Geography of Khowar

The Places where Khowar is being spoken:

I will introduce you to a lovely language and the territories where it is being spoken. The name of this language is Khowar. Khowar is a combination of two different words the first one is “Khow” and the second one is “War”. Before the British invasion, the name of this language was Khowar but it became Chitrali after a derived adjective associated with the name of the region Chitral. 

Let us elaborate on this topic a little bit more and find you the literal meaning of the term Khowar. “Khow” are the people who are living indigenously in Chitral/Chetrar, and war is a word that is used for language. Collectively “Khowar” gives meaning to the language of the Kho people. According to one study, there were 290000 native speakers of Khowar were recorded in 2004 in Chitral. 

If we explore the places where Khowar is spoken and for how long this language chronicles itself? This is basically in Chitral and originated here. The myth about Khowar is it was born in Torkhow and started its evaluation from here thus it reached several parts of northern areas of Pakistan. At the current time, you will find Khowar as the native language of the people of Chitral, Ghizer, and Mateltan city of Sawat. 

The points where Khowar is being spoken in Chitral have five major divisions Tori Koh, Muli Koh, Lot Koh, and Shi-Shi Koh. The fifth one is the area of Biyaar (the area starts from Reshun valley and covers the areas on the right side of Yrkhun River including Laspur valley, and Chinar valley, till Broghil valley). Chitral has almost fourteen different languages in its region yet, Khowar is the first language or native language of every Khow. Although remote areas like Arandu, Lot Koh, Madak Lasht valley, and Kalash valley have their well-organized linguistic distinctions they know how to communicate in Khowar. They use Khowar as a source of communication when they come to town or meet any Khowar speaker. 

Apart from Chitral, there is a large population of Khowar speakers is inhabiting Ghizer upper, the district of Gilgit Baltistan. They use a little bit modified form of the original Khowar that was originated in Torkhow. Traveling from Gilgit city Khowar speakers are found In Gahkuch till the last boundary with Shandur, Yassin valley, and Ishkomen valley. 

The territory of Khowar is not limited to Chitral and Ghizer but it also extends its boundaries to Sawat valley. There is a city Mateltan in Sawat which homes to a certain population of Khowar speakers. They have a very rich culture without mentioning that they are very little in among all the inhabitants of Sawat.

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