Kalkoti, a language spoken by all community children

Almost all children in Kalkoti language community in Dir Kohistan of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa learn and speak their heritage language, a rare case in northern Pakistan. No age group in the community appears to be seen leaving their language for another. This was known in a vitality survey, FLI conducted in the last week of August 2023. For the activity, typically a five to six days long workshop is organized involving people from the community and start the discussion. Seven people from the Kalkoti speech community participated in the event as mother tongue facilitators who learned how to assess their native language’s vitality. The mother tongue facilitators then got out to the community and involved more people for larger assessment. A guide, Planning for the Future of Language was used during the workshop helping them plan how to strengthen the language in future in areas of literacy. This planning is based on the said assessment.

According to the results, the Kalkoti language was found to be sound in orality as mentioned that all the age groups, especially the young people were acquiring their language. What concerned the team is that almost all age groups were multilingual from the very childhood. Additionally, no written literature was available, however, Kalkoti speakers, with assistance from FLI have recently developed their writing system and it is hoped they will begin producing literature in their language soon.

At the end of the workshop, the participants developed a plan to promote their language. For the purpose, they are optimistic to find poets within their community to organize first ever Kalkoti Poetry Session in their village. FLI has assured them of its cooperation in strengthening their language.

The Kalkoti language, belonging to the Shina subgroup of the Dardic languages, is spoken in the Kalkot village of Upper Dir district. According to the community people, around 15,000 people speak Kalkoti as their native language.