Pahari, which means “mountainous.” Pahari-Potwari is a language group found on the Pothohar Plateau in the far north of Pakistani Punjab, as well as in most of Pakistan’s Azad Kashmir and western areas of India’s Jammu and Kashmir.
Potwari-Pahari
Population in the Project Area :
2,500,000
The People
Pakistan
The ethnic community is composed of three major sub-groups, namely, Pahari, Potwari, and Mirpuri. Pahari is predominantly occupied in the Murree tehsil of the Rawalpindi District in northern Pakistan. The Potwari sub-group is the residents of the plateau south of the Pahari dialect area. From the Salt Range, the region extends northward to Rawalpindi and eastward to the Jhelum River. And the third group is from the district of Mirpur in Azad Kashmir. The people of this community are strongly influenced by their neighbouring groups such as Punjabis, Gujjars, Sudhans, Rajputs, etc.,
The hereditary occupation of the people in the community is cultivation, agriculture, and life-stock. Nowadays, people are also involved in many other works such as mining, selling dry fruits, trading medical herbals, handicrafts, wood carvings, etc., As aforementioned, the Potwari-Pahari groups live in different villages and areas with resources for agriculture, animal husbandry, and finding herbs and mines. Potwari-Pahari is predominantly a Muslim community. Generally, the community is very orthodox. The presence of a group of Ahmadiyya is observed among Muslims. There are very few Christians in the community. It’s only 0.08%. The major challenge of the community is the presence of socio-economic instability due to its educational backwardness. The people of this community are mostly illiterate. But now they send their children to school. Moreover, the community is highly patriotic.
The Project
Mother-Tongue literacy.
Potwari and Pahari are actually two different languages spoken in the northern regions of Pakistan. Potwari is an Indo-Aryan language spoken primarily in the Pothohar region of Punjab province, while Pahari is a dialect continuum that includes several different languages spoken in the mountainous areas of northern Pakistan, including Azad Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The ethnic group is named after their language. Potwari-Pahari belongs to the Indo-Aryan subbranch of the Indo-European language family. The language has some features of other major languages in the region, i.e., Hindko and Punjabi. The people in the community have a positive attitude towards their language. Therefore, it is vigorous enough to survive for the next generations. The community members use their mother tongue in all the possible domains within their group. Nevertheless, the youngsters implicitly try to develop an additive bilingual strategy through which they main their mother tongue while improving skills in the LWC(Language for wider Communication) for inter-community and other educational and formal usages. The community reports that they want to see their mother tongue gets flourished as the mainline language because it is their identity and soul of communication.
Our team is currently in the initial stage of conducting surveys and research to identify the language abilities of the people in question. With the aid of the collected data and research, we aim to develop a structured and efficient method of teaching. As part of the surveys, we have selected competent staff members who have been given training for teaching purposes. Additionally, cultural materials have been collected and recorded digitally with the aim of preserving them for future generations.
Progress
As of March 2023
Extensive research is carried out to understand the language abilities, vitality, and stability of the mother tongue of language groups in concern. This is done through a Sociolinguistic Survey conducted by experts, which also identifies various dialects and their mutual intelligibility across the dialect regions. In addition, ideal literacy staff are selected from the respective communities based on the survey results. We used a questionnaire and word and sentence lists for the data collection.
During the survey, mother tongue speakers from each language group assist the team in collecting data. An orientation program is conducted for the literacy staff, which enables them to gather cultural materials, including folk stories, songs, lullabies, riddles, and proverbs, from their communities.
The literacy staff transcribe the collected materials using the script of the state language and also record them using digital technologies. Currently, the staff members are being trained in Linguistics, including Phonetics, Phonology, and Orthography. They are also involved in developing a trail-orthography in their respective languages.