Secret Languages of Afghanistan and Their Speakers [1 ed.] 9781443864411, 9781443849708

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Secret Languages of Afghanistan and Their Speakers

Secret Languages of Afghanistan and Their Speakers

By

-DGZLJD3VWUXVLĔVND Translated into English by Agata Lenard Edited by Agata Lenard and Ben Young

Secret Languages of Afghanistan and Their Speakers B\-DGZLJD3VWUXVLĔVND This book first published 2013 First shorter version published in Polish as 2WDMQ\FKMĊ]\NDFK$IJDQLVWDQXLLFKXĪ\WNRZQLNDFK E\WKH.VLĊJDUQLD$NDGHPLFNDDFDGHPLFSXEOLVKLQJKRXVH.UDNRZ Published with the financial support of the )DFXOW\RI2ULHQWDO6WXGLHV8QLYHUVLW\RI:DUVDZ &DPEULGJH6FKRODUV3XEOLVKLQJ %DFN&KDSPDQ6WUHHW1HZFDVWOHXSRQ7\QH1(;;8. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data $FDWDORJXHUHFRUGIRUWKLVERRNLVDYDLODEOHIURPWKH%ULWLVK/LErary &RS\ULJKW‹E\-DGZLJD3VWUXVLĔVND &RYHUGHVLJQE\:LNWRU'\QGR )URQWFRYHULPDJHDNH\WRDQ$IJKDQ ORFNDXWKRU¶VSULYDWHFROOHFWLRQ 

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To the memory of Bozay

Some questions may remain in limbo for many years before the necessary evidence can be gathered. Some questions may never be answered because the necessary evidence cannot be obtained. But even the discovery that the evidence is not available is a contribution, if only because it allows scientists to move on to new questions. Steve Olson (2003: 167)

TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ................................................................................... ix Introduction ................................................................................................ 1 Chapter One .............................................................................................. 17 On the Definition and Nature of a Secret Language Chapter Two ............................................................................................. 26 The Ethnolinguistic Situation in Afghanistan Chapter Three ........................................................................................... 31 Polish Research on the Secret Languages of Afghanistan Chapter Four ............................................................................................. 36 The Secret Languages of Afghanistan and their Speakers Chapter Five ............................................................................................. 88 On the Secret Languages of the Region Chapter Six ............................................................................................. 102 Ethnic Languages Functioning as Secret Ones Chapter Seven......................................................................................... 109 Sacred Secret Languages Chapter Eight .......................................................................................... 115 On the Social Placement of the Speakers of Secret Languages Chapter Nine........................................................................................... 122 Modes of Encoding and Secret Vocabulary

viii

Table of Contents

Afterword ............................................................................................... 139 Abbreviations ......................................................................................... 144 Bibliography ........................................................................................... 146 Index ....................................................................................................... 161

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my deep gratitude to all the inhabitants of Afghanistan who have helped me to get to know their country over many years. I would also like to thank Professor Zbigniew Jasiewicz from the Adam Mickiewicz UQLYHUVLW\ 3R]QDĔ :LWKRXW KLV LQYDOXDEOH FRQWUibution, the subject of the secret languages of Afghanistan and their speakers might never have found its way into my sphere of interest. I am grateful to the ODWH 3URIHVVRU 7DGHXV] 3RERĪQLDN IRU VLJQLILFDQW Giscussions on Romani studies. The present, revised and enlarged second edition in English owes its appearance to the translation skills and editorial professionalism of Ms. Agata Lenard, as well as her patience and hard work. I also owe thanks to Dr. Ben Young for his assistance in the final preparation of the volume, as well as to Ms. Hanna Swaryczewska.

INTRODUCTION The magic of sharing a language, of keeping secrets from strangers, and of having the power to conceal information by using encoded communications—all these are essential to the process of creating a secret language; but most often the immediate reason is the sense of threat to people or business interests. Sometimes secret codes come into being without any apparent reason, perhaps simply for the sheer pleasure of their creation and usage. It should be stressed, however, that secret languages play a significant role in the history of every nation; the evidence for this is overwhelming (Gardner 1972: 7–8). A great number of secret languages have been reported, and new ones are still coming into being while others, incessantly, and at various rates, are dying. Only some of them are known, and only very few are known with near-completeness. Many will never be known about at all. The level of difficulty we face in examining them has undoubtedly increased. Bruce Schneier, for example, writes: Cryptology presents a difficulty not found in normal academic disciplines: the need for the proper integration of cryptography and cryptanalysis. This arises out of the fact that in the absence of real communications requirements it is easy to propose a system that appears unbreakable. (Schneier 1994: xii)

The aim of the present work is above all to identify the secret languages of Afghanistan, at least to the extent that was possible after the end of the Soviet occupation, and to outline how they function. But the book does not exclusively concern itself with linguistic phenomena. It is impossible to deliberate on the nature of secret languages without understanding the lives of the people who speak them. The inseparability of language and society, while admittedly a constant factor which should not be forgotten in any research project, is of special importance in the present case (Deuchar 1987: 295). Hence, it is necessary to provide information concerning the lives and economic strategies of the groups who speak the secret languages in question. Although the overall picture has been created first and foremost from an ethnolinguistic and sociolinguistic perspective, it is in essence much more interdisciplinary. In reality, we are here dealing with a whole set of closely related branches of knowledge, and not simply considering language, social history and

2

Introduction

culture (cf. Oranskiy 1983: 5–6). The specificity of these types of languages, the very fact of their existence, provides us with information that is valuable not only for linguists or philologists, but also for anthropologists, ethnologists, ethnographers, psychologists, and scholars of many other disciplines. Sometimes this information is important in terms of specialist educational programmes, or in relation to intelligence agencies, military history, and current world affairs. After all, wars and other military operations increase the need to pass encoded information. Above all, however, it is hoped that the present publication will enable greater understanding of Afghanistan’s very complicated linguistic and cultural reality, and thus, to some extent, promote understanding of the linguistic characteristics of neighbouring countries as well. The subject and scope of this work stand in need of some clarification: first, as regards the time period; second, as regards the geographical area in question; and third, as regards our understanding of the term “secret language” itself, the synonym for which that is most often encountered in relevant writings is “argot.”1 Terminological problems will be discussed in due course. It is not, however, the aim of the present publication to provide a detailed description of the history of research into the secret languages of Afghanistan, nor of the other areas of Middle Asia2 and the Middle East that will be mentioned in the text. The text itself is limited to providing only the most indispensable information; relevant publications concerning the research field have been listed in the bibliography at the end of the book. The exception is the description of the Polish contribution to research into the secret languages of Afghanistan, as well as the data which Polish researchers have managed, with a great deal of effort, to provide. Within this context, the author’s own personal research is also set out. All this information has remained markedly under-disseminated up to now; as is so often emphasized, we possess only the scantiest information concerning the argots of Afghanistan (Oranskiy 1983: 33). In Encyclopaedia Iranica, the chapter on the country’s languages lists only one argot and one sabir, underscoring the fact that material on the other Afghan argots has never been compiled (Kieffer 1983: 503, 504, 515).3 1

The term has been used in works on the secret languages of Middle Asia. See e.g. A. Tietze, Zum Argot der Anatolischen Abdal (Gruppe Teber), Acta Orientalia Hungarica, vol. 36, fasc. 1–3, 1983. 2 The work does not discuss the problems connected with the use of the terms “Middle Asia” and “Central Asia,” which are used extremely inconsistently. Central Asia is treated here as part of Middle Asia. 3 In the 1986 publication, in a chart showing the linguistic situation of Afghanistan, Kieffer also adds, following Rao, the languages of peripatetic groups of various

Secret Languages of Afghanistan and Their Speakers

3

By the “present,” this work refers to a time period considered rather broadly and without distinct boundaries. Most of the material comes from the period after World War II, but before the Afghan–Soviet war. The Soviet invasion and, to a lesser extent, the internal fighting that followed it, was an extremely important point both as regards the ethnolinguistic and the sociolinguistic situation in Afghanistan, and was accompanied by the biggest exodus of a population ever known to the world—something which caught up many speakers of the many languages spoken in the country. A dramatic element within these events was the activity of various guerrilla groups of mujahedin, as well as the later and rather draconian rule of the Taliban. The presence of U.S. and NATO forces has resulted in the Afghan resistance movement gaining intensity; there has been constant fighting between numerous groups of various origins, including the so-called Taliban and those referred to as Al-Qaeda. The Afghan–Pakistani border region has, as we know, gained special importance. Undoubtedly, Afghanistan’s recent history has provided many reasons for the use of secret languages and encoded messages. The increase in frequency of use, the probability of new codes being devised, and the revival of old ones, are all very considerable. But the violent demographic changes of recent decades, and various other factors, have posed grave difficulties for the study of secret languages, with the result that for many of them we do not know whether we should say they “are spoken” or that they “were spoken.” Conducting systematic field research in Afghanistan is at present extremely difficult. It is thus not certain whether some of the material we refer to here is potentially still functioning, is going out of use and being replaced by something new, or is already dead. The commentaries and comparisons discussed here concerning linguistic as well as social and cultural phenomena often go back into the distant past, even as far as a thousand years or more. In addition, as stressed by E. C. Bosworth, a well-known author on the secret languages of the Arabic Middle Ages, the relevant zone of comparison can be widened almost indefinitely, indeed almost up to our own times (Bosworth 1976 I: vii). From an historical point of view, prior to 1747 Afghanistan formed part of the neighbouring countries; it existed in various fragmentations and configurations depending on the period, and did not yet have its own state identity. For millennia it was a multilevel crossroads comprising many cultural influences, including linguistic ones, continuously interacting in a complicated mélange whose characteristics are difficult to discern from origins spoken by Jats: ƗGnjUJDUƯ; TD]njODJƯ or PDJDGƯ, or ƥRUEDWƯ, and the third one magatibai (with an annotation, “under research”). He lists them among the group “other” (Fr. autres), subgroup “diverse” (Fr. divers) (Kieffer 1986: 103).

4

Introduction

the perspective of the present. It is not strange that, in discussing the secret languages of Afghanistan and their social functioning, we have to look constantly at data drawn from beyond the present administrative borders of the country. From mediaeval sources we learn that various secret languages, quite similar to one another, had long been in use in the lands lying within the borders of present-day Afghanistan and its neighbours, which collectively comprised a region with close historical and cultural interconnections, even to the extent that it constituted a kind of historical and cultural unity. The anonymous tenth-century Arabic work HXGnjGDO-µƗODP (The regions of the world), for instance, records that in Astarabad, a city in the Iranian province of Gorgan famous for its crafts, two languages are in use: the local variety of Persian (IƗUVƯ), and the Lutara language, also known as Zargari (]DUJDUƯ) or “of goldsmiths.”4 It may be supposed, then, that the name “Lutara” referred to a professional secret language, probably a crafts one, since Astarabad was full of craftsmen. In mediaeval unilingual descriptional dictionaries, the term “Lutara” (lwtr’) is defined as a secret language between two persons, intended for concealing the sense of an utterance from others. It is probable that this was the argot used for communication by the Hurufi sect (AKh87: KXUnjIƯ) in the fifteenth century (Khromov 1987: 147). At present the name is sometimes transcribed as OǀWHUƗ¶Ư or OǀWHU-e ЂDEHUƯ. The suggested etymology of the name is *Oǀ7ǀUDK, that is “a language which is not the language of the Torah.” Researchers have established that it incorporates a great deal of Hebrew and Aramaic lexical items (Paul 1999: 111). Better known and much more important for our deliberations are other mediaeval sources from the Islamic world, for instance the fourteenthcentury dictionary, ϥΎϴγΎγ ΏΎΘϛ, known as .LWƗE-Ư 6ƗVƯƗQ (Oranskiy 1983: 38), or “The Book of Sasyans” (also in the versions of AT48: NLWƗE-i VƗVƯƗQ, or CB76: .LWƗE-H 6ƗVL\ƗQ), sometimes dated to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as, for example, by Melikian (2002: 187). This provides a list of argotic words of the Middle Asian Sasyans’ association (AB76: 6ƗVL\ƗQ, AT48: 6ƗVƯƗQ), together with their Persian translations (Troitskaya 1948: 257; Bosworth 1976: 171). Part of the lexical material contained in it can be found in modern Afghanistan. Here we should mention two long poems written within the circles of Arabic culture in the Munaghat (PXQƗȖƗW) jargon, entitled Qa‫܈‬ƯGD VƗVƗQL\\D, translated as “poems” in the Sasani jargon, or poems about the activities of the 4

The term survived in Modern Persian as ]DEƗQ-e zargari, “secret language,” “jargon,” “argot” (Rubinchik 1970: 760).

Secret Languages of Afghanistan and Their Speakers

5

sons/children/descendants of Sasan (Arab-Pers. EDQnj 6ƗVƗQ). The first qasida was composed by a traveller and doctor named Abu Dulaf5 in the second half of the tenth century,6 and probably comes from western Iran. It is supposed that the author not only had contact with the speakers of the contemporary secret languages of the Middle East and Middle Asia, but also belonged to such a community himself. The second work, whose author was the poet Safi ad-Din al-Hilli, was also composed in the fourteenth century, probably in Iraq or at the court of the Turkmen emirs in Diyarbakir. It contains an exceptional amount of secret vocabulary. Both poems were published for the first time in Europe in the nineteenth century without a critical edition, and the following editions were full of incorrect readings and unclear excerpts. C. E. Bosworth tried to remedy the situation by publishing both poems with thorough linguistic and historical annotation, along with a translation and glossary consisting of 540 lexical elements (Bosworth 1976 I: x–xii, 81, 140). His valuable work also contains a certain amount of comparative material on a similar subject from western Europe, especially from the literature of France and Germany, as well as from Elizabethan England, since, as he aptly notes, comparisons in this field can be made with many societies and periods. Looking to the Islamic world, Bosworth made comparisons first of all with material from Persian-speaking Iran, which as we know at one time encompassed vast tracts of Afghanistan, and touched upon many more culturally diverse areas and peoples, such as the Berbers and the Egyptian Copts in North Africa. Indeed, it was not only the people called Banu Sasan who created their own languages for secret communication and to exclude strangers from their activities (although considerable space in the present work will be devoted to them), but also other esoteric groups who remained outside the ordinary current of social life (Bosworth 1976: x, xi). 5

According to Bosworth and Abu Dulaf al-Khazraji. The oldest written European text known to us in a secret language is from the thirteenth century. It is a transcript of a German thieves’ jargon. We also know of a French text from the fifteenth century and an English one from the sixteenth FHQWXU\ 3RODĔski 1999: 654). They are, however, transcripts written by people from outside the argot-speaking environment. The only exception in Europe is probably the seventeenth-century argot whose form was controlled by the highest class in the beggars’ hierarchy (les archisuppóts), consisting of priests, scholars and the founders of the association. They transformed their secret language by replacing words which had become widely known with new ones, and also taught neophytes (Bartol 1976: 237). In this context the transcripts of oriental argots may be regarded as several centuries older. 6

6

Introduction

We also know about many other secret codes used in this region which are not mentioned by Bosworth. For example, the Ali Illahi sect (AT48: ƗOƯ LOƗKƯ), and the famous Assassins from the mountain fortress of Alamut (Pers. $ODPnjW) situated between Qazvin and Gilan, spoke languages that were not readily comprehensible and were thus at least to some extent secret—the latter sect speaking the so-called Alamuti (Pers. DODPnjWL) language.7 The argot of the Ali Illahi sect has been found written in the second part of .LWƗE-L6ƗVƯƗQ (Troitskaya 1948: 257). J. +DX]LĔVNLZULWHV that the Assassins were closely connected with the early development of craft guilds, which they tried to use as an instrument for organization and SURPRWLRQ+DX]LĔVNL88: 318–319, after Lewis 1937: 20–37). The area covered by the occurrence of the secret languages described in the present work also requires definition. Some notes on the social and cultural environment are included in order to situate the argot speakers within the local, regional, and even Eurasian realities in which similar social strata lived. Since the state borders of Afghanistan are rather new and in many places are illusory, and many of the ethnic and secret languages discussed here can also be found in neighbouring countries (sometimes several of them), it is essential to look beyond Afghanistan in order to plot them. In many cases, speakers of the languages are groups not leading a settled way of life but travelling over vast areas, ignoring many of the borders that have been established in this region of Asia. It should be stressed that in the past, just as in the present, weak border controls meant that the Afghan state borders did not fulfil their basic role—the one exception being the northern border, formerly with the Soviet Union and now with the various countries which have come into being since its collapse. All of them were of a more or less theoretical character almost along their entire length, and this still remains the case. Even in the north there have been problems with, for example, Afghan groups of armed Islamists (Landau 2001: 193), and a relatively small number of refugees. As a result of longstanding contacts with neighbouring countries whereby Afghan argots travelled easily outside Afghanistan, at least some of the secret languages of India and Iran, or of the region situated across the Amu Darya, were used in the area which coincides with present-day 7

On the Alamuti dialect, see e.g. Maciuszak 1996: 88–90. I owe the suggestion WKDW $ODPXWL ZDV SHUFHLYHG DV VHFUHW WR % 0ĊNDUVND 3K' ZKR DIWHU KHU participation in the international conference (at the University of Edinburgh) where she was kind enough to read my paper on secret languages in absentia, gave me information received from a Gilan inhabitant who claimed to have heard it at home in his childhood.

Secret Languages of Afghanistan and Their Speakers

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Afghanistan. Thus, it is vital to allow our discussion to encompass the whole region and not only present-day Afghanistan, since the linguistic space occupied by modern Afghanistan has merged and overlapped with neighbouring areas since time immemorial. It is essential to study the data on the secret languages of the neighbouring areas and, where possible, beyond. In addition, such a broader perspective enables the secret languages of Afghanistan to be placed within the background of other codes of the same type in Middle Asia, and even in Eurasia. Readers interested in the secret languages of Iran may refer, for example, to the work of G. Melikian (2002). The Middle Asian perspective is crucial given that many of the argots found in the region—formerly in the Soviet areas, today in post-Soviet or Russian ones—have found their way there precisely from Afghanistan. Members of some groups still retain the memory of their Afghan ancestors and are usually called “Afghans” (Taj. afȖon, pl. afȖono), or in some other fashion can trace their origins to Afghanistan (Oranskiy 1983: 23–24)— although they might have come from other areas, particularly from India, or from India via Iran. Their secret languages often provide vital information on the argots found in Afghanistan in the past, while some data also illuminate the present state of affairs. Migrations on both sides of the Amu Darya have taken place for a very long time, but the most detailed information on the topic comes primarily from the eighteenth century. The Fergana Valley, into which various groups of different nations and tribes moved, was particularly attractive to settlers. With time, some began to lead a seminomadic life before later settling down. In the nineteenth century, both during the heyday of the Emirate of Bukhara (1800–1842) and in the later periods of social and political crisis (1842–1876), the migrating trend continued, but its intensity decreased and, to some extent, the direction of travel changed, with the newcomers positioning themselves mainly among the settled population. Some of the immigrants were recruits joining the local army. Their ethnic affiliations were usually described as Kohistani,8 Tajik, or Galcha.9 As one of the sources indicates, for example, in 1805 the numbers of soldiers listed under the names of Karategini,10 Wakhi,11

8

Coming from the so-called Kohistan, the region at the southern end of Nuristan and in north-western Pakistan. 9 Originating from the Pamir region, also Afghan Pamir. 10 The name for an inhabitant of the Karatag Valley in Tajikistan. 11 An inhabitant of Wakhan, situated in the so-called Wakhan Corridor in northeastern Afghanistan.

8

Introduction

Darwazi,12 Badakhshani,13 Roshani,14 Chatrari,15 Ghundi,16 and Irani amounted to nearly six thousand. There was also migration from Afghanistan of people searching for other kinds of occupation, in Persian called mard-H NƗU (unqualified workpeople). The chronicles say that among them there were not only newcomers from the Afghan areas of Balkh,17 Shapurgan,18 Maymana,19 and Kohistan, but also from Iran and more distant Yemen. What is interesting for the present discussion is that in 1820–1840 there were special divisions of guards and state police consisting of Afghans, and also of Luli and Multani, as the Gypsies were called. At the same time the term “Afghan” was a synonym for the term “Hindustani,” as evidenced in the Kokand sources. Slightly later, during the Russian–Bukharan war (1866–1868), people named Kabuli (Pers. NƗEXOL “from Kabul,” “Kabul inhabitant”) were treated with suspicion and hostility, as a result of which four hundred people under the command of Eskander Khan Kabuli went over to the Russian side. The Russian victory over the Emirate of Bukhara resulted in the emergence of a new component in Central Asia in the period 1853–1876, namely the Russianspeaking population, which quickly mixed with the local one. In the Fergana Valley, for instance, Russians settled in the same places as the Middle Asian Jews and Hindus. This mélange also incorporated immigrants from Afghan areas, as well as groups who spoke specific argots brought from the southern bank of the Amu Darya. In the nineteenth century there were sometimes also migrations in other directions. People travelled from Central Asia, Northern Afghanistan, and India to Chinese Turkestan. Some expeditions were connected with trade and the practice of crafts, while others resulted from unstable political situations (Beisembiev 2000: 36–40). It should be stressed that, according to researchers, Afghan or pseudoAfghan groups speaking an argot are most often simply Afghan Gypsies, 12

An inhabitant of the Darwaza region in northern Afghanistan. An inhabitant of the Badakhshan region in north-eastern Afghanistan. 14 A name for speakers of the Roshani language (belonging to the so-called Pamiri languages of the so-called Iranian language group) living in Badakhshan. 15 Relating to inhabitants of Chitral, a region in northern Pakistan. 16 A name for a member of the kunda community, denoting a group of many families bearing the same surname and descending from a common ancestor. The Kunda usually encompasses a village or larger area. The term is used for the Tajiks from Badakhshan, also from Afghan Badakhshan, and the Hazaras living primarily in central Afghanistan (*DZĊFNL  17 Balkh, a city in northern Afghanistan. 18 Most probably Sheberghan in northern Afghanistan is meant here. 19 Maymana, a city in northern Afghanistan. 13

Secret Languages of Afghanistan and Their Speakers

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and this is an opinion which is also repeated in more recent works (Paul 1999: 111). It can be assumed that in many cases this is true. In time, genetic research carried out by molecular biologists will probably be able to provide more reliable data on the subject and resolve the academic dilemmas, and this will be relevant to linguistic deliberations as well. It is already known that Gypsies are not genetically homogeneous (Zaharova et al. 2000: 237–243); for example, the European group called Sinte Romani is biologically related to the inhabitants of the Hunza Valley in northern Pakistan—speakers of the Burushaski language, treated as a language of unknown origin. Other groups from Indian areas that have been examined have different characteristics for their Y chromosome (Wells 2001: 10247).20 This case alone points to the fact that we should acknowledge the polygenesis of gypsy groups.21 We should also acknowledge the name “gypsy” to be a specific collectivum, and not an ethnonym sensu stricto; consequently, in many cases, we should write it with a small letter, since we do not know which groups leading a gypsy way of life may really be entitled to the endoethnonym, or even exoethnonym Gypsy. Similar cases of confusing a collectivum with an ethnonym are fairly frequent (3VWUXVLĔVND  Considering the fact that Middle Asian argotic groups are perceived most often as Gypsy or gypsy-like, some of our deliberations will necessarily concern Western Europe, since Gypsies also reached such distant places. In the literature on Gypsies, the question is continually raised as to what extent the Gypsies are European people. The most common view holds that Gypsies emigrated from India. The genetic findings regarding the Sinte Romani confirm such a probability. In many academic studies, it is assumed that European Gypsies partly originated from branches which never entirely left Asia, and that some of their members therefore remained there (Fraser 2001: 17). It is possible that this happened also in the Afghan areas discussed in the present work. As is well known, the language of the European Gypsies, besides incorporating Indian elements, includes Persian and, among others, Caucasian lexemes 20

It should be stressed that, according to genetic population research done in recent years, we should be aware that such ideas as (Pre-)Indoeuropean groups of people or languages are an ideological notion rather than a proven fact. The same can be said about the designation, (Pra)Indo-Iranian or Iranian, regarding a group of people or languages (PstrusLĔVND  21 After all, polygenesis has been suggested by researchers in Romani studies for a long time. L. Mróz writes: “an obvious conclusion suggests itself that we deal with an enormously diverse quality hidden under the common name ‘Gypsies’” (Mróz 2001: 11).

10

Introduction

(Frédéric 1998, I: 178). Sources confirm that groups from the circles of Perso-Arabic culture and speaking secret languages traversed vast areas of Islamic and non-believers’ lands alike, travelling both to the East and to the West (Bosworth 1976 I: 81). Taking all of this into account, we cannot avoid adopting a broad Eurasian perspective in the present discussion. Step by step we are learning more about the populations from the Indian subcontinent and the various directions in which they moved—for example, the Indian tradesmen and usurers who in past centuries travelled across Afghanistan, Central Asia, Iran, Caucasus, and even a significant part of Russia. These communities, spread over large areas, numbered sometimes tens of thousands of people (Levi 2000). And, in engaging in trade or moneylending, the ability to communicate in a secret language is extremely useful.22 Unfortunately, in many cases it is difficult to establish the true ethnic affiliation of the groups in question, because they may identify strongly with the place they had left long ago, with the population among whom they lived in the present, or with the professional association to which they belonged. And it is not only professional identity which is important; religious identity and membership of sects, such as dervish brotherhoods, are also significant. Thus, we have ethnic–religious groups such as Jews or Hindus, ethnic–professional groups, and even ethnic– professional–caste ones such as the Afghan Haydaris.23 When a given group in a certain area practises a specific profession, continually or frequently, the name of the profession or the term describing the activities of the group comes in time to play the role of the ethnonym (Oranskiy 1983: 26–27). Similarly, an adjective derived from a place of origin or residence also not infrequently functions as an ethnonym. A question arises whether in English such names should be written with a small or a capital letter. In the Polish version of the book it was decided to write the names of the argotic groups in question (apart from the names of sects or brotherhoods) with a capital letter, since, with time or in certain environments, most of the names come to function as an ethnonym, as its equivalent or as a substitute.24 The same practice has been applied in the English version. 22

Interesting cases in Eastern Europe are, for example, the so-called Ofens from 5XVVLDRUWKH2FKZHĞQLF\ IURP%LáJoraj in Poland. See e.g. pp. 99–100. 23 See e.g. Jasiewicz 1983: 87; Penkala-*DZĊFND 24 There are also cases when an ethnonym functions collectively to denote various ethnic groups who speak different languages but who resemble each other in economic strategies and/or way of life. Then it is written with a small letter; and so we can write both “balochi” and “Balochi,” or “gypsy” and “Gypsy,” depending on whether we are dealing with a collective term or the ethnonym (for more on the topic, see 3VWUXVLĔVND–254).

Secret Languages of Afghanistan and Their Speakers

11

Further difficulties with identification are caused by divisions into subgroups, and the use of the name of a subgroup as a proper ethnonym. This is a practice common among both local informants and researchers. Additionally, if we take into account that the same group is often called by different ethnonyms, and the same ethnonym is used for various ethnic groups by laymen, we uncover a whole medley of complications which are very often extremely difficult to untangle. Paradoxically, it can even happen that two different groups call each other by the same term. For example, the Parya group treats the Kawol group as Mazang (Pers.-Taj. mazang), and the Kawol group refers to the Parya group in the same way. Let us add that in many cases there are no strict criteria to distinguish a group at all (Oranskiy 1983: 26–27). Examples of such vagueness of identification are frequent. We may mention, for instance, the Baluj group found in Fergana and Tashkent, who called themselves Hindustani while at the same time considering themselves to be of the Baluj tribe. The locals called them Kara-Luli, Afghan-Luli, Industani-Luli, or MaimuniLuli; the Afghans called them Jat, and the Hindus called them Paniraj (Oranskiy 1975: 3–4). In Afghanistan, the groups described as Jat were also called Jalali (AR79: -հDOƗOL), Jola (AR79: -հROƗ),25 Jogi (AR79: -հǀJL), and Kawol (AR79: 4DZƗO) (Rao 1979: 141). As an example of how difficult it is to establish the origins of certain groups, we may refer to the community of the Abdals from Xinjiang, who speak a specific argot. Researchers have proposed as many as fourteen hypotheses for their origin! One of these links them with the ancestors of the Afghan Durrani dynasty (Ladstätter and Tietze 1994: 108). It is extremely common for the endoethnonyms and exoethnonyms of various groups, as well as other epithets, to be mistakenly used or even intentionally adopted by others, for instance to increase their prestige (Pohl 1997: 69); and Europe is by no means exempted from this trend. The difficulties described above can easily lead to erroneous identification of groups that speak secret languages. As a result, in the absence of reliable data researchers often do not know which group they are dealing with. They know only the name or names under which the group appears in specialist literature, which is not necessarily reliable. The frequent inadequacy of terms used to refer to Gypsy and gypsy-like groups further means that in principle many of them should be written in inverted commas. However, we also do not know which names should be flagged up in this way with inverted commas. Further complications may arise in providing the names of the secret languages spoken in the present day by 25

Literally “weaver,” which in the Dari language denoted a poor man (Rao 1979: 141).

12

Introduction

the groups discussed here, and all the more so if we take into consideration the ones they spoke in the past. In Iran it was extremely frequent that argotic groups of various origins would be identified with Gypsies, who undertook intensive migration towards the Middle East on their way from India to Europe. Considering only the region of modern Iran, Gypsies are known under the following names: ýHJLQLýLQJƗQD, Foyuj+DUƗPL, Jugi, Kowli, Lavand, Luli, Luri, 3ƗSDWL4DUDþL4DUEƗOEDQG4HUHãPƗO, Qorbati6X]PƗQL, Zangi, Zot, and so on (Baghbidi 2003: 124). The Gypsy and gypsy-like groups in Russian and Soviet Central Asia were also given different names, not only Afghan and Kawol. We find here Luli, Jugi, Jat, Mazang, Multani, Kara-Luli, Afghan-Luli, Industani-Luli, Maimuni-Luli, Hindustani, Baluj, and so on. In Afghanistan encounter the Jogi, Sheikh Mohammadi, Changar, Gola, Sadu, Kawal, Mogat (Magat), Chalu, Kouli, Kutana, Luli, Musalli, Mazang, and many others, most often local and regional names (Rao 1986: 258–260). Obviously, without detailed research and significantly more data it is not certain whether all of the groups should be recognized as Gypsies of Indian origins. Perhaps some are groups which can barely be subsumed under the term “gypsy” written with a small letter, which here rather describes a way of life. Given this complexity, some misunderstandings about the coexistence of endo- and exoethnonyms may thus appear. On the Indian Parya group in Soviet Central Asia, J. R. Payne writes as follows: One of the characteristic activities of the Parya is the production of “nos,” a kind of chewing tobacco, which until recently they were permitted to sell openly at local bazaars, and it is this activity which leads to one of the names given to the Parya by the Tajik population: DIȖRQR-yi nosfuruš “nosselling Afghans,” although they are also known as DIȖRQR-yi siyorui “darkfaced Afghans” or ODȖPRQL “people from Laghman (a province in Eastern Afghanistan).” (Payne 1997: 144)

There is a mention of bringing the Gypsies to Iran in “The Book of Kings” (Pers. ŠƗKQƗPH), written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi in the eleventh century. He writes that Bahram Gur, a king from the Sassanid dynasty (d. 439), induced the Indian king Shangol to send him a thousand Indian musicians, called Luri, and then sent them out to various places in his country. Al Rur city, situated thirty parasangs26 to the south-east of Multan in Punjab in the area of present-day Pakistan, is believed to have been the hometown of the Indian musicians (3RERĪQLDN  –7; 26

Parasang: a distance measure equal to 4.82 km (Lee 1996: 604).

Secret Languages of Afghanistan and Their Speakers

13

Baghbidi 2003: 123–  7KRVH /XUL DV 3RERĪQLDN ZULWHV DUH WKH ancestors of the Gypsies. Simultaneously, this also meant that the Indian musicians came to the Afghan areas. The term Luri, designating a Gypsy, has been used in Afghanistan up to the present. They are thought to have come from Iran in the fifth century, but it is not certain. It is possible that the event was connected with Bahram Gur, but if so only ODWHU3RERĪQLDN 1972: 7). Most probably, they reached Iran by crossing the lands of present-day Afghanistan and settled in the latter, not only because of the geographical setting but also because the areas were part of the Sassanid Empire. Thereby, most likely, the Indian musicians came to Afghanistan as well. There may be a connection between this event and the name of one of the Gypsy or gypsy-like groups—Multani—and the mediaeval name of the peripatetic Banu Sasan groups, or “the Sons/Children of Sasan,” known for their use of secret languages. Lukonin (1969: 43) writes that Sasan kept troupes of dancers and singers at his court and provided for them, and this fact may also be the source of the name “Banu Sasan” which was so widespread afterwards, as well as other names of the same etymology. We do not have equally extensive data on all the argots mentioned in the present work. In some cases, the information is relatively detailed and comprehensive; in others, we possess only a few lexemes, or merely a mention of the existence of a given argot. Even when we take into account the ethnic languages pressed into service as secret ones, there is a danger of mistakes where those languages themselves are little known or only very sparsely described. With inadequate data on a given ethnic language, and extremely limited information about the argot based on it, it is possible to entirely misidentify the material at our disposal. For various reasons, appropriate attention must be paid to research into special languages, including social dialects, if we want to attain a relatively comprehensive overview of the way people speak in the given area. We hope that the present work will go some considerable way to completing the linguistic picture of Afghanistan. Attempts have been made to access all the available research relevant to the present work, although this is unfortunately rather limited. Authors writing about secret languages stress the limited availability of bibliographic references (6WĊSQLDN 0elikian writes that “Generally speaking, the study of secret languages and professional slangs is altogether the least developed field of linguistics; Iranian linguistics being no exception” (Melikian 2002: 181). For obvious reasons, the bibliography on the secret languages of Middle Asia, found at the end of the book, is none too imposing in size; for similar reasons, a publication on the same

14

Introduction

topic with respect to Afghanistan cannot be too voluminous either. It is essential to recognize that no text on the subject can aspire to cover the material exhaustively and provide a truly comprehensive, scientific description. This would require participant observation in each and every case, and living as a member of each argotic group under discussion, not for a short while but over a longer period. This is a methodological problem in research on secret languages, not only for Middle Asia but operative more generally. Attempts have been made first of all to list the existing lexical material or selected examples from data on the functioning of secret languages, since this is the essence of argots. Wherever possible, observations have been made on the morphology and existing opinions about the origins of the vocabulary discussed. When it comes to presenting argotic material, the author follows I. M. Oranskiy who, in the second half of the twentieth century, published a number of works on Middle Asian argots (Oranskiy 1961, 1964, 1971, 1983). Words attested to in various forms of phonetic realization have been presented in tables in this book in one form. Verbs have been given in the present tense form; and where that form is not available, then the verb is presented in the past tense form, and in each case marked as such (cf. Oranskiy 1983: 36). Where necessary and/or possible, other varieties of the verb have been listed as well. Apart from a few cases, we know little about the real phonetic realization of Middle Asian or Afghan argotic vocabulary and its variants. In many cases we are dealing with unprofessional transcripts of heard material, not noted down by a linguist. Frequently, the accuracy of a transcript we possess cannot be ascertained. We do know, however, the most popular phonetic realizations of those words from the Afghan variety of the Persian language which are used as argot via a change in semantic value or by being used metaphorically. Thus, it would be of little value to attempt to introduce more precise phonological features into the argotic lexical material listed in the present work. When quoting, the notation, transcription, or transliteration used in the source is retained, apart from a few exceptions. We frequently find words in transcription, including names of argots, where we have no idea what language it was given in or what language the informant spoke. Researchers lay emphasis on the problems with transcriptions of argotic material—I. M. Oranskiy, for example, stresses these difficulties, even though he worked in relatively favourable circumstances. Problems are frequently caused by the fact that the same informant gives variants of the phonetic realization of a given word. In addition, we are dealing here with a diversity of opposing dialectical influences on an argot, depending

Secret Languages of Afghanistan and Their Speakers

15

on an informant’s place of residence, the specificity of the set of the informant’s bi- or multilingualism, their age, education, personality, the conditions in which the transcription took place, and many other factors. Allowances are made for possible mistakes made by researchers when undertaking transcripts, especially in the case of subtle differences between vowels. Under the circumstances, the description and analysis of a given argot give rise to many difficulties. It is not always easy to know whether we are dealing with two different argots or with two varieties of the same one (cf. Oranskiy 1983: 30). Besides argots sensu stricto, we also give selected examples of ethnic languages used in Afghanistan as secret ones. After all, there is no ethnic language in multilingual Afghanistan that cannot also be used as a secret one. The differences in vocabulary in each of the argots here described form the basis for treating them as separate secret languages in the present work, regardless of the ethnic classification of their speakers, which is often very unclear. Variants of pronunciation were not taken into account. The names of secret languages listed in the present work come from existing publications. The source from which a name used in the text comes, and its form, are given when the name of a secret language appears for the first time in the book, and at the beginning of the chapter on the language. Sometimes there is only one version—it may have been Anglicized, for example, or found in German, Russian, or French. Where such a name does not already exist, it has been created by the author for practical reasons, applying the per analogiam method every time it is mentioned. The forms of names from quoted sources have been written in bracketed italics. However, we do not always have a transcript of such a form, nor are we able to quote from it with any justification. Nor do we always know whether it is the original form. These lacunae in the present work reflect the actual state of knowledge, and not neglect on the part of the author. Russian words are given in accordance with the so-called British Standard Romanization system for Russian used by Oxford University Press. In conducting this type of research, the conclusions must remain to a degree hypothetical. Boswoth, that famous student of the argots of the mediaeval Arabic Islamic underworld, fully realized this, writing: However, at all points it will be well for the investigator to bear in mind the percipient warning of Enno Littmann […] that all examinations of Middle Eastern jargons stand on an extraordinarily shifting, uncertain ground, where surmise and conjecture are often the only ways to proceed, yet where such hypothesising can rarely be checked and subjected to watertight verification. Hence, I myself have, I fear, used such words and

16

Introduction phrases as “possibly,” “probably,” “it may be,” “it could be,” far more than I would normally like; in our present stage of defective knowledge, this is a necessary, if regrettable, caveat to many linguistic statements. (Bosworth 1976 I: xiii)

The author takes the liberty of believing that setting out a rough, partial picture is better than leaving the existing data in note form alone. The notes might never be made ready for printing, thus barring access to something that can broaden our knowledge about Afghanistan in an especially difficult subject area, and which does not deserve to be overlooked. It is important for a philologist, for instance, to complete the sociolinguistic and ethnolinguistic picture. But, as mentioned above, there are obvious benefits for other academic disciplines as well. These benefits could even be of a practical nature. This publication, therefore, and despite these caveats, may allow the reader to draw certain scientific conclusions of a more general nature.27

27

It seems possible, for example, to compile a thesaurus of the Middle Asian argotic vocabulary known thus far.

CHAPTER ONE ON THE DEFINITION AND NATURE OF A SECRET LANGUAGE Secret languages, or so-called argots, are a form of communication known almost everywhere. They are generally discussed in publications which deal with the languages of special groups. Defining the languages of special groups, and their divisions and positions with respect to social languages, has been a subject of interest for numerous researchers; it is thus impossible here to discuss all the works on this topic, or even only the most important ones. Despite this volume of enquiries, when we look more closely at the matter in question we find only chaos and an awkward lack of order. This problem was noWLFHG E\ 6WDQLVáDZ .DQLD DPRQJ others, who wrestled with these issues for many years. This disorder does not only pertain to the Polish scientific literature on the subject of argots. The terminology itself is also ambiguous, and this of course increases the confusion in research findings. The Polish language does not possess standardized terminology for describing social languages. Diverse terms are used, such as argot, socjolekt, gwary ĞUodowiskowo-zawodowe, slang, wiech, ĪDUJRQ, and these are moreover used interchangeably. The word ³ĪDrgon” in Polish is pejorative. It is often used with reference to the varieties of languages spoken by criminals. Professional terminology is described by the term “gwara.” One of the proposed definitions, based on the so-called primary quality, singles out the secret variety of a language as one of the existing functional varieties. In this case, the linguistic means are subordinated first of all to the requirements of secrecy. Thus this category most often includes thieves’ jargon, underclass slang, prison slang, resistance and partisan jargon, and so on (Kania 1972; Geremek 1980; Kania 1995: 7–9). Information on groups speaking a secret code can be found quite frequently in works on Eurasian nomads (Balland 1988), wandering Middle Asian theatrical groups (Rezvani 1962), and in works on Middle Asian crafts (Jasiewicz 1977, 1978, 1983; Wulff 1976). The claim that the idea of a secret language has negative connotations is not at all uncontroversial. After all, this type of encoded transfer of information is used fairly frequently by people performing positive social functions,

18

Chapter One

for instance for religious or therapeutic purposes, or among the agents of secret intelligence services. The secret languages discussed in the present publication are found not only among professional jargons, criminal slangs, and—sporadically— youth groups, where the intention can be merely social play and fun. The role of Afghanistan’s secret languages in religion or the healing arts is also mentioned here, in point of which they differ considerably in their function from the Middle Asian argots of ethnographic groups (Oranskiy 1983: 35). It bears repeating that under the right circumstances, any ethnic language can theoretically become a secret one, the prerequisite being that the speakers find themselves in an environment which does not understand the language in question. In such a situation, we encounter a language of a different nature—an ethnic one—performing the same function as a secret language considered sensu stricto; that is, being used to conceal information. At the same time, any argot based on a foreign ethnic language can be treated definitively as an ethnic language, albeit one that is unknown to us, even if the mere fact of its existence is the only information we possess about it. In specialist publications, the term “argot” is very often used in a sense that encompasses secret languages. But even here we do not find the systematic criteria called for by researchers with regards the lines of demarcation between an argot and a secret language, or a description of the relationship between them. The term “argot,” although often denoting a secret language, is not inherently pejorative; hence this term is generally compatible with many of the cases that will be discussed in the present work. This is an additional reason why it is used here as a synonym for a secret language. Podvalnaya writes that the Russian term argo (from Fr. argot) not only means a separate language of some limited professional or social group, but also frequently refers to a means of communication by underclass individuals which is widespread in the criminal world, e.g. the thieves’ argot; meanwhile, the term “jargon,” according to Podvalnaya, is connected to the age of the people speaking it (e.g. youth jargon), social rank (e.g. the jargon of nineteenth-century courtiers), interests (e.g. philatelists’ jargon), profession (e.g. the jargon of computer programmers), etc. (Podvalnaya 1996: 76). Danuta Bartol discusses the broadening of the semantic range of the term “argot,” which may be used to refer to all the social varieties of the standard language; an attempt to outline the history of the term “argot” can also be found in Bartol’s paper (1976: 233–238), which notes that Casiani turned our attention to the fact that people from higher or lower classes living in a certain isolation from

On the Definition and Nature of a Secret Language

19

society have always felt the need to possess a special language which is comprehensible only to the initiated. 6WDQLVáDZ*UDELDVin considering various points of view on this matter, stresses such features of the social varieties of language as professionalism, secrecy, and emotionalism, and he quotes, for example, Francois’s opinion that all argots are secret (esoteric) languages, and that their secrecy is their fundamental characteristic. The level of secrecy among argots is not equal in each case, however, and therefore the relative incomprehensibility of information as a rule differs. There is a gradation: from a purely secret language, to one that is slightly tinged with secret vocabulary (Grabias 1974: 22–23). Authors also emphasize that the secrecy may be intended or may happen accidentally, for instance as a result of speaking a highly professional language 8áDV]\Q  – 467). The extent to which those who wish to identify with a group are compelled to speak a secret language also differs (Satkiewicz 1994: 13). The boundaries between social varieties of a language, and between their geographic occurrences, are generally vague. A secret vocabulary develops as a result of a specific necessity in life (Kania 1995: 7–9). It is obvious that a significant portion of words develop in a jargon as a distortion of an existing spoken language. However, researchers are unanimous that in many cases we can only make more-or-less hypothetical assumptions in interpreting secret linguistic material and its origins (Bosworth 1976 I: XIII). Obviously, in the present discussion we are not in a position to discuss the specifics of the idiolect unique to each speaker of a given secret code. The author of this text has no doubt either that, since the dawn of history, and to a greater or lesser degree, every language has had the nature of a hologram, as Peter Høeg has excellently put it.1 Much thought has been given to the question of whether an argot is a constructed language. Although a certain artificiality is visible in the use of argots, strong reservations have been voiced. After all, such languages are based on the grammar of a natural language, and the term “constructed” is properly reserved for communication codes of the Esperanto type. It frequently happens that what has been artificially constructed is perceived as inferior to that which develops naturally; yet scientific terminology is also constructed, while at the same being perceived both positively and negatively (Gajda 1990: 5). Scientific language does not, however, have territorial varieties, and is more stable (Kania 1995: 10). In Soviet literature, we find, among others, the term uslovnyy yazyk, “a conventional language,” and linguistic lexicons include entries such as: “cryptology,” “cryptography,” “cryptolalia,” 1

“Die Sprache ist ein Hologramm” (in Høeg 1994).

20

Chapter One

“cryptogram,” and “cryptotype” (Akhmanova 1969: 210). There are no such terms in Polish-language encyclopaedias or dictionaries of linguistic terminology (*RáąEHWDO3oODĔVNL  Undoubtedly, an argot is a social language, not an ethnic one, even though an ethnic language can be used as a secret one. The term “secret” does not refer to the form, but describes the function. As is widely known, people often change their speech, whether consciously or unconsciously, for example to speak in a more prestigious or socially acceptable way (see O’Grady 1989: 192). In the case of argots the reason for the change is different, specifically being to conceal the meaning of an utterance. The existence of argots is explained first of all by social factors, by reference to the way of life or the profession—past or present—of the people who speak them. A secret language, or argot (the terms, as mentioned above, are here used synonymously), is both a professional tool and a weapon which helps ensure security. Argotic groups are very often not indigenous, and not infrequently persecuted (Oranskiy 1983: 31–32). In the case of argots, including those spoken in Afghanistan, it is essential to use an ethnomethodological approach in attempting to understand the phenomenon and to conduct research on speakers’ perspectives as regards their use of secret languages, among other things, in order to reconstruct their social realities (cf. Heller 1988: 14). Since an argot is an underground language used to conceal the secrets of an argotic group, the process of collecting argotic material is fraught with difficulties pertaining exactly to its special character—this is something that is stressed by almost every researcher on the topic. The problems are particularly acute where researchers are faced with linguistic and cultural realities very dissimilar to their own, or where there are additional impediments to research, such as the condition of war that has prevailed for almost a quarter of a century in Afghanistan. Groups who speak secret languages are unwilling to share their linguistic knowledge with strangers, and will be utterly untouched by protestations that the material is desired for an academic publication. Giving up this kind of information would run against the most basic interests of the group that speaks such a language, especially if the language is still fulfilling its function. Revealing information may even be dangerous to an informant; and collecting data may be dangerous for a researcher. We might add that a secret language can often be perceived as threatening to a non-speaker. It frequently happens that the use of a secret code is accompanied by a certain binding system of behaviour, e.g. in criminal groups (PaáRV]  As a rule, there is no possibility of field participant observation of any adequate duration; and it is impossible to arrange paid lessons in a secret

On the Definition and Nature of a Secret Language

21

language. We do know of instances, however, where foreigners have been able to learn secret languages over some years, while serving a prison sentence, for example. Unfortunately, they do not generally write academic works on the subject. Thus, collecting argotic material often calls for considerable deviousness. After all, the recipient of an argotic message cannot be just anyone; the privilege is enjoyed only by the initiated, first and foremost a member of the group, and only occasionally an outsider who has been initiated. Resolving all the doubts that are engendered by the lack of data in the material collected and at the researcher’s disposal, and which arise in the verification of data published by other authors, if they even exist at all, constitute considerable additional impediments. In illiterate communities, such as those which predominate in Afghanistan, a secret language exists first of all in its spoken form. There are indeed some doubts about the status of this variety as compared to other varieties of language, but as =JyáNRZD QRWHVit is believed that “perhaps the most characteristic feature of the spoken form is its peculiar dialogical nature, which may be seen in its similarity to the artistic drama.” Observation points to the fact that argots are not suited for long conversations or telling long stories. In Middle Asia, researchers encountered only rather short stories, and interlocutors usually exchanged only two or three short secret utterances. On the other hand, we also know of whole poems written in secret languages, for example, the Arabic qasidas mentioned in the introduction. To what extent, then, do secret languages make use of their own dictionaries? The vocabulary, the active lexicon ever actually in use, is often remarkably limited; there are no cases of languages of a secret character which have their own complete vocabulary. Taking into account the limited numbers of words in these cases, some researchers write not about secret languages but about secret vocabulary (glossaries). The independent sphere of the argot may be limited only to the lexis, as a secondary—in fact, constructed—lexical system, often with derivational opportunities; a system which co-exists with the widely comprehensible vocabulary and is used in its place only in specific circumstances. The speakers of argots clearly distinguish their secret vocabulary from the vocabulary of the language widely understood in their society. Each word of such a secret language has its semantic equivalent in the standard language (Oranskiy 1983: 31). There are also argotic ethnonyms

22

Chapter One

(Bondaletov 1971) and secret pseudonyms.2 Nevertheless, in other respects the secret vocabulary avails itself of the ethnic language, most often the speaker’s mother tongue, in order to form a whole linguistic system. Hence, for this reason, we cannot concur with the opinion of some authors (*RáąEHWDO 656) who, writing about secret “languages” (in inverted commas) de facto deny them the status of a language. Discussing secret languages in Norway, Haugen sees so-called Scandoromani as a dialect of Norwegian (Hancock 1992: 37). The question of whether such languages should be recognized as languages of the pidgin or creole types, or whether they have undergone the process called “tertiary hybridization” (ibid.: 46) has not been settled either. The concept of “tertiary hybridization” has not been satisfactorily formulated yet; nevertheless, the concept is worthy of further note. For a language such as Scandoromani, the term “foreigners’ mixed speech” (ibid.) was also proposed (ibid.: 37, 40). But the term sabir is also understood by linguists as a simplified mixed language developed as a result of contact, mainly connected with trade, between two or more communities speaking different languages: thus, in fact, a creole language (PolaĔVNL    +HQFH again, the term is not appropriate in this context. A number of questions concerning the hybridization of languages remain unanswered, and the status of pidgin- or creole-type languages has been recognized as a highly controversial issue (Newmeyer 1988: 267; Pool and Grofman 1989). Undoubtedly, the problem requires further interdisciplinary study and research. Mixed languages have been developed by people since the early days of recorded history. The oldest recorded mixed language known to us is the Canaanite-Akkadian language, developed before the fourteenth century B.C. (Izre’el 2001). In one paper on the place and role of social dialects in the development of a national language, published at the beginning of the 1970s, we read that: The research on social dialects must have its significance restored to it, since up to now it has often been discredited (especially that on secret languages) by researchers for whom, as a matter of fact, it has remained a little-known, if not alien, field. (6WĊSQLDN 

2

According to one informant, for example, in the Polish village of Zembrzyce near Sucha Beskidzka, there live people believed to be Tatars or Vlachs who use secret pseudonyms with one another.

On the Definition and Nature of a Secret Language

23

Secret languages and other strategies for secrecy and concealment in the history of social interactions play a powerful role in establishing a group identity (Kippenberg and Stroumsa 1995). A great deal of attention has been paid to the question of Asian secret languages and their speakers, notably by G. A. Grierson who, at the beginning of the twentieth century, wrote about India and neighbouring areas and made a number of observations of a general nature (Grierson 1922 XI: 7–11). Many of his findings are vital to us here, because he collected information in the areas close to, or geographically identical with, the main fields of interest of the present work, namely Afghanistan. In addition, he provides data from earlier times, enabling us to get a certain diachronic insight, although not very remote, into the development and functioning of Middle Asian argots. According to Grierson, argots are spoken mainly by criminals and other individuals of bad repute. Among the terms listed by him as denoting secret languages in various countries we can find: in England cant, slang, thieves’ latin, pedlars’ French, Saint Giles Greek, flash tongue, gibberish, and so on; in France argot; in Germany Rotwelsch; in Italy gergo, furbesco; in Spain germania (Grierson 1922 XI: 7). We may add, although not aspiring to complete the list, that in Spain the term xérigonza is also known, in Portugal calao, and in Holland bargoens. The Gypsies call argot hantyrka, the Chinese hiantchang, and the Hindus balaibalan (Bartol 1976: 234). Grierson remarked that a common feature of all argots was the use of specific vocabulary and frequently used common words in which some letters had been transposed or substituted. He wrote that argotic vocabulary originated from various sources; it makes use of rhetorical figures or associations with certain ideas lending different meanings to well-known words. According to Grierson, these languages were constructed in similar ways all over the world, in principle using the same methods. In all of them we find a surprising element of chance, as in child’s play. In areas of India close to Afghanistan, argots have probably existed since prehistoric times. According to Grierson, their origin is connected with sacral ritual. It was sometimes necessary to conceal the true meaning of a ceremony in order to prevent its destruction by witchcraft or by a ritual of opposing effect. The transmutation of words found in old sutras was probably of this nature. It is important, moreover, to avoid certain disfavourable words. The Hindus have a special predilection for word games and enigmatic language, and no doubt they were educated in the means of concealing the meaning of an utterance. Examples of such

24

Chapter One

behaviour are visible in the 0DKƗbKƗUDWD,3 in which one of the characters, Vidura, warns Yudhisthira against betrayal in the presence of other people by speaking a secret language comprehensible to only the two of them. In Grierson’s time, as he himself notes, there were numerous secret languages in use in India, and they were mainly constructed languages which consisted in giving double meanings to words already extant in the ethnic languages themselves (the second meaning being only for the initiated). The words in the constructed languages would simply have a different meaning to people uninitiated in the secret language. The aim of secrecy can also be achieved in different ways. For example, there may also be a number of strange words which do not exist in the standard language. The Indian jargon of the outcastes, for instance, is similar to the local language but is ungrammatical and contains words with syllables omitted, added, or changed. Argotic words are sometimes used by different groups, including groups who have not developed their own argot. They were used, for example, by many criminal gangs in the area of the Bombay Presidency in British India. Information on the lexical items is imprecise, and the sources of origin are impossible to establish. Grierson points to the fact that many of them function in various secret languages in the broader region in almost identical forms. This might suggest that they have origins in an ancient common base, although, alas, we know nothing of it. There are also frequent borrowings from other languages, used in a way specific to the argot. A similar phenomenon can be seen in European argots where words are adopted from various sources. We are not, however, entitled to draw the conclusion that, for example, certain groups are descended from Arabs because they make use of Arabic numerals. Nor can we say that the Indian Sasi (GG72 I: SƗ˾ VƯ) have anything in common with the Tibetans because they have almost identical words for wife and water. Likewise, we should exercise caution in drawing any conclusions about there being numerous Hebrew words in the European Rotwelsch argot. Nevertheless, as Grierson comments, it is not without significance that ethnologists classify the main gypsy tribes as Dravidian and, at the same time, that a number of words in their specific argots seem to be of Dravidian origin. It is interesting that in secret languages of the groups known as Sasi,4 and belonging to the criminal environments of Punjab, we also find words of Dravidian provenance. Our lack of complete knowledge about secret argotic vocabulary precludes more detailed findings. However, as far as we can 3

The text of the epic was composed over time, probably from Vedic times up until the sixth century A.D. (Frédéric 1998 II: 11). 4 The endoethnonym of those Sasi is %KDWWnj or %KƗ˾ Wnj (Grierson 1972 I: 520).

On the Definition and Nature of a Secret Language

25

tell with our limited knowledge, most of the lexemes in Indian argots are not specific to exclusively secret languages, but can also be found, as Grierson observes, in India’s Indo-Aryan ethnic languages.5 The lexemes, however, are adapted in various ways to their secret roles, as also occurs in European argots (Grierson 1922 XI: 5–11). A number of Grierson’s observations are also relevant to research on the secret languages of Afghanistan. At least some of the argots from the neighbouring areas about which Grierson writes were also sometimes spoken in Afghanistan, something we may judge rather natural in view of the country’s illusory borders and the frequently nomadic nature of their speakers. After all, as already mentioned, the ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and economic spheres of ancient India were not only linked but were indeed sometimes almost identical in many of the regions in neighbouring areas.

5

By the term “Aryan,” Grierson most likely means “Indo-Aryan.”

CHAPTER TWO THE ETHNOLINGUISTIC SITUATION IN AFGHANISTAN Geographically and culturally, Afghanistan is the crossroads of many routes, the meeting point of many worlds. Although for centuries it remained under the cultural influence of India, it also forms part of the historical region of Tokharistan, as well as so-called Greater Iran, Middle Asia, and even the Middle East, and shares many phenomena with all of them. In adopting foreign linguistic elements, the prevailing tendency in Afghanistan was to amalgamate rather than to assimilate;1 thus, in the course of time a country of extraordinary ethnic and linguistic diversity came into being, despite a relatively sparse population—prior to the Soviet invasion in 1979, the population was estimated at 13 to 15.5 million (Adamec 1991: xiii).2 This unique ethnolinguistic mélange was held together notably by the language New Persian, which had been used in Middle Asia for over a thousand years and which now functioned as the lingua franca over a vast area; while in more recent times this linguistic unificatory role was supplemented, albeit to a lesser degree, by the two official languages of Afghanistan: Pashto (Afghani) and Dari (the local versions of Persian, known often as Afghan Persian or Farsi Kabuli). Branches of the ethnic, linguistic and religious groups of Afghanistan lived, and in many cases still can be found, in neighbouring countries: on the Pakistani or Iranian side of the border, in the post-Soviet countries, and, albeit to a smaller degree, in China. In Uzbekistan, for example, according to the census conducted in 1970, there were approximately 4,000 Afghans, forming a community with very deep roots. In the Soviet 1

It is worth mentioning that even at present about 80 per cent of the Afghan population belongs to the most liberal of the Sunni schools of Muslim religious thought; and, as Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani expert on Afghanistan, writes, it was only the recent civil war that destroyed the ancient Afghan tolerance and harmony (Rashid 2002: 144). 2 Those estimates which cite a current figure of 26 million or more (Ajdacki 2003: 178) are greatly overstated, considering in particular the population losses over the last three decades.

The Ethnolinguistic Situation in Afghanistan

27

Union there were about 100 thousand Muslim Gypsies, comprising nearly half of the entire Soviet gypsy population. They had come originally from the south of Afghanistan, and were adherents of the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam, albeit rather superficial ones (Bennigsen 1985: 26–27, 123– 124). There are many such closely linked groups which reside on both sides of the Amu Darya border. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, these situations were referred to as “borderland dilemmas” (Bennigsen 1985: 35–38). An accurate map of the languages of Afghanistan and their dialects has never been made;3 the available data is only fragmentary. We know very little about the varieties of social languages in use either in times past or in the present day. In the sixteenth century the famous Babur wrote that in the area of Kabul alone people spoke eleven or twelve languages: Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Mongol, Indian, Afghani, Pashayi, Paraji, Gibri, Birki and Lamgani (Kudryavtsev 1972: 187). The detailed general census planned by the government of Hamid Karzai, had it been successful, would have provided valuable new information on the rough relative numbers of languages spoken within this richest of ethnic palettes, as well as on the subject of bilingualism and multilingualism among Afghanistan’s inhabitants. Unfortunately, that census has not yet been conducted and there is no sign that it will happen in the foreseeable future. This lack of any census, as well as the paucity of detailed sociolinguistic, ethnolinguistic and dialectological research on the linguistic situation as of the early 1970s, hinders efforts to conduct scientific studies. In Afghanistan we are dealing with a substantial number of tiny groups that have been neglected by researchers, and, as many scholars have pointed out, there is an urgent need to remedy our lack of knowledge (Kieffer 1986: 101). At the present time, the situation with regard to linguistic research is not improving: quite the opposite. The wounds inflicted upon the human and cultural tissue, including the biggest exodus of population known to the world history, are enormous. It is estimated that in this country, inhabited by just fifteen million people, no less than a million have been killed and about six million have emigrated, primarily to neighbouring countries. Tens of thousands have spread out across other continents, bolstering the already large Afghan communities they may find on arrival. Extensive internal migration has also occurred in Afghanistan, calculated at not less than three million people on the move in search of safer areas, 3

In many cases we also lack adequate descriptions of the languages and/or dialects spoken in neighbouring countries, in those areas relevant to the present discussion, which are mostly borderlands.

28

Chapter Two

water and food. Consequent upon this excruciating history—one which is, as a matter of fact, ongoing, since military operations are still being conducted against members of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban—Afghanistan is considered to be the country with the highest percentage of disabled people per head of population. The difficult process of the return of refugees has already been embarked upon; yet it is encountering great difficulties, and results not infrequently in new waves of emigration. The preservation of ethnic identity by certain groups in Afghanistan, and its loss by others, is a complicated process which is continuously ongoing. In some cases, very small minority groups have inexplicably survived and continue to resist collapse; other groups have vanished despite having faced much more favourable conditions (Kieffer 1986: 101). Linguistic and ethnic groupings do not coincide to any significant extent. Dozens of ethnic languages (no fewer than thirty) are spoken within the borders of twenty-first century Afghanistan; these fall into four language families: Indo-European (mainly the Iranian, Nuristani and IndoAryan groups), Altaic (mainly the Turkic and Mongolic groups), Dravidian, and Hamito-Semitic.4 However, as was noted above, their dialects and social varieties remain markedly under-described. The fact that part of the population lives a nomadic lifestyle, and that, while travelling, they frequently cross the official state borders—which hold no special meaning for many of Afghanistan’s inhabitants—causes further complications for attempts to draw a more precise linguistic and ethnic picture. This is all the more so since it is very often the case that on both sides of a border there reside groups who are not only equivalents ethnically—though divided in the past for political reasons—but who also speak similar dialects. By and large, only the northern border along the Amu Darya, beyond which lie the republics which came into being after the collapse of the Soviet Union, is generally respected, and this is largely out of necessity. Besides traditional nomads and seminomads, a whole range of so-called peripatetic groups can be identified in Afghanistan, representative of various economic strategies. They are most often referred to as Gypsies, regardless of their ethnic origin or mother tongue, or by other rather pejorative ethnonyms typical of those used by settled populations when they encounter a peripatetic group. A similar phenomenon can be observed not only in Middle Asia but also in Europe. The population of Afghan nomads, consisting of various ethnic groups and speaking many languages, was estimated at two to three million 4

An attempt at drawing a picture of the sociolinguistic situation in Afghanistan at the end of the 1980s can be found in 3VWUXVLĔVND DDQG DQ HWKQLF SLFWXUH LV suggested in Orywal 1986.

The Ethnolinguistic Situation in Afghanistan

29

before the Soviet invasion.5 They were primarily Pashtun Soleimankhail (Suleiman Khel) from the Ghilzai tribe, who during their annual travels regularly crossed the Afghan–Pakistani border. They sometimes reached as far as India, and even Burma and Nepal. In Afghanistan they were called Kuchi (AR86: .njþL); in Pakistan, Powindah (JB87: powindah);6 or, more rarely, the Lohani or Lovana tribe.7 The name of the Afghan Lodi dynasty, ruling in India in the sixteenth century, is apparently of the same origin. The name Dotani is considered to be synonymous with the name Lohani. After the change in Afghan relations with Pakistan in 1947, and during the recent wars in Afghanistan, some of them altered their routes, limited their travels, or stayed in Pakistan, near Kohat, Bannu and Peshawar. With the development of motorization, some of the nomads adjusted to new forms of travelling and even ran businesses connected with transport, for instance between the Karachi seaport in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Government attempts at changing their way of life into a settled one met with little success (Adamec 1991: 69, 176, 187, 194–195). It is well known that by the thirteenth century, specialized groups of Afghan nomads connected India with Iran and Middle Asia via their regular migrations. They wintered in the Indus valley and in the summer they led their caravans to the pastures near Ghazni and Khorasan. With time they specialized in trade intermediation. In the sixteenth century they would take the route between Bukhara and India, via Kandahar and the Gomal Pass, twice a year. In the nineteenth century the pastoral tradition was almost completely replaced by commercial goals and this type of trade declined, but it has survived in a limited form to the present day. Some of these nomads have changed into itinerant tradesmen par excellence, while some protect the caravans that travel through the nomads’ lands. We might add that in the remote past, the Great Silk Road, leading from China to the Middle East and towards the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, was served by the Sogdians, and then by the Nestorians and Muslims from Middle Asia. The route along the Volga River was the sphere of activity of tradesmen from Khwarezm and the member states of the Arab Caliphate (Khazanov 1984: 210–211). These peregrinations, and the concomitant cultural diffusions, which also pertained to the sphere of language, had to a greater or lesser extent a Eurasian dimension. The people who travelled were a complex ethnic and linguistic mélange, and they were 5

The estimates are doubted by some (e.g. Miran 1977: 125). Powindah are regarded as real nomads pasturing herds, as opposed to peripatetics engaged for example in trade (Dupree 1980: 169). 7 Perhaps the name should be seen as connected with the name of one of the Polish Gypsy groups: the Lovari. 6

30

Chapter Two

also the source of various loanwords or material culture borrowings which Europe often came to treat as its own, or regarded as simply inexplicable.

CHAPTER THREE POLISH RESEARCH ON THE SECRET LANGUAGES OF AFGHANISTAN Without intending to present a detailed history of the research upon secret languages, we mentioned in the introduction to this volume C. E. Bosworth’s valuable publications on the literary sources from the mediaeval Islamic world, published in Leiden in 1976.1 By way of setting out relevant points of reference, let us also mention that the first studies on Central Asian argots, essential for understanding the essence of the secret languages of Afghanistan, were published over a century ago, largely through the efforts of Russian and then Soviet scholars. Of undoubted importance here is the work of A. L. Troitskaya on the argot of the artists and musicians of Central Asia, published in 1948. Among more recent work, we should mention the studies of the well-known Iranist, I. M. Oranskiy, first of all on the argots of the Gissar Valley, published in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s. This scholar’s publications aim also at presenting lexical material concerning a few of the secret languages in the region. A. S. Kishev (1986), in turn, wrote about the argots of the Adyghe from northern Caucasus. Other important works include those of A. Tietze (1983) on the secret language spoken in Anatolia, the vocabulary of which is of middle-Asian origin, and on the secret language of the Abdali (Äynu) from Xinjiang, written in collaboration with the sinologist O. Ladstätter (1994). In so far as we are concerned with works on secret languages (and similar phenomena) and their speakers from Afghanistan itself, relevant information can be found in works by French researchers (Kieffer 1983; Dor 1977). Among the most valuable of these we can list the works of Aparna Rao, who, while conducting ethnological research on peripatetic groups, made important observations in relation to their “own languages.” This research dates back to the 1980s—that is, it emerged subsequent to the Polish findings which will be discussed later. Rao’s chief asset was her 1

Articles on the mediaeval argots based on the Arabic language and their speakers have also been published by the Cracow orientalist B. Prochwicz-Studnicka (2000, 2005, and 2008).

32

Chapter Three

knowledge of a language from the Indian group at a level attainable only by a native speaker. This enabled her to perceive phenomena not previously noticed by anyone else, during her field studies in Afghanistan. The archives of the author of the present book preserve fragments of her correspondence with Aparna Rao and Andreas Tietze, dating from 1987– 1988, related to research on secret languages. Polish scholars joined in the task of collecting argotic material from Afghanistan by sheer chance, in a completely unplanned manner—indeed, one may say, by fate. In the summer of 1976, from 8 to 20 August, ethnologists connected to the Chair of Ethnology at the Adam Mickiewicz 8QLYHUVLW\LQ3R]QDĔDQGWZRRULHQWDOLVWVIURPWKH'HSDUtment of Iranian and Turkish Studies, Institute of Oriental Studies, University of Warsaw, travelled as far as Faryab Province in northern Afghanistan during their ethnological research expedition, going via Iran and Kabul. The field research in Qaisar and Haydarikhona2 was concerned with the Haydari, an as-yet undescribed group mentioned by G. Jarring in his pre-war work (Jarring 1939: x). Jarring had shown that the group had its own independent language, which they spoke quite frequently in certain everyday situations. The speakers called it zabon-e magati (ZJ77: zabon-e magati). The head of the expedition, Zbigniew Jasiewicz,3 then Reader of the Adam Mickiewicz University, managed—by handing out sweets to Haydari children—to note a certain amount of vocabulary and a few longer phrases of this argot, using (since he was not a linguist) the rules of Polish spelling. On his return to Poland, he sent the material to the author of the present work for an expert evaluation. The aim was to determine what language it was. After the quite laborious elimination of dozens of natural languages which might have been taken into consideration, it turned out that it was not an ethnic language at all. The author’s suspicions pointed in the direction of a Middle Asian argot, here serving as a secret language. After a short time it was possible to establish from which languages the greater part of the vocabulary came, and which language 2

Several dozen interviews were conducted, which included the Haydaris’ neighbours. The tapes with the recordings of some of the interviews and their translations are stored in the archives of the present Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Adam Mickiewicz University. During the field studies, the interviews were interpreted by Andrzej Ananicz, and afterwards in Poland, from the tape, by Bohdan Bielkiewicz (Jasiewicz 1983: 84–87). 3 Zbigniew Jasiewicz, Reader, then Professor, and for many years the Head of the Institute of Ethnology, Adam 0LFNLHZLF]8QLYHUVLW\3R]QDĔSXEOLVKHGWKHUHVXOWV of his pioneering field research on the Haydari community in Afghanistan in several works. For further information see the relevant entries in the bibliography.

Polish Research on the Secret Languages of Afghanistan

33

was the basis for its grammatical system. In fact it proved to be quite easy to resolve these questions, especially concerning the grammatical basis. In addition, attempts were made to determine, in so far as was possible, the more distant origins of the lexemes existing in the zabon-e magati, and to describe the mode of encoding. Prior to this time, as far as the author is aware, the literature on Afghan secret languages had only contained information about the Afghan argot known as Zargari, and the sabir Lazemi. There followed a fairly extensive correspondence between Zbigniew Jasiewicz and the author concerning the nature of this language. The letters received by the author have been preserved. The correspondence began in the autumn of 1976, following the return of the author from a long scholarship provided by the Afghan Government, during which her studies at the University of Kabul had been combined with numerous journeys throughout Afghanistan itself and to many other countries of the region. The most intensive period of correspondence was 1977, as more and more findings were made on the secret language of the Haydaris, but it continued into 1980. On 24 April 1977, when the first key findings were made in relation to the identification of zabon-e magati, Jasiewicz writes: “congratulations and thanks to Ms. Jadwiga on account of the identification of the Haydaris’ language. […] There are still many riddles, but an important one has been solved.” On 30 April Jasiewicz encourages her further: “I count v.m. on your further interest in the question.” That “further interest,” albeit of varied intensity and sometimes with long breaks, was sustained for over a quarter of a century, and the present publication represents only its latest manifestation. The correspondence records that the connection between the name zabon-e magati and the name of the Indian country Magadha and the Magadhi Prakrit was conclusively made by the author only a month later, in May 1977 (Jasiewicz 1983: 89). During the examination of the secret language of the Haydaris, the author not infrequently conveyed her research dilemmas to the late professor TaGHXV] 3RERĪQLDN,4 known for his vast knowledge in the fields of Indian and Gypsy studies. But the collection of linguistic material by Polish researchers was to be continued. One of the membeUVRIWKH3R]QDĔHWKQRORJLFDOHxpedition of

4

7DGHXV]3RERĪQLDN10–1991), the acknowledged Indologist and linguist, and Reader at the Jagiellonian University. In 1973 he re-established Indian Studies at the Jagiellonian University. He is the author of numerous Indological works, including on the Gypsy language and its dialects.

34

Chapter Three

1976, Andrzej Ananicz,5 a philologist, Turkologist and Iranist, and also a young academic at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Warsaw University, was the second Pole to reach the settlements of the Haydaris, and he collected additional material regarding their language, including whole sentences. The material, this time noted down in a more professional way, as well as some conclusions, were also sent to the author by Z. Jasiewicz. On the grounds of the material he had collected, Ananicz claimed that the grammatical structures in the Haydari language were of the same nature as those in Iranian languages. Polish scholars can thus undoubtedly take the credit for finding, collecting material on, and identifying the Haydari language.6 It is a pity, though, that the material at our disposal is not more extensive, for this would allow us to draw more detailed conclusions, especially comparative ones. In later years, conducting interviews with Afghan refugees, the author made findings of her own on the Afghan version of the Zargari argot; which is spoken not only in Afghanistan but also in Europe, and even, as it turned out, sporadically in Poland. She was able to determine the existence of a secret language called Kuknori in Tajikistan. In this connection, let us also menWLRQ KHUH WKH 3ROH $OHNVDQGHU &KRGĨNR –1891) who, in one of his works, writes about a secret code encountered during his travels across ,UDQLQWKHUHJLRQRI$VWDUDEDG&KRGĨNR–456). Up to the present, the various fragments of the author’s conclusions on the Afghan secret language zabon-e magati and, later, on Middle Asian argots, have been delivered at the Cracow division of the Polish Academy of Science (1980, 1996b), at symposiums and conferences (Paris 1990, Edinburgh 1994), or published in the form of short contributions (in Cracow 1980, 1995, Warsaw 1985, Oxford 1986, London 1990, and Paris 1990b).7 However, the Polish have not only examined, but also created secret languages; and some of these have achieved significance even at the level of world history. We shall restrict ourselves to mentioning just the 5

Andrzej Ananicz, among other things minister in the Chancellery of President /HFK :DáĊVD ODWHU 'HSXW\ 0LQLVWHU RI )RUHLJQ $IIDLUV DQG WKHQ Ambassador of Poland to Turkey, Director of the Polish Intelligence Agency, Deputy Director of the Polish Institute of International Affairs and Director of the Diplomatic Academy in Warsaw; at present (2011) he is the ambassador of the Polish Republic in Islamabad. 6 The most widely known result in cryptanalysis is undoubtedly the breaking of the German “Enigma Code” during World War II and the Russian “Revolution” cipher, which undoubtedly influenced the history of twentieth-century Europe (Nowik 2011). 7 For further information refer to relevant entries in the bibliography.

Polish Research on the Secret Languages of Afghanistan

35

following case. In 1841, Prince Adam Czartoryski established the Agency of Polish Mission in the East; this was a little-known Polish diplomatic post in the east, comprising a circle of representatives of the Czartoryski emigration camp dating back to the Partitions of Poland, with their centre of operations based in Istanbul. In order to inspire political, military and intelligence activity directed against Russia, it maintained unofficial contacts with the representatives of the authorities and the national independence movements. It operated in the Balkan countries, as well as in some Middle East and Far East countries. In its activities it used two or three specially created codes; in cryptographic terms these were so-called substitution ciphers (Krawczyk 2008). In closing, we might also mention the case of the decoding of a secret language by the Polish which was most important for world history, if not for scientific research: namely, the widely known breaking of the German military Enigma ciphers, a feat achieved by three employees of the Polish Cypher Bureau even before World War II had broken out. This is a fact which should find its proper place in mass consciousness (Nowik 2011, Kapera 2006).

CHAPTER FOUR THE SECRET LANGUAGES OF AFGHANISTAN AND THEIR SPEAKERS Adurgari Adurgari/Sheikh Mohammadi (CHK86: ƖGnjUJDUƯ/EO86c: Šei‫ ې‬Mo‫ۊ‬DPPDGƯ) is a secret language of groups calling themselves Sheikh Mohammadi (AR86: ŠƝ[ 0R‫ۊ‬DPPDGƯ, EO86c: Šei‫ ې‬Mo‫ۊ‬DPPDGƯ, IO83: šaix-momadi). It is an argot using as its base local versions of Persian (Rao 1986: 255; 2OHVHQ   2U\ZDO F  3VWUXVLĔVND a: 9).1 Sheikh Mohammadi speak it alongside Persian and Pashto. It has been reported in the area of Jalalabad and in the southern part of Laghman Province. This is perhaps the reason why its speakers have been named Lawani (AR86: /DYƗQL) by the officials of the Afghan Ministry for Home Affairs. In some regions of southern and south-eastern Afghanistan, the term probably also denoted a member of a peripatetic group. Sheikh Mohammadi themselves claim not to have such a name (Rao 1986: 255). Groups of Sheikh Mohammadi live above all in eastern Afghanistan. They practise the Sunni branch of Islam. The number of speakers in Afghanistan of their secret language Adurgari is unknown. According to A. Olsen, it is the secret language that distinguishes the groups of Sheikh Mohammadi from the surrounding population. According to E. Orywal, children aged up to six or seven years speak only Persian, and only afterwards are taught Adurgari, which is used when strangers must not understand what the conversation is about. Members of the group also call it the language of Sheikh Mohammadi. The name Adurgari is believed to derive from the word denoting “pedlars” (AO87: ƗGXU) (Olesen 1987: 38). It is possible that a thorough analysis of the secret language would reveal the domination of a certain ethnic group among its users, who regard Shaikh Mohammad, also known as Shaikh Rohani Baba, as their eponymic ancestor and spiritual father. The group thus seems to be a unilinear association of his descendants. According to Orywal, it is 1

See also other entries by the present author in the bibliography.

The Secret Languages of Afghanistan and Their Speakers

37

divided into eight endogamic subgroups (Orywal 1986c: 65); whereas according to Olesen, the groups under the name Sheikh Mohammadi seem to be genealogically unrelated and there are disputes among them as to who really has the right to the name itself. L. Dupree writes that this group belongs to the Musalli; it engages in itinerant trading, wandering in the north of the country and claiming to have Arabic ancestors (Dupree 1980: 180). Sheikh Mohammadi are little known both to researchers and to the citizens of Afghanistan, who call them Jat, Jogi or Kawal (AR86: 4DZƗO). The usage of the terms is random and they are regarded as pejoratives. The Sheikh Mohammadi themselves protest against being called Jat, pointing to their descent and, as they claim, their good manners. This opinion is shared to a certain extant by settled people, who confirm that the “real” Sheikh Mohammadi are poor but devout, and that they possess special powers (Olesen 1987: 35–38). Taking into account the name of their secret language, Adurgari, and its origin from the word ƗGXU “pedlar,” they may have a certain relation to the Harduri group, living in the region of Surkhandarya in Uzbekistan and speaking, so the literature indicates, one of the Iranian languages. They differ from the Tajiks in their seminomadic lifestyle. The data from 1926 cite 8,400 people identified in Uzbekistan as Harduri (Bennigsen 1985: 90).

Chistonegi It was reported (Orywal 1986c: 16) that the inhabitants of the Harirud valley, between Kaminj and Jam, regarded as the Taimani or Firuzkuhi group, were locally called Chishti (EO86: ýLãWƯ) or Khoja (EO86: ‫ۏ‬njۜa). In Tajikistan, at the same time, a secret language was being studied known as Chistonegi (IO71: þLVWRQLJL). M. Mahmudov, in a paper delivered in the Tajik language at a conference in Dushanbe in 1966, counted the Chistonegi argot as among the languages of the “Afghans,” as he put it, living in the Gissar valley (Oranskiy 1971: 94). This was known to be their own specific language, spoken alongside a Perso-Tajik dialect, similar, according to Griunberg, to the dialect of Serachs in Sistan. However, according to Oranskiy, members of the Chistoni group living in Uzbekistan mainly speak a dialect of Tajiki which is close to the varieties used in northern Afghanistan and southern Tajikistan. Research conducted later confirmed that the Chistonis had come from Afghanistan relatively recently. We do not know, however, if the argot of the group was still used in Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion in the

38

Chapter Four

1970s, nor when exactly its speakers, or rather a part of them, moved to the other side of the Amu Darya. A variety of sources testify to their existence in the region as early as in the 1950s when, in nearby Tajikistan, Oranskiy studied an Indian dialect from the Parya group, as well as other local dialects and argots, in the Gissar Valley. The group later encountered in Uzbekistan, and also called Chistoni, considered themselves to be strangers from Afghanistan who had come from the area of Kabul and denoted themselves Afghan (Taj. DIȖRQ). Information received from the Chistonis in the 1960s reveals that they had probably came from Kabul to the region of Sary-Assiya and Denau over the course of several previous generations. Nevertheless, some of their tribesmen were supposed to have stayed in Kabul. Some of the Chistonis took part in the Patriotic War on the side of the Basmachi, but after their defeat they returned to Afghanistan. During the field research conducted by Oranskiy, there were only ten Chistoni families living in Sary-Assiya, and only few of them stayed near Samarkand and Bukhara. The groups maintained mutual contacts. Earlier they were reported near the town of Regar in Tajikistan and Uzun and Urchi in Uzbekistan. They practised the Sunni branch of Islam, called þRUȖori in the Tajiki language. It was noticed that the Chistoni manifested certain relationships with the groups of Jugi and Kawol (Oranskiy 1971: 66–69; Griunberg 1963: 76). As Oranskiy noted, the Chistoni group consisted of three probably familial subgroups (Taj. avlod), each with a defined designation in the Perso-Tajik language. The first of them is the so-called lalandara tutxur (?