Pahari, or Pahadi ( 'of the hills/mountains'; ), is an encompassing term that has been used for a variety of languages, dialects and language groups, most of which are found in the lower Himalayas.
Most commonly, it refers to: Pahari-Poonchi, is language spoken in Poonch division of Azad Kashmir, Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir, India Pahari-Pothwari, is a Lahnda dialect group within the Punjabi group spoken in Pakistan's northern Punjab, Pakistani Kashmir and Jammu and Kashmir. Western Pahari languages, group of languages spoken primarily in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, with some languages in the south-eastern parts of Indian Jammu and Kashmir, eastern parts of Uttarakhand and some hilly parts of Haryana. Northern Indo-Aryan languages, in the linguistics literature often referred to as "Pahari languages", a proposed group that includes the Indo-Aryan languages of Nepal and the Indian states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.
Less commonly, Pahari may be: a term used by Dogri speakers of the plains to refer to the Dogri varieties spoken at higher elevations, in Indian Jammu and Kashmir, a local name for a variety of Bilaspuri spoken in a certain hilly area of Indian Punjab, a name nowadays used only in rural areas to refer to the Nepali language, a local name for a Bhili dialect of Eastern Gujarat.
Pahari ( Paharī) refers to: Pahari language (Sino-Tibetan), a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by a few thousand people in central Nepal.
Of similar origin is the name Paharia, which is used for several languages of east-central India: see Paharia language (disambiguation).
See also Pahari culture
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