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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2018

Swāt Hydronymy

Résumé

Swāt district is located in the Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (KPK) province (the former North-West Frontier Province - NWFP) of the northern part of Pakistan. It is spread over an area of about 5,000 square kilometres and takes its name from the Swāt river, flowing from the mountains of the Hindukuš, through the homonym valley, and reaching after 240 km the Kabul river near Nowshera. Known since the antiquity with the names of Uḍḍyāna (‘the garden’) and Suvāstu (‘the place of fine dwellings’), the valley is nowadays inhabited mainly by Yusufuzai Pashtuns, whose penetration in the valley begun towards the 16th century. Little by little the Yusufzais replaced the probably autochthon Dardic populations, who are actually confined in the northern mountainous part of the district, i.e. the Tehsils of Bahrain and Kalam. In this intervention I will present the first results of the toponymic project of the Swāt valley, and I will devote special attention to the hydronymy. As it is known, hydronymy is one of the most conservative branches of the toponymy : in the Swāt context, nearly all stream names are of “Indian” (Dardic) origin, except names derived from the denomination of the Pashtun villages, thus confirming data provided by the excavations of the Italian archaeological mission.
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Dates et versions

hal-03955039 , version 1 (24-01-2023)

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  • HAL Id : hal-03955039 , version 1

Citer

Matteo de Chiara. Swāt Hydronymy. Anatolia-the Caucasus-Iran : Ethnic and Linguistic Contacts, May 2018, Yerevan, Armenia. ⟨hal-03955039⟩
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