The Khowar alphabet is the right-to-left alphabet used for the Khowar language. It is a modification of the Urdu alphabet, which is itself a derivative of the Persian alphabet and Arabic alphabet and uses the calligraphic Nastaʿlīq script.
History
The Khowar language developed during the rule of Mehtar of Chitral State. Since the early twentieth century Khowar has been written in the Khowar alphabet, which is based on the Urdu alphabet and uses the Nasta'liq script. Prior to that, the language was carried on through oral tradition. Today Urdu and English are the official languages and the only major literary usage of Khowar is in both poetry and prose composition. Khowar has also been occasionally written in a version of the Roman script called Roman Khowar since the 1960s. Despite the invention of the Khowar typewriter in 1996, Khowar newsletters and newspapers continued to be published from handwritten scripts by the Khowar authors until the late 1990s. The Monthly Zhang is the first newsletter was the first Khowar newspaper to use Nasta’liq computer-based composition. There are efforts under way to develop more sophisticated and user-friendly Khowar support on computers and the internet. Nowadays, nearly all Khowar newspapers, magazines, journals, and periodicals are composed on computers via various Khowar software programs.
Nasta'liq
The Nasta'liq calligraphic writing style began as a Persian mixture of scripts Naskh and Ta'liq. Nasta'liq is more cursive and flowing than its Naskh counterpart.
Alphabet
A list of the letters of the Khowar alphabet and their pronunciation is given below. Khowar contains many historical spellings from Arabic and Persian, and therefore has many irregularities. The Arabic letters yaa and haa both have two variants in Khowar: one of the yaa variants is used at the ends of words for the sound , and one of the haa variants is used to indicate the aspirated and breathy voiced consonants. The retroflex consonants needed to be added as well; this was accomplished by placing a superscript (to'e) above the corresponding dental consonants. Several letters which represent distinct consonants in Arabic are conflated in Persian, and this has carried over to Khowar. Some of the original Arabic letters are not used in Khowar. This is the list of the Khowar letters, giving the consonant pronunciation. Many of these letters also represent vowel sounds.
Name Forms IPA RomanizationElena Bashir, A digital Khowar-English dictionary with audio - Organization of the dictionary. University of Chicago. https://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/khowar-2nd/frontmatter/frontmatter.pdf Unicode ExampleFarid Ahmad Raza, Preliminary Grapheme to Phoneme Khowar Alphabet Chart, Booni Chitral. http://www.mahraka.com/pdf/grapheme_to_phoneme.pdf KhowarRomanization Isolated Final Medial Initial KhowarRomanization Meaning alif ā, – U+0627 angár Fire be b U+0628 braár Brother pe p U+067E palóγ Apple te t U+062A tat Father ṭe ṭ U+0679 ṭip Full se s U+062B saʋabi Reward jim j U+062C jam Good j̣im j̣ U+076E j̣anj̣ér Chain če č U+0686 čúmur Iron c̣e c̣ U+076F c̣ar Dry he h U+062D haját Need xe x U+062E xaɫáu Mouse tse ts U+0685 tseq Small dze dz U+0681 dzah Wet dal d U+062F droc̣ Grapes ḍal ḍ U+0688 ḍaáng Hearth zal z U+0630 zaxira Dry fruit re r U+0631 roi People ɫe ɫ U+0691 ɫow Fox ze z U+0632 zom Mountain že ž U+0698 žuúr Daughter ẓe ẓ U+0771 ẓot Early sin s U+0633 sot Seven šin š U+0634 šot Oath ṣin ṣ U+0770 ṣaboók Bride swad s U+0635 safá Clean zwad z U+0636 zayá Wasted toē t U+0637 toti Parrot zoē z U+0638 zaálim Cruel ain U+0639 ašéq Lover γain γ U+063A γéži Alone fe f U+0641 frox Mouth qaf q U+0642 qáq Dry kaf k U+06A9 kánu Blind gaf g U+06AF gonj Storage lam l U+0644 loṭ Big mim m U+0645 mux Face nun n U+0646 namúti Barefoot wao v, w, u, o, au U+0648 wau vreẓ̌nú Old lady Garlic he h, a, e U+06C1 host Hand choṭi he do-cashmī hē -h U+06BE phost Skin ye y, i, e U+06CC yomún mewá ligíni Winter Fruit Tongue baṛi ye ai, e U+06D2 očé And hamzah or silent , –, -i, -o, -u U+0626 naxói Chickpea U+0624 buú Owl U+0621 Footnotes:
Vowels
Vowels in Khowar are represented by letters that are also considered consonants. Many vowel sounds can be represented by one letter. Confusion can arise, but context is usually enough to figure out the correct sound.
Vowel chart
This is a list of Khowar vowels found in the initial, medial, and final positions.
RomanizationPronunciationFinalMedialInitialaāiīuūeaioau
Short vowels
Short vowels ("a", "i", "u") are represented by marks above and below a consonant.
Vowel Name Transcription IPA zabar ba zer bi pesh bu
Alif
Alif (ا) is the first letter of the Khowar alphabet, and it is used exclusively as a vowel. At the beginning of a word, alif can be used to represent any of the short vowels, e.g. ابدار abdar, اسم ism, اردو Urdu. Also at the beginning, an alif (ا) followed by either wā'o (و) or ye (ی) represents a long vowel sound. However, wā'o (و) or ye (ی) alone at the beginning represents a consonant.
Alif also has a variant, call alif madd (آ). It is used to represent a long "ā" at the beginning of a word, e.g. آپک āpak, آدیمزاد ādmzaad. At the middle or end of a word, long ā is represented simply by alif (ا), e.g. باغ bāgh, آرام ārām.
Wā'o
Wā'o is used to render the vowels "ū", "o", and "au". It also renders the consonants "w" and 'v', but many people get confused between these two sounds.
Ye
Ye is divided into two variants: choṭī ye and baṛī ye.
Choṭī ye (ی) is written in all forms exactly as in Persian. It is used for the long vowel "ī" and the consonant "y".
Baṛī ye (ے) is used to render the vowels "e" and "ai" ( and respectively). Baṛī ye is distinguished in writing from choṭī ye only when it comes at the end of a word.
Use of specific letters
Retroflex letters Retroflex consonants were not present in the Persian alphabet, and therefore had to be created specifically for Khowar. This was accomplished by placing a superscript ط (to'e) above the corresponding dental consonants.
Letter Name IPA ṭe çe ǰīm ḍāl ɫe ẓe ṣin
Affricate Letters Affricate consonants were not present in the Persian alphabet either. Two letters from Pashto alphabet were adopted for Khowar orthography to represent affricate consonants.
Letter Name IPA tse dze
Do chashmī he
The letter do chashmī he (ھ) is used in native Hindustānī words, for aspiration and breathy voice. The consonants are sometimes classified as separate letters, although they are digraphs.
Transcription IPA ph th ṭh čh c̣h tsh kh
References