Uncritical Probing
As Chitral continued to be hospitable for humans, settlement might have started in different valleys and sub-valleys from Afghanistan, Northern Areas and Central Asia. The important passes appear to be the gateways of movement of humans, livestock herds, and trading commodities and contingents. Barter, said to be marcha once locally, was the mode of transaction. Wool, mats, utensils, and edibles were main items of exchanging goods among locals and people traded in Chitral outside from adjacent areas.
Mobile communities, people and groups have continued to move and trespass through different passes into Chitral had settled in widespread valleys came with variety of ethnic, linguistic and faith backgrounds started their lives here. Besides feeding on natural habitat, they fed on livestock till they grew from the land.It would have been an interesting interaction among the people inhabiting in different valleys and sub-valleys, now it entirely known and written as Chitral, with much to stress on sign language. This could have necessitated them to rely on a lingua franca for communication and transactions in kinds.
It was the beginning of the need of a language that is common to them and shared by all and sundry. Khowar a major language, among other languages/tongues spoken in Chitral, is a locally evolved language; and continues to be the vehicle of communication. One is hard pressed to trace the root word and the very origin of this language notwithstanding different mythologies and projections presented as arguments and counter arguments. Same is the case with the people settled here, since time immemorial, in different valleys and sub-valleys from outside; and hold with locally evolved identity of ethno-linguistic, tribal/clan and religious diversity.By breaking the word Khowar into ‘Kho’ and ‘war’ and excusing it doesn’t confer any meaning to the people inhabiting in different parts of Chitral is itself self-deceiving. And referring also to the sources knowingly inconclusive and highly generalized (narratives) by which claiming a meaning (standardization) to the word Khowar and the people living in Chitral also opens flood of questions.In fact, the word Khowar and Chitral, among others, seems to have evolved the way they continue to unfold today without findings their etymologies following the science of research. They haven’t been, even today, under critical analysis and research with when, why and how questions. Our obsession remains to be uncritically on who and what words. Anytime a discussion continues, it’s overshadowed by social media wranglings with partial, uncritical, biased, unauthentic narratives without a science of research and findings from the sources accepted and worth cited. With a mind and tone set in the buzzwords of settled tradition(s), standard and standardization doesn’t help discussions and finding better understanding of anything worth knowing like the word Kho, Khowar and Chitral pending for many years.
