Ormuri by Saima Jabeen
Assignment
submitted to: Sir. Akhter Aziz
Course
title: Language Description and Preservation
Ormuri is the language of a small
Indo-Iranian community which is spread from the Logar province in Afghanistan
to South Waziristan in Pakistan. The language has amazingly persisted over many
centuries in spite of pressure from the surrounding predominantly Persian and
Pashto-speaking peoples. However, it is now on the verge of extinction in
Afghanistan, where only a few members of the older generations are able to
speak it, while it is still alive but seriously endangered in Pakistan.
Explaining the historical records of the language,
Dr Baart said that the British first recorded 43 sentences in Ormuri in 1838.
Later, Ghulam Muhammad Khan compiled some vocabulary, short sentences and
grammar which was later included in the linguistic survey of India, he said.
“The book is the very first comprehensive documentation of the language.”
Ormuri
language
|
Alternate
Names
Baraki, Baraks, Bargista, Ormui,
Ormur, Urmuri
|
Population
6,000
in Pakistan, Population total all countries: 6,050
|
Location
Kaniguram,
a pocket in Mahsud Pashto area northwest of Dera Ismail Khan, Federally
Administered Tribal Areas, South Wazirstan agency.
|
Language
Maps
|
Classification
|
Arabic
script
|
Rozi Khan Burki is one of the
few people who have carried out detailed research on the language. In his book
written purely in Ormuri, he claims that the similarities between Pashtun and
Ormuri people persist because Ormur was the grandson of Qasi Abdur Rasheed –
the forefather of all Pashtun tribes. “They are originally Pashtuns who
migrated in 1025 to Kaniguram from Logar, Afghanistan. Their language was
initially known as ‘Burgista’ but now it has become Ormuri,” he said.
Burki said that there are around 8,000 Ormuri
speakers in South Waziristan and there is great risk for the language in view
of Pashtu dominance in the area. He said that written literature in the
language was nonexistent. “But now, documentation has started and 5,000 words
are in its dictionary,” he said.
The first man who has worked on the Grammar of
Ormuri language (Kaniguram dialect) is Ghulam Mohammad Khan of Charsadda who
has written a Grammar of the language with Urdu explanation.
Dr. Efimovv worked on Ormuri language
and he published that work as a monograph in 1986, written in Russian. A
literal translation of its title is, The Ormuri Language in a Historical and
Synchronic Light. His account of the language’s history links it to Mehmood
Ghaznavi.
Ormuri-specific sounds have been symbolised in Burki’s
as follows:
(voiceless
trilled-r); It is an Ormuri-specific sound, which is not used in any other
language of the subcontinent and other Indo-Iranian languages. It is a
voiceless trilled r, which has also been explained by Joan Baart in the January,
1998 issue of North Pakistan Newsletter as: "Among other things,
it was interesting to learn that the language has a voiceless trilled r of
Czech (as in the name of the composer Antonin Dvorak). There is also a
hard to hear phonemic contrast between two Kinds of esh sound, probably
palato-alveolar vs. alveolo-palatal." 
(voiced
alveolo-palatal grooved fricative). This sound is though also used in
Waziri dialect of Pashto but Pashto has no symbol for its expression and
the regular symbol of (ژ) is used for this sound
despite the difference. It sounds like [S] in pleasure, which is different
from [S] of vision.
(voiceless
palato-aolveolar grooved fricative). It is also a specific Ormuri sound
though also used in Waziri dialect. It sounds like [ش]
in pissing in Urdu or Punjabi. In Pashto no specific symbol is used for
this sound and is written with a regular [ش]. In
Ormuri if the difference of both the sounds i.e. [ش]
and [ش] is not indicated, many words and their
meaning would cause confusion. Nasalization symbol 
[]
has also been included in the alphabet by indicating it with (
) and adjustable in all positions i. e. initial, medial, final and isolate
in a word. Urdu and all other Arabic based script do not distinguish it
from the regular [ن] especially if it comes in
the middle of the word. In Ormuri it is used even at the start of words. - [ې] = e , This symbol has been prescribed for indicating the difference of vowel length and stress. For example, the "barri ye" appearing in the middle of word in Urdu is indicated with the same shape as is the case of "chhoti ye". In Ormuri this difference has been indicated by prescribing two vertical dots for barri ye as against horizontal dots for chhoti ye so that the difference of Sher for lion and Sheer for milk is Known. (as in ې and ي)
-
This lane-mad has been created for removing the confusion about the vowel
length and stress. There is a difference of vowel length indicated
normally by zabar i.e. the one with stress and the other without stress.
When stress is needed this vowel would be placed as a diacritic symbol
instead of the usual zabar. For example the [
] in Sardar is different from Urdu Sar 
(head)
and English Sir. If the two are not differentiated in Ormuri, a lot of
confusion is caused. Hence this symbol has been prescribed for vowels
similar to the Urdu
and
English Sir.
A specimen of the Ormuri Alphabets and a few poems
composed by Rozi Khan Burki:
Vowels
Prose
Although I don't mind guests coming but her
half-hearted coming didn't make me happy.
I have matured early and will soon grow old, O!
Youth where have you gone, as I don't feel youthful even while I am young.
O! My misfortune! I will kill you, if I ever come
across you; it is you, who ever deprived me of happiness.
Love kills one from inside but can intense love be
guarded?
She doesn't let me share her youth as she doesn't
want to lose her modesty.
She is scared of being kissed as she does not want
to lose the freshness of her cheeks.
Whoever would see her would be attracted I
therefore do not like her to smile at someone else.
Suggestions for
preserving a language:
Rozi Khan says that although the
loss of the language will not affect the people economically, it will kill oral
history as well as Ormuri customs and traditions. “Different plants will lose
their names and local herbal medicines will be lost. Some birds and animals
will become nameless and some proverbs, old sayings and myths will die out,” he
explains.
After writing an Ormuri book,
Rozi Khan Burki also started a campaign to bring together people who can write
poetry in Ormuri – about 15 people. But the efforts were marred by unrest in
the valley. “It is now impossible for me to gather all internally displaced
poets and people who were working on the language”, said Khan
For preserving a language, one can adopt many
different ways such as:
- Documentation
- Write It Down
- Create Second-language Programs
- Immerse
- Encourage The Community
- Change Language Policy
- Attend Conferences, Institutes, And Workshops
References:
http://www.khyber.org/publications/016-020/ormuri.shtml
http://tribune.com.pk/story/302799/ormuri-the-silent-victim-of-militancy/
http://tribune.com.pk/story/295010/dying-ormuri-language-finds-saviour-in-english-book/
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