Here you can know what FLI achieved last year. This annual report will lead you go through our major activity, the 4th International Hindukush Cultural Conference we held in September 2022. A lot more success stories about how many people we helped get new skills in language documentation and how many books we, together with our partners produced in or about our indigenous languages.

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FLI provided financial support to more than 300 households in six Union Councils (UCs) of Tehsil Bahrain, Swat. The initiative was carried out as part of its relief work under the Flood Relief Project (FRP). The Swat district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, one of FLI’s target areas was badly affected in the last year’s flash floods. Dozens of people died in addition to the infrastructure devastation wherein hundreds of people lost their homes, income sources and civic facilities.
This initiative benefitted more than 1800 people living in more than 300 households. A dozen of beneficiaries were also going through other difficulties in addition to the flood devastation. Scores of beneficiaries had various kinds of troubles including disabilities, illness, old age and unemployment. Though this relief endeavor was not sufficient in scale but still has contributed to relieve those who direly needed it.

FLI attaches great importance to working with universities especially with their linguistic departments to expand its scope of work. Earlier, FLI has been working with universities of regional and national levels. This is the great news for language researchers that more universities are entering the field of linguistics and playing their effective role. One of such universities, FLI has been partnering with is the University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir in Muzaffarabad. FLI organized on January 11-13, a three-day workshop on using new tools and technologies in the language documentation in collaboration with the city campus of this university. A total of 35 participants, including 25 females enhanced their capacity in the use of technology while documenting the languages. The faculty members, students and language researchers were among participants of the event. The purpose of the workshop was to enhance the capacity of language researchers in language documentation and introduce the tools and technology used in language documentation. The participants learned and practiced the phonetic transcription, Acoustic Analysis, Poetics, documentation. It’s hoped that the event will benefit our languages and cement FLI’s relationship with universities’ linguistic departments for future collaboration.

Bazm e Elm wa Fun (BEF), a community-based organization working for the development and promotion of the Balti language organized a cultural event named ‘Jashn e Mayfung’ in Skardu city of Gilgit Baltistan. The festival comprised a variety of events involving many literary people including writers, poets, students, and researchers from the community. Poets of Balti language presented their work while traditional food was also put on display during the event.

The purpose of the event was to engage the literary people in the community in a language development activity and encourage them to work for strengthening their language and culture.

This event was based on the idea of Balti community members who thought the activity was needed to reactivate the literary fold within the community. FLI has been asking its target communities to come up with their own ideas of small but impactful activities in addition to those we plan and execute together with community researchers. Given that these events are proposed by the communities themselves, FLI attaches with them great importance. So far, we have supported 16 such events from 11 language communities from the northern Pakistan during last two years. We commit to continue the support and appreciate those communities who have plans to strengthen their languages and cultures through such events. We hope more communities will approach us with new ideas.

The Khowar language community, living in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi organized a literary plus entertainment event in Islamabad on New Year’s Eve. Around 150 people participated in the event. The event started with the oath taking ceremony for those who assumed the responsibilities of the Anjuman Taraqqi Khowar (ATK, Islamabad), the capital chapter of a century old literary body working for the development and promotion of the Khowar, originally based in Chitral. The new chapter of ATK was established last year. FLI facilitated the Khowar community people to come together and celebrate their cultural and linguistic identity persuading them to organize their members on social media which led to the establishment of ATK’s Islamabad chapter. The literary event then was held under this organization’s auspices. The oath taking ceremony was followed by the launching of recently published Khowar books. One of the Khowar language books, a poetry collection was authored by a Khowar poet who belonged to the Khowar area of Ghizer in Gilgit-Baltistan. This was great to observe that the representatives of Khowar speakers, living on both sides of the Shandur pass were part of the event. The event moved on to see the signature segment of Khowar language then, the poetry session (Mushaira) involving young and senior poets of the language who had the first ever opportunity to express themselves under ATK in the capital city of Islamabad. The event concluded on the high notes of the Khowar musical show, famously known as Chindoria Bazm. The last section of the event, the musical night was taken over by the young singers from the community who overwhelmed the audience with their live performance.

Many Khowar speakers from Chitral and Ghizer valleys are living in the urban areas of the country including Islamabad. They meet each other on various occasions from wedding to sporting activities as well as for some festivals of other organizations, but the event in question was therefore different because the Anjuman was one of the organizers of the event after being formed in the city in a short span of time. This is hoped that Anjuman will carry this in the future.

This event was fourth, FLI supported to organize the migrant community people from northern Pakistan living in the urban areas. It supported a literary festival for Burushaski speakers in Karachi and for Balti speakers in Rawalpindi last year. The migrant people from the Indus Kohistani were brought together to celebrate their culture few weeks earlier. The indigenous language speakers of north Pakistan, especially those who are living outside of their ancestral places are urged to reestablish links with their culture and language to strengthen their identity. FLI commits to continue supporting them in their endeavors of language and cultural revitalization.

FLI is helping the members of migrant communities of northern Pakistan living in the urban areas of the country to relink themselves to their language and culture while residing out of their native places. These community people are in the major cities for winning their bread and livelihood, and miss their environment. Therefore, the initiative was started to bring them together for celebrating their culture. This time, we motivated the Indus Kohistani speakers living in the twin cities of Islamabad-Rawalpindi to make plans for a get-together. We facilitated them for the formation of an organization so that they could move ahead in an organized way. They formed the Kohistani Culture Development Program (KCDP), which is originally a wing working under the parent organization of Indus Kohistani speakers, Initiative for People in Need (IPN), in the Kohistan area of KP. They opened its chapter in Rawalpindi. They delegated local people the official responsibilities to unite their community people and work for their culture and language while living in the cities.

Eventually they requested FLI support for a grant festival proposing some cultural activities in the event. They also planned to hold Poetry Session in the event and many poets of the language attended the event and presented their work. This event has ignited the zeal among the IK speakers in the cities and they have committed to hold the event frequently in the future.

FLI has supported many communities under its this initiative. Earlier, the Burushaski speakers in Karachi held a grand mela in Karachi last year and Balti community in Islamabad. The Khowar community has also got motivation to hold such event for their members in Islamabad in the current year.

FLI partnered with Anjuman Taraqqi Khowar (ATK) in organizing the 4th International Hindukush Cultural Conference from September 14 to 16 in Chitral town of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. A total of 75 research papers out of 85 originally submitted, covering the Hindukush region were presented in the mega event. The presenters came from across the world including those who participated as keynote speakers. Six keynote speeches were delivered. Those who could not participate physically were facilitated to present their papers digitally in the form of a recorded presentation, the presenters subsequently made themselves available for answering the following questions at the end of their presentation. The sessions of the three day conference were strewn among four rooms allowing the attendees to choose their seating of interest. More than 200 people registered to participate in the conference. The main hall carried 200 chairs which hosted all keynote speeches to begin the day. The participants then would disperse to other rooms to attend sessions of their interest.

The 4th International Hindukush Cultural Conference was an academic and scholarly activity in continuation of the first conference held in Moesgaard, Denmark in 1970. The 2022 conference commemorated the golden jubilee of that first conference. The 2nd International Hindukush Cultural Conference was hosted by the Anjuman in Chitral, in August 1990 with Professor Israruddin (Chairman, Department of Geography, University of Peshawar) as convener and Dr Karl Jettmar (South Asian Institute, University of Heidelberg, Germany) as general president. The 3rd conference was hosted by the same organization in Chitral in October 1995, with the same convener and Professor Schuyler Jones (Pitt Rivers Museum, England) as General President. The 4th International Conference was convened by Professor Israruddin to give an opportunity for high profile scholars in the field of Hindukush studies to meet and exchange ideas about their recent works. The conference brought together national and international scholars.

The conference was to be organized as planned in 2020 which could not be materialized due to Covid-19 pandemic. The event again got postponed the following year on the same grounds. Eventually, in the current year of 2022, the organizers had the confidence to dare organize the conference seeing the normalization after the pandemic.  Holding the event on professional footings from planning to execution was a challenge in this part of the world. From identification of reviewers of the papers to the spotting of the venue was also a challenge the organizers embraced in the process.

The thematic areas, the organizers pondered upon to select, included mostly from the previous editions like history, geography, culture, Kalasha heritage, languages and tourism but one more added this time was MTB-MLE, referring to the Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education.  The objective of the conference was to provide a platform to researchers, students and professionals from the development sector for discussing the social and economic issues and finding solutions through interaction, knowledge sharing and networking.

Internationally practiced methods were adopted to organize the event beginning from using Event-Management-Software for submission of papers, reviewing them through peer system and blind reviewing. The venue, selected was a peaceful setting of the Public Library Chitral in the central location of the Chitral town.

The six keynote speeches were delivered. Dr. Elena Bashir who travelled for the event from Chicago was the president of the conference who also delivered the keynote speech. Since 1973, Elena has been visiting Chitral regularly, first bringing students on field trips, then working on her doctoral dissertation on the Kalasha language, completed in 1988. She has also done field work on other indigenous languages of Pakistan, including Wakhi, Burushaski, Shina, Balti, and Balochi, about which she has published several articles. She has two books on languages of Pakistan:  The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia, edited by Hans Henrich Hock and Elena Bashir, and A Descriptive Grammar of Hindko, Panjabi, and Saraiki, by Elena Bashir and Thomas J. Conners.

The next keynote was delivered by Dr. Alberto Cacopardo who is adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of Florence, Italy. He has carried out ethnographic research on various populations of Chitral and neighboring areas over a span of several decades, starting in 1973. He has published various books and articles on the subject.

Dr. Augusto S. Cacopardois was the third keynote speaker at the conference who is Adjunct Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Florence, Italy. He has conducted anthropological field research in Chitral since the 1970ies under the aegis of ISMEO (Italian Institute for Middle and Far-Eastern Studies) and ISIAO (Italian Institute for Africa and the Orient). He worked at first in Bumburet and Rumbur; subsequently among the converted Kalasha communities of the Drosh area, and among the other linguistic minorities of Southern Chitral (Dameli, Gawar, Jashi, Palula). His last fieldwork in Pakistan was conducted in 2006-07 in the Birir valley to document the two-month long cycle of winter feasts. He participated in the 2nd and 3rd International Hindu Kush Cultural Conferences in 1990 and 1995. He has published widely in English and Italian.

Another keynote speaker was Prof. Emeritus Dr. Hermann Kreutzmann who is holding the Chair of Human Geography at Freie Universitaet Berlin. His main research interest is regionally located in Central and South Asia with Pakistan as the prime focus; the topics range from development studies, high mountain research, mobility and migration to political geography and minority issues. Fieldwork and empirical research have been implemented for more than 40 years resulting in more than 20 books and 200 plus published research papers.

Dr. Henrik Liljegren was also among the keynote speakers who is a researcher in linguistics at Stockholm University (Sweden), where he received his PhD in 2008. He is one of the co-founders of Forum for Language Initiatives (FLI), a resource centre for the many language communities in Pakistan’s mountainous North, where he served for several years while also conducting fieldwork in the country, primarily in the Palula community of Chitral. He is presently leading a Swedish Research Council project, documenting Gawarbati, a language of southernmost Chitral and Afghanistan’s Kunar Province.

The last and only local keynote speaker was Professor Israr-ud-Din, former Professor and Chairman, Department of Geography, University of Peshawar.vHe remained head of this department for 14 years. He was the convener of previous two editions of this conference organized in 1990 and 1995 in Chitral. He has done extensive research work on tribes of Hindukush, particularly those living in Chitral.

The conference was the first of its kind in the region. Arranging online presentations, parallel sessions and a good number of attendance were the factors the event went well. The successful conduct of the conference sparked debate among the denizens who actually didn’t get initially what was being planned. Some of the arguers had witnessed the previous editions, organized as per the contemporary traditions but had little knowhow of the latest conference management which drove them curious about the arrangement and implementation.

The conference allowed us to also take up such topics which were new, in some cases ‘sensitive’ to the academic circle of the region. The paper presented on the trend of female suicides in the regions, for instance has opened further doors for future researchers to dig and bring out additional knowledge about the matter. Two panel discussions were also parts of the conference, took place on the final day at the main hall. The topics were Culture and Ethnic Tourism in the Hindukush region and Adaptation to Climate Change in Pakistan’s Mountain Region. Highly learned people were part of these discussions.

The conference was organized in partnership by the Ajuman Taraqqi Khowar, Chitral and the Forum for Language Initiatives, Islamabad. AnjumanTaraqqi Khowar (ATK), founded by the literary people of Chitral in 1956 is one of the oldest literary organizations of northern Pakistan. The purpose of the establishment of ATK was to provide a platform to Chitrali poets and men of letters so that they could work for the promotion of Khowar language and literature. Since its inception, ATK has held hundreds of poetry recital symposia, workshops, seminars and conferences; and has published around hundred books in Khowar language. Most importantly, ATK has hosted two international conferences: “the 2nd and 3rd International Hindukush Cultural Conferences”, in 1990 and 1995 respectively, in Chitral.   ATK is registered with the government of Pakistan and has 22 chapters (halqa-jaat) in different villages/areas of Chitral, as well as in major cities of the country.

The Forum for Language Initiatives (FLI) is a registered non-profit organization based in Islamabad and works for the preservation and promotion of indigenous languages of Northern Pakistan. Established in 2002, FLI has the goal of preserving these languages by building capacity among the people from local communities. It has so far covered 22 languages spoken in its target area by having trained 100s of mother tongue speakers in language documentation, multilingual education, sociolinguistic research and literature production. The organization has turned dozens of verbal languages into written form and empowered the ethnolinguistic communities by providing skills, awareness and resources to protect and promote their languages and cultures. Many trainees of FLI are actively involved in preserving and developing their mother tongues. Some have formed community-based organizations and established mother tongue-based education programs. Click for the  Updates about this EVENTS  on Social Media

Kataviri, also called Kati by the native speakers which is a Nooristani language in Chitral has turned into a literal language. The language was purely verbal just a year back which has now five books, all written by the native speakers have been produced and published. Beginning with the alphabet book, the researchers affiliated with Anjuman Tahaffuz e Kataviri (ATK) jointly brought up inspired the Kati researchers to pen down their cultural heritage which resulted in producing four other books in one year period. This all happened under a one year project FLI initiated last year enabling more than a dozen Kati researchers in language documentation. Nasir Mansoor, a Kati language researcher got motivation to collect folk stories of his language and produced under the title of Pran Jake. He also collected proverbs of his language under the title of Kasholan Vari which has also been published under the project. It triggered other researchers of Kati language community and Fazal Akbar had the idea of producing a conversation book for those researchers who may desire to look into from outside. This conversation books is trilingual; Kati-Urdu and English.

The last but not least is the translation of a famous English novel, Gulliver’s Travels in the Kati language which has been done by Najmul Haq. All the writers are working under the umbrella of ATK and establishment of this community based organization was encouraged by FLI.

FLI congratulates the Kati people not only for having their language evolved into the written form but also for uniting themselves under the platform of ATK. Indeed, publishing five books in the one go is a great achievement for which we appreciate their efforts and expect them to continue it in days to come.

The Kataviri language is spoken in various border villages of Chitral situated in distance from each other. Their villages include Shekhandeh in Bumburet, Konlasht in Rumbur and Gobor in Lotkuh valley. The community members claim that there are around 6000 speakers of Kati language in Chitral.  The local Khow people call the language ‘Bashgaliwar’ (means the language of those who came from Bashgal in the eastern Afghanistan). The Kati people are also called Nooristani. These people migrated to this region in last quarter of 19th century from Nooristan in Afghanistan.

FLI took up this language in 2019 and conducted a language vitality survey in the community which provided base for further language strengthening activities. The survey was followed by many other activities. The community researchers were encouraged to establish an organization to use as a platform so that the community could claim the ownership of the language development program. They united themselves under the Anjuman e Tahaffuz Kataviri (ATK) and asked for cooperation from FLI. This led to initiation of the recently concluded project. The project provided the language with a writing system, and development of keyboard enabled the Kati writers to accelerate their literary work. The immediate outcome was in form of producing and publishing of five books as referred. We hope that the Kati researchers would find more opportunities to strengthen their language and FLI assures them of all the technical assistance in their quest.

FLI recently published three more books in different indigenous languages of northern Pakistan; Ormuri, Gawarbati and Dameli. Rozi Khan Burki, a pioneer Ormuri researcher has compiled a dictionary in his mother tongue, Ormuri. This is the third book FLI published in the language and the second book which has been authored by the same writer. Earlier, the organization published a poetry book in the language which was written by Rozi Khan.

The book in the Gawarbati language has been authored by also a senior researcher of this language, Mullah Adina Shah. This grammar book is hoped to facilitate new writers from the community. Mullah Shah had brought up a hand written dictionary in his language even before the onset of computer writing, now reportedly being reproduced under the auspices of a Peshawar University project. So far, FLI has published half a dozen books in this language.

The third book, FLI published has been compiled by Hayat Muhammad in his native language, Dameli. He has collected folktales of his language and produced with the Urdu translation. The book is among many other literary materials FLI has been publishing in this language since 2016. The author, Hayat Muhammad, one of FLI trainees has been tirelessly working for strengthening of his language by producing literature. The Dameli language is too being focused by FLI especially for literature development.

We are committed to strengthening our indigenous languages by facilitating the researchers in various ways including provision of training, technical support and financial assistance. The aim of publishing books in indigenous languages is not only to document the indigenous wisdom of the respective culture but also to revive the languages making them relevant in the contemporary world.

The Indus Kohistani language, having a functional writing system, being used on Social Media and for literature development, and also having a Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education program is one of the few literate languages of Northern Pakistan. Spoken by more than 400, 000 people, this Dardic language has also been included in the primary school system of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the provincial government, like it already did for four languages in the past is very much likely to initiate book development in the language for curriculum in near future. This prospect has encouraged the researchers of the Indus Kohistani language (IK) to move forward with idea of facilitating the government with provision of trained people among the government schools’ teachers from the IK community so that once commenced the initiative could run smoothly and fittingly. For the purpose, the researchers from the Initiative for People in Need (IPN), a community based organization, working for the IK language contacted FLI asking for arrangements to train more people from the community in writing the language with major focus on government school teachers. The workshop took place last week benefitting 17 people from the community including six schools’ teachers who are hoped to be part of curriculum development process in the capacity of reviewers of the books in their native language. Other participants included people having interest to build their ability to use their language for writing. The participants appreciated the effort and showed their desire to attend more engagements on the pattern so as to enhance their abilities to serve their language. The activity is expected to boost the writing culture of the language as it provided more resource persons to the language. Since the language is on its way to become part of the government school’s curriculum, the trained people, especially the teachers are going to play their key role in standardizing the use of IK language for writing through their reviewing abilities they gained in the workshop. FLI reiterates its commitment to continue its support not only to materialize the dream of IK language to enter the government schools but also make the language eligible and resourceful medium among other languages in the curriculum. Standardizing the writing of lesser known languages is one of the objectives, FLI is pursuing to achieve. It’s hoped that the organization will find similar opportunities to smoothen the writing system of other languages too in future.