Inku is an Indo-Aryan language spoken, at least historically, throughout Afghanistan by four of the country's itinerant communities: the Jalali, the Pikraj, the Shadibaz and the Vangawala. Itinerant communities in Afghanistan, whether Inku-speaking or not, are locally known as "Jats" (not to be confused with the Jats of India and Pakistan), a term which is not a self-designation of the groups but rather a collective, often pejorative name given by outsiders.^[1] The reference work Ethnologue has an entry for what could be this language, but under the name Jakati (with the corresponding ISO 639-3 code jat), but that entry is at least partly erroneous.^[2]

Each of the four groups speaks a variety with slight differences compared to the others.^[3] According to their local tradition, their ancestors migrated in the 19th century from the Dera Ismail Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan regions of present-day Pakistan.^[4] Such an origin suggests that Inku may be related to the Saraiki language spoken there,^[5] though nothing is conclusively known.^[6]

The total population of the four Inku-speaking groups was estimated to be 7,000 as of the end of the 1970s.^[7] There is no reliable information about their present state, though it is unlikely that many have survived the subsequent upheavals in the country,^[1] and according to the entry in Ethnologue, which however may not necessarily refer to this language,^[2] the last speakers "probably survived into the 1990s".^[8]

Linguistic materials about the varieties spoken by the Shadibaz, Vangawala and Pikraj were collected by Aparna Rao in the 1970s, but they have not been published or analysed yet.^[3]

Example text

The following is an extract of a text narrated in 1978 by a man of the Chenarkhel subgroup of the Vangawala:^[9]

References

Bibliography

• Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2019). "Jakati". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (22nd ed.). SIL International.
• Hanifi, M. Jamil (2012). "Jāt". Encyclopædia Iranica.
• Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2022). "Inku". Glottolog (4.6 ed.). Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
• Kieffer, Charles (1983). "Afghanistan: V. Languages". Encyclopædia Iranica. Vol. I. pp. 501–516.
• Rao, Aparna (1986). "Peripatetic Minorities in Afghanistan: Image and Identity". In Orywal, Erwin (ed.). Die ethnischen Gruppen Afghanistans. Wiesbaden: L. Reichert. pp. 254–83. ISBN 3-88226-360-1.
• Rao, Aparna (1995). "Marginality and language use: the example of peripatetics in Afghanistan". Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society. 5 (2): 69–95.