Palula Vocabulary: 7th book of Cultural and Language Series

Islamabad: The Forum for Language Initiatives (FLI) has launched a new book, Palula Vocabulary, the 7^th book of its Cultural and Language Series.

Palula Vocabulary, penned down jointly by Henrik Liljegren, a field linguist at Stockholm University, Sweden, and Naseem Haider, a local researcher in FLI, who is himself a native speaker of Palula, is a result of linguistic research about the Palula language, the second largest language of chitral.

The language is spoken in lower part of Chitral district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.  Most people visiting the Chitral Valley have heard about the Kalasha people. They are probably also aware that the majority of Chitralis speak Khowar. Fewer people know that there are at least ten other languages used by various communities in the valley, each with its own distinct history and traditions. The Palula are the first community one comes across when entering Chitral. They inhabit in the valleys of Ashret and Biori, and are considered the gatekeepers of Chitral at the Lowari Pass. Their language, Palula, is the second largest in Chitral and is widely used and understood in most places between the Lowari and Drosh.

The book contains much of the basic vocabulary used in today’s Palula, presented along with illustrative sentences, grammatical information, and comments on word origins.

About FLI: Pakistan is a country of rich culture and ethnic diversity. Many of Pakistan’s people recognize the importance of preserving the wealth of its cultural heritage, including its many languages. Until this day there has been a lack of institutional support in this area, which was the reason for the Forum for Language Initiatives (FLI) to be founded in 2003. The idea was to function as a resource centre for the many language communities in Pakistan’s mountainous North.

Some people want to compile dictionaries, some want to develop community literacy programmes, others see the need for producing literature in their languages. Many also see the need for good descriptions of the many intriguing cultural and linguistic phenomena observed in their communities. FLI has for the last eight years provided training and mentorship for a number of language activists, social workers and local researchers in the area of language and culture documentation. This has primarily been carried out in a practical one-year programme called the Discovery Programme. FLI has also facilitated the establishment of pilot projects which take the mother tongue as the starting point for curriculum development and children’s learning to read and write, gradually transitioning from the mother tongue to focusing on imparting skills in Urdu and English.

Some of FLI’s goals are:

–              To preserve oral traditions, poetry, proverbs, folk tales and other aspects of their cultural heritage

–              Make bilingual or trilingual dictionaries and glossaries

–              Improve reading and writing skills

–              Produce literature in the national, regional and vernacular languages of northern Pakistan