Anjuman-e-Taraqqi-e-Palula

NASIM HAIDER

Background

Palula is a language with
more than ten thousand speakers, living mostly in the southern villages of
district Chitral: Ashret, Biori, Purigal, Ghos and Kalkatak are all villages
where people speak Palula as their mother tongue. Palula is not a language that
has come about recently. A number of anthropologists and linguists have
mentioned it in the literature. In any case there is no doubt that it is
closely related to Shina, the language spoken in most of the Gilgit region.

Anjuman-e-Taraqqi-e-Palula was
founded 13 July 2003 at Drosh.

There is a lot of
potential among the Palula speakers, and they can accomplish a lot if guided
properly, although they are economically disadvantaged and lack many
facilities. Already before the creation of Pakistan there were educated people
in the community. People like Mirza Guldad Shah, Mirza Ghulam Haider, Qazi Abdul Karim, Mirza Seyd Rahim,  Mirza
Ghulam Habib, and Mirza Ghulam Hasil
could all read and write Urdu and Pashto as well as Persian. Now many of the
speakers of this language are considered to be at the top in the schools and
colleges they attend. They have been successful in many ways within the
district.

Despite of this there were
previously no efforts made to encourage the people to write Palula, as many
probably did not believe it was at all possible to write it. That was partly
due to phonological problems and the lack of linguistic insight. A few
linguists and researchers have recorded words of the language in phonetics, but
nobody bothered to develop its own orthography. Therefore such work gave
nothing to the language itself, except informing the world about the existence
of the language.

Language meeting, Ashret

Language meeting, Biori

History

In 1998, Henrik Liljegren, a Swedish
student of linguistics arrived with the intention not only to do his research
on Palula, but also to work for the language community. After an initial period
doing research work with Mr. Ikram-ul-Haq of Ashret
and Mr. Atiqullah of Biori and some others from the
language area, he succeeded in 2003 in having a fully dedicated person to work
full-time with, Mr. Nasim Haider
of Ashret, with a fresh B.A degree, who has since assisted him while working
for the development of the language. The same year, Mr. Nasim
Haider and Mr. Liljegren
called a number of prominent and educated people of Palula to a meeting at Drosh, in which representatives of Ashret, Biori, Ghos, Kalkatak and Purigal participated. This meeting agreed to establish an
organization with the name Anjuman-e-Taraqqi-e-Palula
(the Society for the Promotion of Palula). To the executive body of the new
organization, the following people were elected:

1.
Mr.
Atiqullah (Biori) as president

2.
Mr.
Qari Wasi (Purigal) as vice president

3.
Mr.
Salahuddin Tofan (Kalkatak) as general secretary

4.
Mr.
Nasim Haider (Ashret) as
joint secretary

This executive body was
elected for one year.

In July 2004 a second
meeting of the Anjuman was held at Drosh and it was decided to establish village committees in
Ashret, Biori and Purigal, under the direct
supervision of Nasim Haider,
who at this point had become more familiar with linguistics after one year of
training and experience working together with Mr. Liljegren.

The following executive
bodies head the village committees:

In Ashret:

1.
Mr.
Nadir Hussein - chief organizer

2.
Mr.
Mushtaq Ahmad - president

3.
Rafiq Ahmad - vice president

4.
Israr ud Din - general secretary

5.
Sher Ahmad - joint secretary

6.
Anwer Ali Seyd - financial secretary

In Biori:

1.
Qazi Nazir-ullah - chief organizer

2.
Atiqullah - president

3.
Mir
Alam - vice president

4.
Riyaz-ur-Rehman - general sectary

5.
Hazrat Noor - joint sectary

Several months before the
establishment of the village committees Henrik Liljegren and Nasim Haider put together a proposal to a suitable orthography
for Palula, based on linguistic research but also quite similar to the Shina
script, using some of the same characters. That was adopted by the Anjuman-e-Taraqqi-e-Palula, and within the duration of one
year most of the educated people in the community are able to read and write
Palula using this orthography.

The Frontier Language Institute
played a major role in developing this language by training some of its people.
The following key Palula activists (beside Nasim Haider) have received some training through FLI:

1.
Mr.
Sher Haider

2.
Mr.
Atiqullah

3.
Mr.
Rafiq Ahmad

4.
Mr.
Sardar Hayat

5.
Mr.
Mushtaq Ahmad

Activities
of Anjuman-e-Taraqqi-e-Palula

1.
A
3-day workshop was held in Drosh in July 2004. 14
writers from two different Chitrali language
communities, Palula and Dameli, participated in this
event, jointly arranged by the Frontier Language Institute (FLI) and Anjuman-e-Taraqqi-e-Palula.

2.
The
village committees visited every school of the local area and taught the Palula
alphabet to the children.

3.
The
organization has held a meeting once a month.

4.
In
2005 a literacy committee has been formed by the Anjuman-e-Taraqqi-e-Palula
for the launching of a pilot literacy program.

Writers’
Workshop, Drosh, 12-14 July 2004:

Objectives

1.      To preserve the Palula culture and
language.

2.      To promote the writing system of
Palula.

3.      To encourage the people to read and
write Palula.

4.      To save the language forever.

5.      To unite the Palula speakers.

6.      To produce materials for a literacy
program.

First posted September 2005. Copyright © 2005 by Nasim
Haider