Rushani
[aka Rushani, Rushan, Oroshani]Classification: Indo-European
·vulnerable
Classification: Indo-European
·vulnerable
Rushani, Rushan, Oroshani, Roshni, Roashani |
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Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Iranian, Eastern Iranian |
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none |
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LINGUIST List |
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sgh-rus |
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As csv |
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Information from: “A Sociolinguistic Assessment of the Roshani Speech Variety in Afghanistan” . Simone Beck (2013) University of Hawai'i Press
"[The authors] estimate that about 7,000 Roshani speakers live in Afghanistan. In addition to these, there are about 18,000 speakers of the Roshani speech variety living in twelve villages in Tajikistan."
"The vitality of the Roshani speech variety is very high. All the children in the community learn Roshani as their first language and it is their only language until they start school. Roshani is the only language used in the home and in the community. [...] The vast majority of the respondents hold the opinion that Roshani will continue to be the language used mostly by their children and grandchildren."
Dari
Shughni
"Roshani is a spoken language only. No written material exists in Roshani."
"The Roshan area is located in the Northern part of the Shighnān district. This district is located in Northeast of Badakhshan province, which is the most North-Eastern province of Afghanistan [...] Roshan consists of six villages, five of them located on the bank of the river Panj that forms the border to Tajikistan [...] While in Roshan, we were told of a small Roshani population in a side valley of the Plain of Sheva called ‘Little Sheva’ (between Shighnān and Faizabad). [...] Roshani is also spoken in Tajikistan, across the river Panj."
Coordinates are for Roshan villages visited by author.
Information from: “The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire” . Andrew Humphreys and Krista Mits ·
5,300
Data concerning the Roshani population is to be found in the official list of the towns and villages in the Tadzhik SSR (Stalinabad 1932) -- there were 5,838 inhabitants in Roshan, including 653 in the village of Khufi and 424 in Baju. According to A. Dyakov, about 2,000 to 3,000 people lived in Afghanistan's Roshan on the left bank of the River Pyandzh. According to records from 1939, 5,300 Roshani lived in the Tadzhik SSR.
The Roshani language exists only in spoken form; textual examples are scarce.
The Roshanis live in the Pamirs in the Roshani District of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of the Tadzhik SSR, north of the Shughni domain. The centre is Kalai-Vomar, also called Roshan. The Roshani-speaking villages are situated on the right bank of the Pyandzh River between the villages of Akhdzev (Yakhdzev) and Shipad. Roshani is also spoken in the villages of the lower Bartang (Yemts, Baghu and Rid). In the 1950s about one hundred Roshani families were resettled to the Djilikul and Kumsagir villages in the Vakh valley, despite the fact that natural conditions in Roshani are conducive to agriculture -- sufficient arable land as well as orchards and good pastures exists.
Information from: “LL-MAP (Language and Location: A Map Accessibility Project)” . Anthony Aristar and Helen Aristar-Dry and Yichun Xie (2012)
Information from: “Literacy and the Vernacular in Tajik Badakhshan: Research in Rushani, Khufi, Bartangi, and Roshorvi” . Elisabeth Abbess and Katja Müller and Daniel Paul and Calvin Tiessen and Gabriela Tiessen (2010)
Speaker count is only for Tajikistan.
"Use of the vernacular is strong and exclusive in certain domains in all locations. First, the vernacular is universally used as the main language in the home. It is always the first language learned by children and is, generally, the language of greatest fluency for all. The vernacular is always the language used for unofficial situations, that is, in normal everyday personal contact not associated with any public occasion or regulatory authority... use of the vernacular is at least stable in the community, and perhaps increasing."
Tajik
Russian
"Tajik is used in official situations, such as in public gatherings or meetings... Russian is used at work and in official situations by a small minority of respondents, such as medical staff and teachers of the Russian language...
Several respondents expressed negative attitudes when asked directly about their attitudes to the vernacular... One respondent told us, ‘Rushani gets us nowhere.’... Every respondent considered the vernacular to be important or very important for communication and all but one respondent considered the vernacular important or very important for being a good member of one’s family... Thus, while answers to direct questions on the value of the vernacular resulted in negative opinions, questions using the perceived benefit model or other questions revealed that at an underlying level, respondents consider their language to be important and value its maintenance among the younger generation."
"Our research indicates that almost all existing vernacular written materials for the Rushani group dialects can be categorized as technical or popular. Not everyone we spoke to was aware of the existence of any vernacular materials. Some respondents claimed that no books exist in the vernacular, or even that the languages have no alphabet and are impossible to read or write... The above-mentioned materials in the vernacular, by and large, use orthographies developed by linguists, which differ in some respects from the Tajik and Russian alphabets in that they contain additional characters that are unfamiliar to non-linguists. Several of our respondents reported difficulties in reading these orthographies... Despite unfamiliarity with the official alphabet, it appears that the vernacular is being written, using spontaneous orthographies based on the Tajik alphabet."
"Spoken along the Panj River from the village of Shipad in the north, through the Shidz and Barushon administrative districts, with their villages, as far as the regional centre Vomar (also called Kalai-Vomar or Rūshon); then further on to Pastkhuf in the south; also along the lower reaches of the Bartang River as far as the village of Jizev."