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Sawji

Sawji (ISO 639-3: [sdg]), also called Sau, Sauji, Savi and Sawi, is spoken by 5,000 speakers in Afghanistan, as well as 15,000 in Pakistan who fled as refugees during a period of extreme unrest but later set up towns and settled there. In Afghanistan, Sawji speakers live in Kunar province in a group of four small villages known collectively as Sau village along the Kunar River. Sawji is part of the Shina subgroup of the Dardic language family.

Most Sawji speakers also speak Pashto, the trade language and language of education up to twelfth grade in that region. The Sawji orthography was approved by the Academy of Sciences in October 2022 through the efforts of members of the Sawji community. It is used within the home and community extensively but not outside of the Sau village area. There has been research done on the phonology of Sawji as well as extensive word and

text collections. The Sawji community has hosted two poetry conferences for poetry written only in the Sawji language, and they have printed a book from one of those conferences. The community has started their own language development organization, which is called the Saw Literary & Cultural Society.

Resources

Academic Articles


The Dangari tongue of Choke and Machoke: tracing the proto-language of Shina enclaves in the Hindu Kush

Liljegren, Henrik. 2009. Acta Orientalia.

English


Survey of Northern Pak, Languages of Chitral

(text collected)

English

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