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PISACA LANGUAGES
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PISACA LANGUAGES, the name which has been given to a family of languages spoken immediately to the south of the Hindu Kush, and north of the frontier of British India. The family includes the group of Kafir languages spoken in Kafiristan, Khowar, spoken in the Chitral country, and the group of Shina languages, which includes the Shina of Gilgit, Kohistani, spoken in the Kohistans of the Indus and Swat rivers, and Kashmiri. Of all these Kashmiri is the only one which has received any literary cultivation, and of which the number of speakers is known. The Pisaca languages are Aryan by origin, but are neither Iranian nor Indo-Aryan. (See INDO-ARYAN LANGUAGES and KASHMIR1.) (G. A. GR.)