such as Dari and Pashto (two official languages of Afghanistan) and Chitrali in Pakistan. Proto-Nuristani The earliest divergence of Nuristani from the other Indo-Iranian languages may be indicated by the fact that the Ruki sound law does not apply after *u: e.g. Kam-viri 'mouse'. Nuristani shares with Iranian the merger of the tenuis and breathy-voiced consonants, and the fronting of the Proto-Indo-Iranian primary palatal consonants. The latter were retained as dental affricates in Proto-Nuristani, in contrast to simplification to sibilants (in most of Iranian) or interdentals (in Persian). Nuristani is distinguished by the lack of debuccalizing to as in Indo-Aryan. Later on *dz did shift to in all Nuristani varieties other than Kam-viri and Tregami. Many Nuristani languages have subject–object–verb (SOV) word order, like most of the other Indo-Iranian languages, and unlike the adjacent Dardic Kashmiri language, which has verb-second word order. See also Dardic languages References Bibliography Decker, Kendall D. (1992) Languages of Chitral. Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan, 5. Islamabad: National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University and Summer Institute of Linguistics. Grjunberg, A. L. (1971): K dialektologii dardskich jazykov (glangali i zemiaki). Indijskaja i iranskaja filologija: Voprosy dialektologii. Moscow. Morgenstierne, Georg (1926) Report on a Linguistic Mission to Afghanistan. Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning, Serie C I-2. Oslo. Jettmar, Karl (1985) Religions of the Hindu Kush J. P. Mallory, In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth, Thames and Hudson, 1989. James P. Mallory & Douglas Q. Adams, "Indo-Iranian Languages", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997. Strand, Richard F. "NURESTÂNI LANGUAGES" in Encyclopædia Iranica External links Reiko and Jun's Japanese Kalash Page (in English) Hindi/Urdu-English-Kalasha-Khowar-Nuristani-Pashtu Comparative Word List Richard Strand's Nuristân Site This site is the primary source on the linguistics and ethnography of Nuristân and neighboring regions, collected and analyzed over the last forty years by the leading scholar on Nuristân. Languages of Afghanistan Languages of Pakistan