The Badeshi Alphabet

Badeshi is written using the Urdu Nastaliq script — the South Asian form of the Perso-Arabic abjad used across Pakistan. The Nastaliq script is an abjad of 38 letters written from right to left. It includes the 28 Arabic letters, 4 letters unique to Persian (پ, چ, ژ, گ), and 6 letters unique to South Asian Nastaliq.

The 6 South Asian letters are: ٹ (tte /ʈ/), ڈ (ddal /ɖ/), ڑ (rre /ɽ/) for retroflex sounds, ں (noon ghunna) for nasalisation, ھ (do chashmi he) for aspiration, and ے (bari ye) for a final /eː/ vowel.

Short vowels (called zabar, zer, pesh) are not written in ordinary text.

Badeshi is spoken in the Dir district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) Province, in northwestern Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan. The language is associated with a small number of villages in this mountainous region. Due to the extreme endangerment of the language, the precise geographic spread of remaining speakers is difficult to document accurately.

Badeshi speakers are surrounded by Pashto speakers, who make up the dominant population of Dir district, and the language is under severe pressure from both Pashto and Urdu — Pakistan's national language.

The language family classification of Badeshi remains uncertain and debated among linguists. Glottolog classifies Badeshi as a language isolate or as unclassified, meaning it cannot be definitively placed within any known language family.

Earlier analyses tentatively placed it within the Dardic subgroup of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family — a grouping that includes languages such as Shina, Khowar, and Kalasha spoken in neighbouring mountainous regions of Pakistan.

However, its extreme endangerment has made thorough linguistic study very difficult, leaving its genetic classification open. What is clear is that Badeshi is spoken in an area of remarkable linguistic diversity in the Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountain zones.

Yes — Badeshi is one of the most severely endangered languages in South Asia. The Endangered Languages Project documents Badeshi as a critically endangered language, and Glottolog classifies it as nearly extinct. Estimates suggest fewer than 100 fluent speakers may remain, with most if not all being elderly adults.

The language faces extreme pressure from Pashto, the dominant regional language of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and from Urdu, Pakistan's national language. Children in the region are not acquiring Badeshi as a first language, meaning the language is likely in the final stage of language death.

Very limited linguistic documentation of Badeshi exists, making it particularly at risk of disappearing without any substantial record.

Although Badeshi uses the same Urdu Nastaliq script as Urdu and is geographically surrounded by Pashto speakers, it is a distinct language that is not mutually intelligible with either.

Key distinctions include: Badeshi belongs to a separate and uncertain language family (possibly a language isolate), while Pashto is an Eastern Iranian language and Urdu is an Indo-Aryan language; Badeshi has its own native vocabulary that is not shared with Pashto or Urdu; and Badeshi preserves phonological features specific to its own history and development.

In practice, the extreme endangerment of Badeshi means that most remaining speakers are also fluent in Pashto and/or Urdu, and these dominant languages are increasingly replacing Badeshi in all domains of communication.

The Nastaliq script used for Badeshi, Urdu, and other South Asian languages is a distinctive calligraphic style of the Perso-Arabic script with several features not found in standard Arabic (Naskh) or Persian writing:

• Diagonal baseline: Nastaliq letters flow diagonally downward from right to left, unlike the horizontal baseline of Arabic Naskh.
• South Asian retroflex letters: Nastaliq adds ٹ (/ʈ/), ڈ (/ɖ/), and ڑ (/ɽ/) — retroflex consonants characteristic of South Asian phonology not found in Arabic or Persian.
• Noon ghunna (ں): A nasal marker unique to South Asian scripts indicating nasalised vowels.
• Do chashmi he (ھ): An aspiration marker used to form aspirated consonants (e.g., بھ /bʰ/) common in South Asian languages.
• Bari ye (ے): A final vowel letter (/eː/) unique to the South Asian Nastaliq tradition.