Culture & Heritage

Domaaki

This is also known as Dumaki, Domaski or Doma - is a language spoken in some parts of Northern Pakistan.  It is spoken in the northern parts of the Gilgit District of Pakistan, mainly in a few villages in the Hunza Valley.The Doma, speakers of Domaaki, are the modern descendants of the traditional ‘musician’ and ‘blacksmith’ caste, primarily living in Hunza. They wandered north from the central plains of the subcontinent centuries ago, but have been living for so many generations among Shina and Burushaski-speakers that they have adopted much vocabulary from those two languages. It was spoken by an estimated 500 people in 1989 by people commonly known as 'Bericho', 'Dom' or 'Doma'. However, the people belonging to this caste were given a very low status in society and during Hunza state time these were on the lowest hierarchy in state tier. People also not respected their language so most of the language is almost dying. None of them are openly speaking this language due to shyness. The people are now speaking the dominant Burushaski Language. People from this caste are mainly settled in Mominabad which was formerly called Berishal. From here now they also settled during new settlement time to Shishkat and Sost Gojal.

Linguistic Lineage for Domaaki

It belongs to the Indo-European language family, and is on the Dardic group of the Indo-Iranian branch.

Indo-European (449)

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Indo-Iranian (308)

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Indo-Aryan (219)

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Northwestern zone (39)

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   Dardic (27)

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     Shina (7)

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    Domaski

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