fruit (tree) reconstructed for Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
, may have been borrowed from a language ancestral to Burushaski. (Today "apple" and "apple tree" are /balt/ in Burushaski.) Others, however, reconstruct the Proto-Indo-European word for "apple (tree)" as *mel-, while yet others don't think Proto-Indo-European had a word for "apple" at all and consider the different words of different Indo-European subgroups to be separate loans from different unidentified non-Indo-European languages.
Writing system
Burushaski is a predominantly spoken, rather than written, language. Occasionally the UrduUrdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
version of the Arabic alphabet
Arabic alphabet
The Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjad is the Arabic script as it is codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written from right to left, in a cursive style, and includes 28 letters. Because letters usually stand for consonants, it is classified as an abjad.-Consonants:The Arabic alphabet has...
is used, but no fixed orthography
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
exists. Nasir al-Din Nasir Hunzai
Nasir al-Din Nasir Hunzai
Dr. Allamah Nasir al-Din Nasir Hunzai is a Pakistani writer and poet, known for his work on Islam and the Burushaski language.Prof. Dr. Allama Nasir ud-Din Nasir Hunzai is a highly acclaimed writer on Burushaski language. He was born in 1917 in Hyderabad, a small village of Hunza...
has written poetry in Burushaski using the Urdu alphabet
Urdu alphabet
The Urdu alphabet is the right-to-left alphabet used for the Urdu language. It is a modification of the Persian alphabet, which is itself a derivative of the Arabic alphabet...
.
Tibet
Tibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
an sources record a Bru-śa language of the Gilgit valley, which appears to have been Burushaski. Although Burushaski may once have been a significant literary language
Literary language
A literary language is a register of a language that is used in literary writing. This may also include liturgical writing. The difference between literary and non-literary forms is more marked in some languages than in others...
, no Bru-śa manuscripts are known to have survived.
Linguists working on Burushaski use various makeshift transcriptions based on the Latin alphabet, most commonly that by Berger (see below), in their publications.
Phonology
Burushaski primarily has five vowels, /i e a o u/. Various contractions result in long vowels; stressed vowels (marked with acute accents in Berger's transcription) tend to be longer and less "open" than unstressed ones ([i e a o u] as opposed to [ɪ ɛ ʌ ɔ ʊ]). Long vowels also occur in loans and in a few onomatopoeic words (Grune 1998). All vowels have nasal counterparts in Hunza (in some expressive words) and in Nager (also in proper names and a few other words).Berger (1998) finds the following consonants to be phonemic
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
, shown below in his transcription and in the IPA:
| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Dental | Alveolo- palatal Alveolo-palatal consonant In phonetics, alveolo-palatal consonants are palatalized postalveolar sounds, usually fricatives and affricates, articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge, and the body of the tongue raised toward the palate... |
Retroflex Retroflex consonant A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m /m/ | n /n/ | ṅ /ŋ/ | |||||
| Plosive | aspirated Aspiration (phonetics) In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ... |
ph /pʰ/ | th /tʰ/ | ṭh /ʈʰ/ | kh /kʰ/ | qh /qʰ/ | ||
| plain | p /p/ | t /t/ | ṭ /ʈ/ | k /k/ | q /q/ | |||
| voiced | b /b/ | d /d/ | ḍ /ɖ/ | g /ɡ/ | ||||
| Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
aspirated | ch /t͡sʰ/ | ćh /t͡ɕʰ/ | c̣h /ʈ͡ʂʰ/ | ||||
| plain | c /t͡s/ | ć /t͡ɕ/ | c̣ /ʈ͡ʂ/ | |||||
| voiced | j /d͡ʑ/ | j̣ /ɖ͡ʐ/ | ||||||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
voiceless | s /s/ | ś /ɕ/ | ṣ /ʂ/ | h /h/ | |||
| voiced | z /z/ | ġ /ʁ/ | ||||||
| Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... |
r /r/ | |||||||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
l /l/ | y [j] | ỵ /ɻ/ | w [w] | ||||
Notes:
Grammar
Burushaski is a double-marking languageDouble-marking language
A double-marking language is one where the grammatical marks showing relations between different constituents of a phrase tend to be placed on both the heads of the phrase in question, and on the modifiers or dependents...
and word order is generally subject–object–verb.
Noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s in Burushaski are divided into four genders
Grammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
: human masculine, human feminine, countable objects, and uncountable ones (similar to mass noun
Mass noun
In linguistics, a mass noun is a noun that refers to some entity as an undifferentiated unit rather than as something with discrete subsets. Non-count nouns are best identified by their syntactic properties, and especially in contrast with count nouns. The semantics of mass nouns are highly...
s). The assignment of a noun to a particular gender is largely predictable. Some words can belong both to the countable and to the uncountable class, producing differences in meaning. For example, when countable, balt means 'apple' but when uncountable, it means 'apple tree' (Grune 1998).
Noun morphology
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
consists of the noun stem, a possessive
Possession (linguistics)
Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other ....
prefix (mandatory for some nouns, and thus an example of inherent possession), and number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
and case
Declension
In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number , case , and gender...
suffixes
Affix
An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...
. Distinctions in number are singular, plural, indefinite, and grouped. Cases include absolutive
Absolutive case
The absolutive case is the unmarked grammatical case of a core argument of a verb which is used as the citation form of a noun.-In ergative languages:...
, ergative
Ergative case
The ergative case is the grammatical case that identifies the subject of a transitive verb in ergative-absolutive languages.-Characteristics:...
/oblique
Oblique case
An oblique case in linguistics is a noun case of synthetic languages that is used generally when a noun is the object of a verb or a preposition...
, genitive
Genitive case
In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
, and several locatives
Locative case
Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"...
; the latter indicate both location and direction and may be compounded.
Burushaski verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
s have three basic stems: past tense, present tense, and consecutive. The past stem is the citation form and is also used for imperatives
Imperative mood
The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :...
and nominalization
Nominalization
In linguistics, nominalization or nominalisation is the use of a verb, an adjective, or an adverb as the head of a noun phrase, with or without morphological transformation...
; the consecutive stem is similar to a past participle and is used for coordination
Grammatical conjunction
In grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that connects two words, sentences, phrases or clauses together. A discourse connective is a conjunction joining sentences. This definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech, so what constitutes a "conjunction" must be defined for each...
. Agreement
Agreement (linguistics)
In languages, agreement or concord is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase. Agreement happens when a word changes form depending on the other words to which it relates....
on the verb has both nominative and ergative features: transitive verbs mark both the subject and the object of a clause, while intransitive verbs mark their sole argument as both a subject and an object. Altogether, a verb can take up to four prefixes and six suffixes.
Noun classes
In Burushaski, there are four noun classNoun class
In linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
es, similar to declensional classes in Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...
, but unlike Indo-European, the nominal classes in Burushaski are associated with four grammatical "genders":
- m → male human beings, gods and spirits
- f → female human beings and spirits
- x → animals, countable nouns
- y → abstract concepts, fluids, uncountable nouns
Below, the abbreviation "h" will stand for the combination of the m- and f-classes, while "hx" will stand for the combination of the m-, f- and x-classes. Nouns in the x-class typically refer to countable, non-human beings or things, for example animals, fruit, stones, eggs, or coins; conversely, nouns in the y-class are as a rule uncountable abstractions or mass nouns, such as rice, fire, water, snow, wool, etc.
However, these rules are not universal – countable objects in the y-class are sometimes encountered, e.g. ha, 'house'. Related words can subtly change their meanings when used in different classes – for example, bayú, when a member of the x-class, means salt in clumps, but when in the y-class, it means powdered salt. Fruit trees are understood collectively and placed in the y-class, but their individual fruits belong to the x-class. Objects made of particular materials can belong to either the x- or the y- class: stone and wood are in the x-class, but metal and leather in the y-class. The article
Article (grammar)
An article is a word that combines with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. Articles specify the grammatical definiteness of the noun, in some languages extending to volume or numerical scope. The articles in the English language are the and a/an, and some...
, adjectives, numerals
Number names
In linguistics, number names are specific words in a natural language that represent numbers.In writing, numerals are symbols also representing numbers...
and other attributes must be in agreement
Agreement (linguistics)
In languages, agreement or concord is a form of cross-reference between different parts of a sentence or phrase. Agreement happens when a word changes form depending on the other words to which it relates....
with the noun class of their subject.
Pluralisation
There are two numbersGrammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
in Burushaski: singular and plural
Plural
In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...
. The singular is unmarked, while the plural is expressed by means of suffix, which vary depending on the class of the noun:
- h-class → possible suffixes: -ting, -aro, -daro, -taro, -tsaro
- h- and x-class → possible suffixes: -o, -išo, -ko, -iko, -juko; -ono, -u; -i, -ai; -ts, -uts, -muts, -umuts; -nts, -ants, -ints, -iants, -ingants, -ents, -onts
- y-class → possible suffixes: -ng, -ang, -ing, -iang; -eng, -ong, -ongo; -ming, -čing, -ičing, -mičing, -ičang (Nagar dialect)
Some nouns admit two or three different prefixes, while others have no distinctive suffix, and occur only in the plural, e.g. bras 'rice', gur 'wheat', bishké, 'fur', (cf. plurale tantum
Plurale tantum
A plurale tantum is a noun that appears only in the plural form and does not have a singular variant for referring to a single object...
). On the other hand, there are also nouns which have identical forms in the singular and plural, e.g. hagúr 'horse(s)'. Adjectives have a unique plural suffix, whose form depends on the class of the noun they modify, e.g. burúm 'white' gives the x-class plural burum-išo and the y-class plural burúm-ing.
Examples of pluralisation in Burushaski:
- wazíir (m), pl. wazíirting 'vizier, minister'
- hir (m), pl. hirí 'man' (stress shifts)
- gus (f), pl. gushíngants 'woman' (stress shifts)
- dasín (f), pl. dasíwants 'girl', 'unmarried woman'
- huk (x), pl. hukái 'dog'
- tilí (x), pl. tilí 'walnut'
- tilí (y), pl. tiléng 'walnut tree'
Declension
Burushaski is an ergative language. It has five primary cases.| Case | Suffix | Function |
|---|---|---|
| Absolutive Absolutive case The absolutive case is the unmarked grammatical case of a core argument of a verb which is used as the citation form of a noun.-In ergative languages:... |
unmarked | The subject of intransitive verbs and the object of transitive ones. |
| Ergative Ergative case The ergative case is the grammatical case that identifies the subject of a transitive verb in ergative-absolutive languages.-Characteristics:... |
-e | The subject of transitive verbs. |
| Oblique Oblique case An oblique case in linguistics is a noun case of synthetic languages that is used generally when a noun is the object of a verb or a preposition... |
-e; -mo (f) | Genitive; the basis of secondary case endings |
| Dative Dative case The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink".... |
-ar, -r | Dative, allative. |
| Ablative Ablative case In linguistics, ablative case is a name given to cases in various languages whose common characteristic is that they mark motion away from something, though the details in each language may differ... |
-um, -m, -mo | Indicates separation (e.g. 'from where?') |
The case suffixes are appended to the plural suffix, e.g. Huséiniukutse, 'the people of Hussein' (ergative plural). The genitive ending is irregular, /mo/, for singular f-class nouns, but /-e/ in all others (identical to the ergative ending). The dative ending, /-ar/, /-r/ is attached to the genitive ending for singular f-class nouns, but to the stem for all others. Examples:
- hir-e 'the man's', gus-mo 'the woman's' (gen.)
- hir-ar 'to the man', gus-mu-r 'to the woman' (dat.)
The genitive is placed before the thing possessed: Hunzue tham, 'the Emir of Hunza.'
The endings of the secondary cases are formed from a secondary case suffix (or infix) and one of the primary endings /-e/, /-ar/ or /-um/. These endings are directional, /-e/ being locative (answering 'where?'), /-ar/ being terminative (answering 'where to?'), and /-um/ being ablative (answering 'where from?'). The infixes, and their basic meanings, are as follows:
- -ts- 'at'
- -ul- 'in'
- -aţ- 'on; with'
- -al- 'near' (only in the Hunza dialect)
From these, the following secondary or compound cases are formed:
| Infix | Locative | Terminative | Ablative |
|---|---|---|---|
| -ts- | -ts-e 'at' | -ts-ar 'to' | -ts-um 'from' |
| -ul- | -ul-e 'in' | -ul-ar 'into' | -ul-um 'out of' |
| -aţ- | -aţ-e 'on','with' | -aţ-ar 'up to' | -aţ-um 'down from' |
| -al- | -al-e 'near' | -al-ar 'to' | -al-um 'from' |
The regular endings /-ul-e/ and /-ul-ar/ are archaic and are now replaced by /-ul-o/ and /-ar-ulo/ respectively.
Pronouns and pronominal prefixes
Nouns indicating parts of the body and kinship terms are accompanied by an obligatory pronominal prefix. Thus, one cannot simply say 'mother' or 'arm' in Burushaski, but only 'my arm', 'your mother', 'his father', etc. For example, the root mi 'mother', is never found in isolation, instead one finds:- i-mi 'his mother', mu-mi 'their mother' (3f sg.), u-mi 'your mother' (3h pl.), u-mi-tsaro 'their mothers'(3h pl.).
The pronominal, or personal, prefixes agree with the person, number and – in the third person, the class of their noun. A summary of the basic forms is given in the following table:
| Person/ Noun class |
Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st person | a- | mi-, me- |
| 2nd person | gu-, go- | ma- |
| 3rd person m | i-, e- | u-, o- |
| 3rd person f | mu- | u-, o- |
| 3rd person x | i-, y- | u-, o- |
| 3rd person y | i-, e- | |
Personal pronouns in Burushaski distinguish proximal and distal forms, e.g. khin 'he, this one here', but in, 'he, that one there'. In the oblique, there are additional abbreviated forms.
Numerals
The Burushaski number system is vigesimalVigesimal
The vigesimal or base 20 numeral system is based on twenty .- Places :...
, i.e. based on the number 20. For example, 20 altar, 40 alto-altar (2 times 20), 60 iski-altar (3 times 20) etc. The base numerals are:
- 1 hin (or han, hik)
- 2 altán (or altó)
- 3 iskén (or uskó)
- 4 wálto
- 5 čundó
- 6 mishíndo
- 7 thaló
- 8 altámbo
- 9 hunchó
- 10 tóorumo (also toorimi and turma)
- 100 tha
Examples of compound numerals:
11 turma-hin, 12 turma-altan, 13 turma-isken, ..., 19 turma-hunti;
20 altar, 30 altar-toorimi, 40 alto-altar, 50 alto-altar-toorimi, 60 iski-altar and so on;
21 altar-hik, 22 altar-alto, 23 altar-iski and so on.
Overview
The verbal morphology of Burushaski is extremely complicated and rich in forms. Many sound changes can take place, including assimilationAssimilation (linguistics)
Assimilation is a common phonological process by which the sound of the ending of one word blends into the sound of the beginning of the following word. This occurs when the parts of the mouth and vocal cords start to form the beginning sounds of the next word before the last sound has been...
, deletion
Deletion (linguistics)
In linguistics, deletion is the removal of a sound from a word, often for easier pronunciation. For instance, the word infrared is often pronounced [ɪnfərɛd].Like dissimilation or assimilation, deletion makes a word easier to pronounce....
and accent shift
Accent (linguistics)
In linguistics, an accent is a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual, location, or nation.An accent may identify the locality in which its speakers reside , the socio-economic status of its speakers, their ethnicity, their caste or social class, their first language In...
, which are unique for almost every verb. Here, we can only specify certain basic principles.
The Burushaski finite verb
Finite verb
A finite verb is a verb that is inflected for person and for tense according to the rules and categories of the languages in which it occurs. Finite verbs can form independent clauses, which can stand on their own as complete sentences....
falls into the following categories:
| Category | Possible forms |
|---|---|
| Tense Grammatical tense A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:... /Aspect Grammatical aspect In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker... |
Present, Future Future The future is the indefinite time period after the present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the nature of the reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently exists and will exist is temporary and will come... , Imperfect, Perfect Perfect Perfection is a philosophical concept.Perfect may also refer to:- Music :* Perfect interval, a type of interval used in music* Perfect * Perfect , a band from Poland* "Perfect" , 1988 single... , Pluperfect |
| Mood | Conditional Conditional mood In linguistics, the conditional mood is the inflectional form of the verb used in the independent clause of a conditional sentence to refer to a hypothetical state of affairs, or an uncertain event, that is contingent on another set of circumstances... , three Optatives, Imperative Imperative mood The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :... , Conative |
| Number Grammatical number In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions .... |
Singular, Plural Plural In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one... |
| Person Grammatical person Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns... |
1st, 2nd and 3rd Person (2nd person only in the imperative). |
| Noun class Noun class In linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional... |
the four noun classes m, f, x and y (only in the 3rd person) |
For many transitive verb
Transitive verb
In syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects. The term is used to contrast intransitive verbs, which do not have objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:...
s, in addition to the subject, the (direct) object is also indicated, also by pronomimal prefixes which vary according to person, number and class. All verbs have negative forms, and many intransitive verbs also have derived transitive forms. The infinitive
Infinitive
In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
forms – which in Burushaski are the absolutives of the past and present, the perfect participle, and two infinitives – admit all the finite variations except tense and mood. Infinitive forms are made together with auxiliary verbs and periphrastic forms.
The 11 positions of the finite verb
All verb forms can be constructed according to a complex but regular position system. Berger describes a total of 11 possible positions, or slots, although not all of these will be filled in any given verb form. Many positions also have several alternative contents (indicated by A/B/C below). The verb stem is in position 5, preceded by four possible prefix and followed by seven possible suffixes. The following table gives an overview of the positions and their functions- The positions of Burushaski finite verbs
| Position | Affixes and their meanings |
|---|---|
| 1 | Negative prefix a- |
| 2a/b | d-prefix (creates intransitive verbs) / n-prefix (absolutive prefix) |
| 3 | Pronominal prefixes: subject of intransitive, object of transitive verbs |
| 4 | s-prefix (creates secondary transitive verbs) |
| 5 | Verb Stem |
| 6 | Plural suffix -ya- on the verb stem |
| 7 | Present stem mark -č- (or š, ts..) forming the present, future and imperfect |
| 8a/b | Pronominal suffix of the 1.sg. -a- (subject) / linking vowel (no semantic meaning) |
| 9a | m-suffix: forms the m-participle and m-optative from the simple / |
| 9b | m-suffix: forms the future and conditional from the present stem / |
| 9c | n-suffix: marks the absolutive (see position 2) / |
| 9d | š-suffix: forms the š-optative and the -iš-Infinitive / |
| 9e | Infinitive ending -as, -áas / optative suffix -áa (added directly to the stem) |
| 10a | Pronominal suffixes of the 2nd and 3rd Person and 1. pl. (subject) / |
| 10b | Imperative forms (added directly to the stem) / |
| 10c | Forms of the auxiliary verb ba- for forming the present, imperfect, perfect and pluperfect |
| 11 | Nominal endings and particles |
Formation of tenses and moods
The formation of the tenses and moods involves the use of several positions, or slots, in complicated ways. The preterite, perfect, pluperfect and conative are formed from the 'simple stem,' whereas the present, imperfect, future and conditional are formed from the 'present stem,' which is itself formed from the simple stem by placing -č- in position 7. The optative and imperative are derived directly from the stem. Altogether, the schema is as follows:The formation of the tenses and moods of the verb her 'to cry', without prefixes:
- Simple stem tenses
| Grammatical category |
Construction | Form and meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Conative | stem + personal suffix | her-i 'he starts to cry' |
| Preterite | stem [+ linking vowel] + m-suffix + personal suffix | her-i-m-i 'he cried' |
| Perfect | stem [+ linking vowel] + present auxiliary | her-u-ba-i 'he has cried' |
| Pluperfect | stem [+ linking vowel] + perfect auxiliary | her-u-ba-m 'he had cried' |
- Present stem tenses
| Grammatical category |
Construction | Form and meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Future | stem + present marker [+ linking vowel + m-suffix] + personal ending | her-č-i-m-i 'he will cry' |
| Present | stem + present marker + linking vowel + present auxiliary | her-č-u-ba-i 'he is crying' |
| Imperfect | stem + present marker + linking vowel + perfect auxiliary | her-č-u-ba-m 'he was crying, used to cry' |
| Conditional | stem + present marker + linking vowel + m-Suffix (except 1. pl.) + če | her-č-u-m-če '... he would cry', |
| Conditional | stem + present marker + linking vowel + 1. pl. ending + če | her-č-an-če 'we would cry' |
- Optatives and Imperative
| Grammatical category |
Construction | Form and meaning |
|---|---|---|
| áa-optative | stem + áa (in all persons) | her-áa “... should.. cry“ |
| m-optative | stem [+ linking vowel] + m-suffix | her-u-m “... should.. cry“ |
| š-optative | stem + (i)š + Personalendung | her-š-an „he should cry“ |
| Imperative singular |
stem [+ é for ending-accented verbs] | her „cry!“ |
| Imperative plural |
stem + in | her-in „cry!“ |
Indication of the subject and object
The subject and object of the verb are indicated by the use of personal prefixes and suffixes in positions 3, 8 and 10 as follows:| Affix | Position | Function |
|---|---|---|
| Prefixes | 3 | direct object of transitive verbs, subject of intransitive ones |
| Suffixe | 8/10 | subject of transitive and intransitive verbs |
The personal prefixes are identical to the pronominal prefixes of nouns (mandatory with body parts and kinship terms, as above). A simplified overview of the forms of the affixes is given in the following table:
- Personal prefix (Position 3)
| Person/ noun class |
Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st Person | a- | mi- |
| 2nd Person | gu- | ma- |
| 3rd Person m | i- | u- |
| 3rd Person f | mu- | u- |
| 3rd Person x | i- | u- |
| 3rd Person y | i- | |
- Personal suffixes (Positions 8 and 10)
| Person/ noun class |
Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st/2nd Person | -a | -an |
| 3rd Person m | -i | -an |
| 3rd Person f | -o | -an |
| 3rd Person x | -i | -ie |
| 3rd Person y | -i | |
For example, the construction of the preterite of the transitive verb phus 'to tie', with prefixes and suffixes separated by hyphens, is as follows :
- i-phus-i-m-i > he ties him (filled positions: 3-5-8-9-10)
- mu-phus-i-m-i > he ties her (f)
- u-phus-i-m-i > he ties them (pl. hx)
- mi-phus-i-m-i > he ties us
- i-phus-i-m-an > we/you/they tie him.
- mi-phus-i-m-an > you/they tie us
- i-phus-i-m-a > i tie it
- gu-phus-i-m-a > i tie you
The personal affixes are also used when the noun occupies the role of the subject or the object, e.g. hir i-ír-i-mi 'the man died'. With intransitive verbs, the subject function is indicated by both a prefix and a suffix, as in:
- gu-ir-č-u-m-a „you will die“ (future)
- i-ghurts-i-m-i „he sank“ (preterite)
Personal prefixes do not occur in all verbs and all tenses. Some verbs do not admit personal prefixes, others still do so only under certain circumstances. Personal prefixes used with intransitive verbs often express a volitional function, with prefixed forms indicating an action contrary to the intention of the subject. For example:
- hurúţ-i-m-i 'he sat down' (volitional action without prefix)
- i-ír-i-m-i 'he died' (involuntary action with prefix)
- ghurts-i-mi 'he went willingly underwater', 'he dove' (without prefix)
- i-ghurts-i-m-i 'he went unwillingly underwater', 'he sank' (with prefix)
The d-prefix
A number of verbs – mostly according to their root form – are found with the d-prefix in position 2, which occurs before a consonant according to vowel harmonyVowel harmony
Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on which vowels may be found near each other....
. The precise semantic function of the d-prefix is unclear. With primary transitive verbs the d-prefix, always without personal prefixes, forms regular intransitives. Examples:
- i-phalt-i-mi 'he breaks it open' (transitive)
- du-phalt-as 'to break open, to explode' (intransitive)
Literature
- Anderson, Gregory D. S. 1997. Burushaski Morphology. Pages 1021–1041 in volume 2 of Morphologies of Asia and Africa, ed. by Alan Kaye. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.
- Anderson, Gregory D. S. 1999. M. Witzel’s "South Asian Substrate Languages" from a Burushaski Perspective. Mother Tongue (Special Issue, October 1999).
- Anderson, Gregory D. S. forthcoming b. Burushaski. In Language Islands: Isolates and Microfamilies of Eurasia, ed. by D.A. Abondolo. London: Curzon Press.
- Backstrom, Peter C. Burushaski in Backstrom and Radloff (eds.), Languages of northern areas, Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan, 2. Islamabad, National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Qaid-i-Azam University and Summer Institute of Linguistics (1992), 31-54.
- Bashir, Elena. 2000. A Thematic Survey of Burushaski Research. History of Language 6.1: 1–14.
- Berger, Hermann. 1956. Mittelmeerische Kulturpflanzennamen aus dem Burušaski [Names of Mediterranean cultured plants from B.]. Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft 9: 4-33.
- Berger, Hermann. 1959. Die Burušaski-Lehnwörter in der Zigeunersprache [The B. loanwords in the Gypsy languageRomani languageRomani or Romany, Gypsy or Gipsy is any of several languages of the Romani people. They are Indic, sometimes classified in the "Central" or "Northwestern" zone, and sometimes treated as a branch of their own....
]. Indo-Iranian Journal 3.1: 17-43. - Berger, Hermann. 1974. Das Yasin-Burushaski (Werchikwar). Volume 3 of Neuindische Studien, ed. by Hermann Berger, Lothar Lutze and Günther Sontheimer. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.
- Berger, Hermann. 1998. Die Burushaski-Sprache von Hunza und Nager [The B. language of H. and N.]. Three volumes: Grammatik [grammar], Texte mit Übersetzungen [texts with translations], Wörterbuch [dictionary]. Altogether Volume 13 of Neuindische Studien (ed. by Hermann Berger, Heidrun Brückner and Lothar Lutze). Wiesbaden: Otto Harassowitz.
- Casule, Ilija. 2010. Burushaski as an Indo-European language. Languages of the World 38. Munich: Lincom.
- Casule, Ilija. 2003. Evidence for the Indo-European laryngeals in Burushaski and its genetic affiliation with Indo-European. The Journal of Indo-European Studies 31:1–2, pp 21–86.
- van Driem, George. 2001. Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region, containing an Introduction to the Symbiotic Theory of Language (2 vols.). Leiden: Brill.
- Greenberg, Joseph H., and Merritt Ruhlen. 1992. Linguistic Origins of Native Americans. Scientific American 267(5): 94–99.
- Grune, Dick. 1998. Burushaski – An Extraordinary Language in the Karakoram Mountains.
- Lorimer, D. L. R. 1935–1938. The Burushaski Language (3 vols.). Oslo: Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning.
- Morgenstierne, GeorgGeorg MorgenstierneGeorg Morgenstierne was a Norwegian professor of linguistics with the University of Oslo . He specialized in Indo-Iranian languages.- Studies :...
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