Wiktionary:About Kamkata-vari

Kamkata-vari or Kamkata-viri (Katë) is a Nuristani language spoken in Afghanistan.

Sound changes

Kamkata-vari changed earlier *ā to o ~ u (in stressed position) or a (in unstressed position).

Dialects

Kamkata-vari has three dialects: Western (Ktivi, Kulam, Ramgal), Northeastern (Bashgali, Chitrali), and Southeastern (Kamviri, Mumviri). The Western dialects are characterized by the loss of contrastive nasalization (hence *Ṽ becomes V, and *ň becomes ř) and some cases of vowel reduction to ë. Only the Southeastern dialects preserve the affrication of ź; the Western and Northeastern dialects have changed it to z. The Southeastern dialects are distinguished by the tendency to allophonically voice intervocalic consonants and diphthong loss, creating new long vowels. The form of the present tense is -në- in Western and Southeastern and -të- in Northeastern.

Prosody

In Kamkata-vari, words are generally stressed at the end of the syllable, reflecting common Nuristani penultimate stress (per Strand 2007 and Halfmann 2023). Stress is not marked.

Orthographic notation

When notating Kamkata-vari, a unified orthography system by Jakob Halfmann is used. Transcription conventions compared to Richard Strand include (V = any vowel):

a > ë
â > a
Va (Kamviri) > V̄
V˜ > Ṽ
Vi > Vy
Vu, Vv > Vw
ǰ > j
J̣ > ḍẓ
ŋ > ṅ

References

Jakob Halfmann (2022) Advances in the historical phonology of the Nuristani languages, in International Journal of Diachronic Linguistics and Linguistic Reconstruction
Jakob Halfmann (2023) Lād "law": a Bactrian loanword in the Nuristani languages, in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, United Kingdom
Richard Strand (1973) Notes on the Nūristāni and Dardic Languages, Brown University
Richard Strand (2007) Transcription and Pronunciation of the Nûristânî Languages
Richard Strand (2011) Kâmvʹiri Lexicon
Richard Strand (2011) Kâtʹa vari Lexicon
Richard Strand (2012) Nuristâni Etymological Lexicon