Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 1).djvu/132

112 B. Aryan :
 * (a) Iranian :

2. Pashtu. . 3. Biluchi. . 4. Kohistani 67,174 70,675 26 (b) Indian : 5- 6. 7- 8. Kashmiri Pahari. . Lahndi. . Sindhi. . 7,190 993,363 • 4,253,566 24 9 10. Panjabi. . Western Hindi . 14,111,215 3,826,467 11. Rajasthani 725,850

The eastern part of the Indus valley in Kashmir forming the provinces of Ladakh and Baltistan is occupied by a Mongol population speaking Tibeto- Chinese dialects. Kashmiri is the language of Kashmir Proper, and various dialects of the Shina-Khowar group comprehensively described as Kohistani are spoken in Astor, Gilgit, and Chilas, and to the west of Kashmir territory in Chitral and the Kohistan or mountainous country at the top of the Swat river valley. Though Kashmiri and the Shina-Khowar tongues belong to the Aryan group, their basis is supposed to be non-Sanskritic, and it is held that there is a strong non-Sanskritic or Pisacha element also in Lahndi or western Panjabi, which is also the prevailing speech in the Hazara and Dera Ismail Khan districts of the N.W.F. Province, and is spoken in part of the Jammu province of Kashmir. Pashtu is the common language in Peshawar, Kohat, and Bannu, and is spoken on the western frontiers of Hazara and Dera Ismail Khan, and in the independent tribal territory in the west between the districts of the N.W.F. Province and the Durand Line and immediately adjoining the Peshawar district on the north. Rajasthani is a collective name for the dialects of Rajputana, which overflow