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

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.

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 or Vâsi-veri, but it is also known as Prasuni, Paruni, Parun, Vasi-vari, Prasun, Veron, Verou, Veruni, and Pārūnī. 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]

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

Vocabulary

References

External links

• Prasuni at the Endangered Languages Project