Languages of Chitral

Languages spoken in Pakistan

Chitral is the northernmost district in Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province and is a former Princely State. Despite being in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chitral is not a Pashtun area. Chitral shares much of its history and culture with the neighboring territory of Gilgit-Baltistan. The major language of Chitral is Khowar, a Dardic langanuage known as Chitrali language. Accoording to the research of Rehmat Aziz Chitrali, Director Khowar Academy most of the minority languages spoken in Chitral are also Dardic including Kalasha, Gawarbati, Dameli, Madaklashti, Kirghizi and Phalula. Iranic languages spoken by immigrant groups in Chitral include Pashto, Persian, and Wakhi. An indigenous Iranic language spoken in Chitral is Yidgha. There are also migrants form Nuristan who speak several Nuristani dialects. Finally there is a large community if Gujjar herdmen who were originally nomadic, but have now settled permanently in parts of Lower Chitral and they speak the Indo-Aryan Gojri Language.

Thus Chitral is considered to be one of the most lingusitically diverse regions in the world, but nearly all of these groups use Khowar as a lingua-franca for inter-ethnic communication, except for the southernmost part of the district where Pashto plays that role.