Ishkashimi verb of the day!

#Ishkashimi кьл- kəl- [kɘ̟l- ~ kɘ̟ɭ-] ('kill, cut') < Proto-Iranian *kau̯s- ('kill, fight') < Proto-Indo-European *keu̯h₂-(s-) ('strike, hit, pinch, nibble at, ...')

The verbal root *keu̯h₂- is attested widely in Indo-European, but Indo-Iranian ... https://twitter.com/Anahita_SD/status/1297600152329486339

... extends it by an infix -s- (probably also in Tocharian).

Within Indo-Iranian, verbs in the zero grade *kus- are attested right from the earliest stages, Avestan kuš- ('fight, struggle') & Sanskrit kuṣ- ('tear, nibble at'), continuing through Middle Iranian (Middle ...

... Persian, Choresmian etc.), and down to the modern languages, e.g.,

- Persian kuš- ('kill, murder'), also kuštī ('wrestling') from the same source
- Kurdish k̠uş- ('kill')
- Zazaki kış- ('kill')
- Qohrudi kʉš- ('kill)
- Talysh kъš- ('kill)
- Pashto koẓ̌- ('peel off')

- Sarikoli kɛyɣ̌- ('cut')
- Shughni kaɣ̌- ('cut, kill, skin')
- Wakhi čəɣ̌- ('cut, skin, stab')

The Sanglechi-Ishkashimi group, in particular, gets *-ḷ- /-ɭ-/ regularly as a inter-vocalic (post-vocalic??) reflex of Proto-Iranian *-š-. In Sanglechi, there appears to be a ...

... shift of *-ḷ- < *-š- to -l- /l/ while *-ḷ- < *-rd- is preserved as a retroflex thus creating a phonemic split of sorts — probably the only case of a phonemic retroflex lateral in Iranian, though the Pashto flap /ɽ/ often has a lateral coloring for most speakers. In ...

... Ishkashmi, though, there seems to be free variation between [-l-] and [-ɭ-] for the lateral resulting from from both sources (Proto *-š- and *-rd-).

In any case, a lateral reflex of *-š- is among the features defining the close-knit genetic grouping of Ishkashimi, ...

... Sanglechi, Zebiaki and neighboring lects of the southern Pamirs.

To find the Ishkashimi-Sanglechi-Zebiaki cluster, look at a map of map of Afghanistan and note where it extends as a narrow buffer to the north-east separating Pakistan and Tajikistan. This thin strip of ...

... land separating the former British colony of India and the south-eastern reaches of the Soviet Union is called the Wakhan corridor. Right where this appendage pushes out of Afghanistan is the Ishk.-Sang.-Zeb. cluster. Westward in the Wakhan corridor proper, Wakhi is the ...

... main language. Most speakers of Ishk.-Sang.-Zeb. are in Afghanistan, I believe, but there exists a sizeable population in Tajikistan too.

Dialects on both side of the Afghan-Tajik border have been studied. Afghan dialects in Morgenstierne's fieldwork on the languages ...

... of the Hindu Kush and southern Pamirs, and Tajik dialects by the thorough exploration of Russian linguists in the Soviet Union (culminating in Paxalina's publications which is what I studied mostly), and most recently, in @LangData's work!!

I get really excited about ...

... East Iranic languages, hence all this extra info in case anyone reading this wants to follow up and bask in their glory too :)

Listen to a song in Шкошми зъвок Škošmi zəvok below

Example sentence:
тьмьхьв в̌ани кьлд
təməx=əv wan-i kəld
2.ᴘʟ.ɴᴏᴍ=2.ᴘʟ 3.sɢ.ᴏʙʟ-ᴏʙᴊ kill.ᴘsᴛ
y'all killed him

Like all (most??) Pamiri languages, there is no explicit person or number agreement for verbs in the past tense, but agreement clitics (=əv above) attach ...

... to the first major constituent of a sentence. There is no trace of ergativity in this cluster, and the agreement clitics function as would be expected in any nominative-accusative language (note the direct object marker -i).

I love how the root 'kill' is kəl-, and its past stem, i.e., 'killed', is kəld

However, English kill(ed) and Ishkashimi kəl(d) are not cognates! From the Indo-European root *keu̯h₂ that gives Ishkashimi kəl, English gets the verb hew ( https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hew#Etymology_1).