kafiri

[Yashwant Malaiya]

Prof. Michael Witzel wrote:

>> even now use words that are remarkably
>>close to pure Sanskrit.

>That is overdone... Kafiri (Nuristani) is not Sanskrit, just has some
>conservative forms (such as gram for 'village'),

Kafiri is not certianly not Sanskrit. But look at these words:

English Kalash

head    shish
bone    athi
urine  mutra
village grom
rope    rajuk
smoke  thum
oil    tel
meat    mos
dog    shua
ant    pililak
son    putr
boy    purushguek
girl    shtrizhaguek
long    driga
eight  asht
broken  chhina
kill    nash

Transliteration is by Ismail Sloan.

G. Fussman in "Atlas Linguistique des parlers dardes et Kafirs"
gives distribution of words in the kafir valleys. His maps
suggest that Sanskrit words are most preserved among the Kalash.
This is even though the Kalash who lived at the edge of  Kafiristan
have been exposed to outsiders a lot more. The center of the Kafir
cuture was in, I think, the Prasun valley where a  magnificent
temple to Imra stood in George Robertson's time.

The Kafir languages vary quite a bit from valley to valley.

Yashwant