DUSHANBE, September 14, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- The Dushanbe publishing house, Adib, has published the first children’s book in the Shughni language.

The poem titled “Ravshan Qissayen” (Stories about Ravshan) is authored by known Tajik poet Ato Mirkhoja Nerou.  The book has circulation of 2,000 copies.

The Shughni language (including the dialects of Rushani, Oroshani, Bartangi, Oroshor, Khufi, and Shughni) along with Sarikoli, and Yazgulyam languages belongs to the Shugni-Sarikoli-Yazgulami sub-branch of the Pamir languages.

The Pamir languages are a subgroup of the Eastern Iranian languages, spoken by numerous people in the Pamir Mountains, primarily along the Panj River and its tributaries.  This includes the Badakhshan Province of northeastern Afghanistan and the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region of Tajikistan. Smaller communities can be found in the adjacent areas of Pakistan where many have settled in recent decades.

The first published data concerning the Shughni language appeared in an article by R. Shaw "On the Shighni (Ghalchah) Dialect" (Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. 46, 1877).

A Shughni script was created in 1930/31 on the basis of the Latin alphabet.  A number of textbooks and teaching devices were compiled for primary schools and some of them were even published.  However, the Shughnis were only able to benefit from native language schooling for a few years.