A Micro-Typological Study of Shina : A Hindu Kush Language Cluster

Abstract: In this thesis, 9 Indo-Aryan languages which have previously been classified as Shina languages were analyzed. A cognate analysis of basic vocabulary was conducted, in order to explore the relatedness of the languages. Furthermore, a selection of phonological, morphological, syntactic, and lexical features was analyzed, in order to explore areal patterns among the languages. The data mainly consisted of first-hand data, which has been collected for the project ”Language contact and relatedness in the Hindu Kush region”, but even previous descriptions of the languages were used. The results primarily confirmed hypotheses about the relatedness of the Shina languages, and showed interesting areal patterns.The data also suggested that the Shina languages share many typical features with other Hindu Kush Indo-Aryan languages, such as SOV word order, the use of postpositions, sex based grammatical gender, and moderately complex to complex syllable structures. Other features, such as aspiration, retroflexion, and case alignment in noun phrases showed more variation and could certainly be relevant for future studies on these languages.