Northern Indo-Aryan languages
| Pahari | |
|---|---|
| पहाड़ी پہاڑی | |
| Geographic distribution |  India (Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Sikkim, West Bengal),  Nepal,  Pakistan (Azad Kashmir),  China (Tibet) |
| Linguistic classification | Indo-European |
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes |
The Northern Indo-Aryan languages or the Pahari languages (or Pahaari) is a word for a number of northern Indo-Aryan dialects spoken across the Himalayan range, not limited to a single country. The word comes from 'pahar' meaning mountain. The word Pahaari or Pahari is an adjective in Punjabi and it means 'of the mountain', so 'Pahari' means 'language of the mountain people'.
Pakistan, India and Nepal are all countries along which the Himalayas run, and in all three countries the word for mountain is Pahar this is because they are all related languages (they are all Indo-Aryan languages of the Indo-European language family). The Pahari language is also part of this group and constitutes the northernmost of the Indo-Aryan language family. Travel in mountainous areas is difficult, so dialects close to each other can be very different.
