Kullu language


Kullu is a Western Pahari language spoken in Himachal Pradesh.

Phonology

Consonants

For the stops and affricates there is a four-way distinction in phonation between tenuis, voiced, aspirated and breathy voiced series. lists as separate phonemes aspirated correlates of,,,,,, and, but describes the aspiration as a voiceless pharyngeal friction. is dental, but becomes alveolar if the next syllable contains a retroflex consonant. and are rare, but contrast with the other nasals word-medially between vowels., and, together with their aspirated correlates, don't occur in the beginning of words. The glottal stop occurs only between a vowel and,, or, e.g. "a trumpet", which contrasts with "famine". The pharyngeal fricative historically derives from and occurs word-finally, e.g. "grass", "twenty".

Script

The native script of the language is a variety of Takri script.

Status

The language is commonly called Pahari or Himachali. Some speaker may even call it a dialect of Punjabi or Dogri. The language has no official status. According to the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, the language is of definitely endangered category, i.e. many Kulluvi children are not learning Kulluvi as their mother tongue any longer.
The demand for the inclusion of 'Pahari ' under the Eight Schedule of the Constitution, which is supposed to represent multiple Pahari languages of Himachal Pradesh, had been made in the year 2010 by the state's Vidhan Sabha. There has been no positive progress on this matter since then even when small organisations are taking upto themselves to save the language and demanding it. Due to political interest, the language is currently recorded as a dialect of Hindi, even when having a poor mutual intelligibility with it.