| Brokskat
(Brok 'rock'; Skat 'language') is a member of Shina
sub-group of languages of Dardic group which belongs
to the Indian Branch of the Indo-Iranian languages.
The Shina languages of Dardic group are spoken in
Gelgit, Gurez, Chilas, Kargil, Dras, the Indus valley
and Swat Kohistan.
The Brokskat speaking
villages are amidst the Balti speaking and Ladakhi
speaking villages. Those villages which are adjacent
to the Balti speaking villages have bilinguals in
Balti and those adjacent to the Ladakhi speaking villages
have bilinguals in Ladakhi.
The Brokskat speakers
are called Brokpas and mostly Buddhists. Some follow
Islam. The Muslims among the Brokpas are recent converts.
According to census, the total population was 544
in 1961. According to speakers, the present population
may be around 2000.
The Brokpas know Urdu,
the official language of the Stat apart form the local
languages such as Purki (Balti) and Ladakhi. Urdu
is taught in the primary schools. Brokskat has borrowed
words from these languages.
The dictionary has 1700
words approximately. Though words in Brokskat have
from one to seven syllables, words with two syllables
are more common. |
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There
are about 870 nouns and 500 verbs in the dictionary.
The verbs which end in this are always transitive.
The verbs which end in dis, bus and is may be used
either as transitive or as intransitive. Brokskat
has many polysemic words.
Brokskat words are given
in Perso-Arabic script which is the script of the
State language with necessary modifications. The meanings
are given in Urdu, the official language of the State,
in Hindi and English, the official and associate official
language of the Union. It is hoped that the dictionary
will be helpful for Brokskat speakers to learn these
languages.
The words are given
in phonemic script to aid pronunciation and also to
make the dictionary useful to linguists.
This multilingual dictionary
has five columns. They are Brokskat in Perso-Arabic
script, in phonemic script with grammatical information,
meaning in Urdu, meaning in Hindi and meaning in English.
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