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Burushaski

Eurasian Language Families

Burushaski is a language isolate spoken by roughly 130,000 people in the Hunza, Nagar, Yasin and Ghizer districts of northern Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, with a smaller population of speakers in the Kashmir Valley of India. It has no established relationship to any other language family despite numerous attempts at classification, including proposed links to the North Caucasian and Kartvelian languages within a broader Dene-Caucasian or Karasuk macrofamily, none of which has been accepted by a majority of linguists. UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger classifies Burushaski as vulnerable.

Facts
Region
The Hunza, Nagar, northern Gilgit, Yasin and Ishkoman valley districts of Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, with a smaller population of speakers in the Kashmir Valley of India 1
Speaker Count
130,000 1
Proto-Language Status
No proto-language: Burushaski is a language isolate, with no demonstrated relationship to any other known language 1
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Burushaski Language
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Lead section, paragraph 1: districts sentence
    In Pakistan, Burushaski is spoken by the people of the Hunza District, the Nagar District, the northern Gilgit District, the Yasin Valley in the Gupis-Yasin District, and the Ishkoman Valley of the northern Ghizer District.
  • Lead section, paragraph 1: language isolate sentence
    Burushaski is a language isolate, spoken by the Burusho people, native to northern Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan.
  • Infobox: Native speakers field
    130,000 (2018-2020)
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