French-Burushaski (Yasin) dictionary published
Gilgit, July 10: The Indigenous Languages of Gilgit-Baltistan appear to be rising in popularity around the world, as linguists from around the world research to surface many of the mysteries that surround these languages. These linguists are also making many efforts to preserve these endangered languages, one of these efforts came to light recently when a French Linguist published a Burushaski-French dictionary.
Dr. Etienne Tiffou, a renowned French researcher and author published the dictionary titled “Dictionnaire du bourouchaski du Yasin, bourouchaski-French and French-bourouchaski”. The dictionary contains thousands of Burushaski words of the Yasin dialect as well as explanation of their form and examples of appropriate use.
“I skimmed through it and saw various new words of Burushaski in Tiffou’s dictionary, which I had never heard of, despite being a native speaker of Burushaski”, said advocate Wazir Shafi, the author of a Burushaski publication. He said that publishing a book on an isolated language like Burushaski is very tough compared with working on a family defined language like English or Urdu and I have personally experienced that during the exertion of my book “Broshaski Razon” which was published by the University of Karachi in 2006. He said “Tiffou assigned me a task to translate his dictionary from Burushaski to English and English to Burushaski and I happily agreed to the task for the sake of protection and promotion of my mother tongue which love and take great pride in”, Shafi added.
Another book on Burushaski, also spelled as Brooshaaski, of Yasin was published a month back by a Europe based nationalist leader Abdul Hamid Khan, who is a native speaker of Burushaski and indigenous to the Yasin valley, the dictionary also contains photographs and historical and geographical backgrounds of Yasin valley.
According to linguists there are twelve languages which have not yet shown any relation to the other language of the world. These languages are known as “isolated languages” and Burushaski is one of them.
Etienne Tiffou is an authour of dozens of publications and he has published various books on different topics of Burushaski language. He has been living in Yasin and Hunza/Nagar valley to learn Burushaski for more than ten years.
