query: subclass_of rushani dialect
supports: Afghan (Pashto also Persian: ; see "etymology") refers to someone or something from Afghanistan, in particular a citizen of that country. Prior to the rise of the nation as Afghanistan, it was used by Persian speakers and those influenced by the Persian language to denote the Pashtun people. In modern times, "Afghan" is rarely used as an ethnic term for the Pashtuns, but is rather used as the national demonym for all citizens of Afghanistan  Pashtuns, Tajiks, and also a large number of Hazaras, Uzbeks, Aimaqs, Turkmens, Balochs, Nuristanis, Pashayis, Pamiris, Arabs, and others.
  According to the "Encyclopædia Iranica", the word Afghan (afn) in current political usage means any citizen of Afghanistan, regardless of their tribal or religious affiliation. According to the 1964 Constitution of Afghanistan, all Afghans are equal in rights and obligations before the law. The fourth article of the current Constitution of Afghanistan states that citizens of Afghanistan consist of Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazara, Uzbek, Turkmen, Aymaq, Arab, Baluch, Pashayi, Nuristani, Qezelbash, Gujjars, Brahui, and members of other tribes. The Wakhan Corridor (alternatively Vakhan Corridor, or Wakhan) is the narrow strip of territory in northeastern Afghanistan that extends to China and separates Tajikistan from Pakistan. The corridor, wedged between the Pamirs to the north and the Karakoram range to the south, is about long and wide. The Eastern Iranian languages are a subgroup of the Iranian languages emerging in Middle Iranian times (from c. the 4th century BC).
  The Avestan language is often classified as early Eastern Iranian. The largest living Eastern Iranian language is Pashto, with some 50-60 million speakers between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan. As opposed to the Middle Western Iranian dialects, the Middle Eastern Iranian preserves word-final syllables. The Pamir Mountains, or the Pamirs, are a mountain range in Central Asia at the junction of the Himalayas with the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and Hindu Raj ranges. They are among the worlds highest mountains. Rushani is a dialect of Shughnani ( also referred to as Shughni ) , one of the Pamir languages spoken in Afghanistan and Tajikistan . The Roshan area is located in the northern part of the Shighnan District , in the Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan . Roshan consists of six villages , five of which are located on the bank of the river Panj , which meets at the border of Tajikistan . Most Rushani speakers belong to the Ismaili branch of Shi'a Islam . China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia. With a population of over 1.381 billion, it is the world's most populous country. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China, and its capital is Beijing. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four direct-controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau), and claims sovereignty over Taiwan. The country's major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a great power and a major regional power within Asia, and has been characterized as a potential superpower. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (abbreviated as KP; ) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan, located in the northwestern region of the country. It was formerly known as North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and commonly called "Sarhad", which in Urdu means "frontier." Its provincial capital and largest city is Peshawar, followed by Mardan. It shares borders with the Federally Administered Tribal Areas to the west; GilgitBaltistan to the northeast; Azad Kashmir, Islamabad and Punjab to the east and southeast. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa "does not" share a border with Balochistan, which lies to its southwest. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa also shares an international border with Afghanistan, connected through the Khyber Pass. Kyrgyzstan (; "Kyrgyzstan"), officially the Kyrgyz Republic ("Krgz Respublikas"; "Kyrgyzskaya Respublika"), formerly known as Kirghizia, is a country in Central Asia. Landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west and southwest, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east. Its capital and largest city is Bishkek. Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan, is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia. It is a unitary, constitutional, presidential republic, comprising twelve provinces, one autonomous republic and a capital city. Uzbekistan is bordered by five landlocked countries: Kazakhstan to the north; Tajikistan to the southeast; Kyrgyzstan to the northeast; Afghanistan to the south; and Turkmenistan to the southwest. Tajikistan (, or ), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ("Çumhuriji Toçikiston"), is a mountainous, landlocked country in Central Asia with an estimated 8 million people in 2013, and an area of . It is bordered by Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east. Pakistan lies to the south, separated by the narrow Wakhan Corridor. Traditional homelands of Tajik people included present-day Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. Pashto (; "Paxt" ), also known in older literature as Afghn or Pahn, is the South-Central Asian language of the Pashtuns. Its speakers are called Pashtuns or Pukhtuns and sometimes Afghans or Pathans. It is an Eastern Iranian language, belonging to the Indo-European family. Pashto is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan, and it is the second-largest regional language of Pakistan, mainly spoken in the west and northwest of the country. Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) are almost 100% Pashto-speaking, while it is the majority language of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the northern districts of Balochistan. Pashto is the main language among the Pashtun diaspora around the world. The total number of Pashto-speakers is estimated to be 4560 million people worldwide. Badakhshan Province ("Badaxšn wilyat" and Persian:   "Velâyate Badaxšân") is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the farthest northeastern part of the country between Tajikistan and northern Pakistan. It shares a 56.5 miles (91 km) border with China. Pakistan (or ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a federal parliamentary republic in South Asia on crossroads of Central Asia and Western Asia. It is the sixth-most populous country with a population exceeding 200 million people. It is the 36th largest country in the world in terms of area with an area covering . Pakistan has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west, Iran to the southwest and China in the far northeast respectively. It is separated from Tajikistan by Afghanistan's narrow Wakhan Corridor in the north, and also shares a maritime border with Oman. Chitral is the largest district in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, covering an area of 14,850 km². It is the northernmost district of Pakistan.
  It shares a border with Gilgit-Baltistan to the east, with Kunar, Badakshan and Nuristan provinces of Afghanistan to the north and west, and with the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa districts of Swat and Dir to the south. A narrow strip of Wakhan Corridor separates Chitral from Tajikistan in the north. The Panj River, also known as "Pyandzh River" or "Pyanj River" (derived from its Russian name "/Pjandž"), is a tributary of the Amu Darya. The river is 1,125 km long and forms a considerable part of the Afghanistan - Tajikistan border. Afghanistan (Pashto/Dari: , "Afnistn"), officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located within South Asia and Central Asia. It has a population of approximately 32 million, making it the 42nd most populous country in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east; Iran in the west; Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north; and China in the far northeast. Its territory covers , making it the 41st largest country in the world. Central Asia or Middle Asia is the core region of the Asian continent and stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China in the east and from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the north. It is also colloquially referred to as "the 'stans" (as the six countries generally considered to be within the region all have names ending with the Persian suffix "-stan", meaning "land of") and is within the scope of the wider Eurasian continent. The Pamir languages are an areal group of the Eastern Iranian languages, spoken by numerous people in the Pamir Mountains, primarily along the Panj River and its tributaries. This includes the Badakhshan Province of Northeastern Afghanistan and the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Eastern Tajikistan. Pamir communities are also found in the adjacent Chitral District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gojal, Gilgit Baltistan in Pakistan. Sarikoli, one of the languages of the Pamir group, is spoken beyond the Sarikol Range on the Afghanistan-China border, and thus qualifies as the easternmost of the extant Iranian languages. The only other living member of the Southeastern Iranian group is Pashto. Turkmenistan (or  ); formerly known as Turkmenia is a country in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north and east, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest, and the Caspian Sea to the west. Iran (, also , ; ' ), also known as Persia, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (' ), is a sovereign state in Western Asia. It is bordered to the northwest by Armenia, the "de facto" Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, and Azerbaijan; to the north by the Caspian Sea; to the northeast by Turkmenistan; to the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan; to the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman; and to the west by Turkey and Iraq. Comprising a land area of , it is the second-largest country in the Middle East and the 18th-largest in the world. With 82.8 million inhabitants, Iran is the world's 17th-most-populous country. It is the only country with both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline. The country's central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, make it of great geostrategic importance. Tehran is the country's capital and largest city, as well as its leading economic center. A landlocked state or landlocked country is a sovereign state entirely enclosed by land, or whose only coastlines lie on closed seas. There are currently 48 such countries, including four partially recognised states. Only two, Bolivia and Paraguay in South America, lie outside Afro-Eurasia (the Old World). South Asia or Southern Asia is a term used to represent the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan SAARC countries and, for some authorities, adjoining countries to the west and east. Topographically, it is dominated by the Indian Plate, which rises above sea level as Nepal and northern parts of India situated south of the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush. South Asia is bounded on the south by the Indian Ocean and on land (clockwise, from west) by West Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Gojal, also known as Gojal Valley, is a valley situated in the far north of Pakistan. It borders Pakistan and China at Khunjerab Pass and Afghanistan at Chipurson valley. It is the largest tehsil of the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan.
candidates: arab area border c capital citizen continent country day district eastern iranian languages family group hindu literature member mountain name nation number part pass people persian plate population power province range republic rights river russian sea second sixth sovereign state state suffix term territory tō valley western word world
answer: eastern iranian languages