Khowar is a language spoken by perhaps 100,000 people in Pakistan, and is the everyday language of the remote valley of Chitral, which is linked to the rest of Pakistan only through the passes from the Panjkora valley.

One of the Indo-Aryan languages, its closest linguistic relationships are not clear. Certainly it has been influenced by its physical neighbors :

as well as its cultural neighbors such as Sanskrit, Persian and Urdu; but, it shows striking differences from all of these.

Existing alongside Urdu, Pakistan's national tongue, Khowar has some writing and publishing and a strong tradition of oral poetry.

How to count to ten in Khowar :

  1. i (ī)
  2. ju (jū)
  3. troi
  4. cor (cōr)
  5. ponj (pōnj)
  6. choi
  7. sot
  8. osht
  9. neoh (nəoh)
  10. josh