Shina
Sign in to saveAlso known as Shina language
language from the Dardic sub-group of the Indo-Aryan languages family spoken by the Shina people
Key facts
- Pronunciation
- [ ʂiɳjá ]
- Native to
- Pakistan , India
- Region
- Gilgit-Baltistan , Kohistan , Drass , Gurez
- Ethnicity
- Shina
- Native speakers
- 1.1 million (2018)
- Language family
- Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Dardic Eastern Dardic Shinaic Shina
- Early forms
- Proto-Indo-Aryan Vedic Sanskrit
- Writing system
- Arabic script ( Nastaʿlīq )
- Iso 639 3
- Either:, scl – Standard Shina, plk – Kohistani Shina
- Glottolog
- shin1264 Shina, kohi1248 Kohistani Shina
via Wikipedia infobox
~11 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Shina (ݜݨیاٗ, Ṣiṇyaá, [ʂiɳjá]), also known by its exonym Gilgiti, is an Indo-Aryan language of the Dardic branch in the Indo-European family, primarily spoken by the Shina people native to northern Pakistan, specifically Gilgit-Baltistan and Kohistan. A small community of Shina speakers is also found in the Gurez valley of Jammu and Kashmir and Dras valley of Ladakh in India. Outliers of Shina language such as Brokskat are found in Ladakh, Kundal Shahi in Azad Kashmir, Palula and Sawi in Chitral and Kunar, Ushojo in the Swat Valley and Kalkoti in Dir.
Until recently, there was no writing system for the language. A number of schemes have been proposed, but presently, there is no single writing system used by speakers of Shina. Shina is mostly a spoken language and not a written language.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Shina” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.