On possible Dardic and Burushaski influence on some Northwestern Tibetan dialects

Abstract

The Northwestern fringe of the Tibetan-speaking area, now forming a part of the Jammu and Kashmir state of India and of Pakistani-controlled Northern Areas, was in the past an area of intensive ethnic and language contact. This contact resulted in the linguistic assimilation of the local pre-Tibetan population by the Tibetans. More than a century ago it was hypothesized that this pre-Tibetan population may have spoken a certain Dardic language. The article attempts to check this hypothesis through the etymological analysis of the vocabulary of Northwestern Tibetan dialects. The results of this analysis suggest the existence of a significant Indo-Iranian, probably Dardic, lexical stratum, as well as of numerous lexemes borrowed from some early form of Burushaski. The author seeks to define the dialectal distribution of Indo-Iranian and Burushaski loanwords in the area under study.