Torwali is an endangered language: it is characterised as "definitely endangered" by UNESCO's Atlas of Endangered Languages,[9] and as "vulnerable" by the Catalogue of Endangered Languages.[10] There have been efforts to revitalize the language since 2004, and mother tongue community schools have been established by Idara Baraye Taleem-o-Taraqi (IBT).[11]
Phonology
Although descriptions of Torwali phonology have appeared in the literature, some questions still remain unanswered.[12][13]
Edelman's analysis, which was based on Grierson and Morgenstierne, shows nasal counterparts to at least /eoa/ and also found a series of central (reduced?) vowels, transcribed as: ⟨ä⟩, ⟨ü⟩, ⟨ö⟩.[12]
Lunsford had some difficulty determining vowel phonemes and suggested there may be retracted vowels with limited distribution: /ɨ/ (which may be [i̙]), /e̙/,/ə̙/.[13] Retracted or retroflex vowels are also found in Kalash-mondr.[14]
Consonants
The phonemic status of the breathy voiced series is debatable.
Sounds with particularly uncertain status are marked with a superscript question mark.
The Torwali language does not have a fixed orthography. The existing and widely used Torwali Character set was proposed by Inam Ullah, who proposed representations for unique sounds in Torwali language which later received official designations from the Unicode with the support of University of Chicago in 2005.[15]
^Kreutzmann, Hermann (2005). "Linguistic diversity in space and time: A survey in the Eastern Hindukush and Karakoram". Himalayan Linguistics. 4. Center for Development Studies, Free University of Berlin: 7.
^Burrow, T. (1936). "The Dialectical Position of the Niya Prakrit". Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London. 8 (2/3): 419–435. ISSN1356-1898. JSTOR608051. ... It might be going too far to say that Torwali is the direct lineal descendant of the Niya Prakrit, but there is no doubt that out of all the modern languages it shows the closest resemblance to it. A glance at the map in the Linguistic Survey of India shows that the area at present covered by "Kohistani" is the nearest to that area round Peshawar, where, as stated above, there is most reason to believe was the original home of the Niya Prakrit. That conclusion, which was reached for other reasons, is thus confirmed by the distribution of the modern dialects.
^Hammarström, Harald. "Torwali". Glottolog. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
^Liljegren, Henrik (2018). "Supporting and Sustaining Language Vitality in Northern Pakistan". The Routledge Handbook of Language Revitalization. pp. 427–437. doi:10.4324/9781315561271-54. ISBN978-1-315-56127-1.
http://torwaliresearchforums.org/ A website providing information about Torwali language and computational developments made in Torwali language. Jalaluddin
https://www.torwali.org a website managed by the Swat based organization Idara Baraye Taleem-o-Taraqi (IBT) i.e institute for education and development, that works for the integrated development of the ethno-linguistic communities of Pakistan including the Torwalis.
https://torwali.omeka.net/ An Endangered Language Project created by Amber Khan for English 318 at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville