Nuristani languages

Nuristani
Geographic distribution:	Nuristan
Linguistic classification:	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Nuristani
Glottolog:	nuri1243
Nuristan province in Afghanistan, where most speakers live

The Nuristani languages (نورستاني) are one of the three groups within the Indo-Iranian language family, alongside the much larger Indo-Aryan and Iranian groups. They have approximately 130,000 speakers primarily in eastern Afghanistan and a few adjacent valleys in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Chitral District, Pakistan. The region inhabited by the Nuristanis is located in the southern Hindukush mountains, and is drained by Alingar River in the west, Pech River in the center, and Landai Sin and Kunar River in the east.

The languages were often confused with one another before they were considered a third branch in Indo-Iranian. That accounted for many Burushaski loanwords present in Dardic.

The Nuristani languages were not described in the literature until the 19th century. The older name for the region was Kafiristan and the languages were termed Kafiri or Kafiristani, but the terms have been replaced by the present ones since the conversion of the region to Islam in 1896.

There are three different theories about the origins of the Nuristani languages and their place within the Indo-Iranian languages:

The languages are spoken by tribal peoples in an extremely isolated mountainous region of the Hindu Kush, one that has never been subject to any real central authority in modern times. This area is located along the northeastern border of Afghanistan and adjacent portions of the northwest of present-day Pakistan. These languages have not received the attention Western linguists like to give them. Considering the very small number of peoples estimated to speak them, they must be considered endangered languages.