Burushaski Dictionary

Burushaski Dictionary is the first comprehensive digital resource for the Burushaski language, spoken by the Burusho people of Hunza, Nagar, Ghizer, and Gilgit in northern Pakistan, and in parts of Jammu and Kashmir. With around 130,000 native speakers, Burushaski is a true language isolate - unrelated to any known language family - making it one of the world’s rarest and most fascinating linguistic treasures.

This app makes Burushaski accessible to learners, researchers, and community members through an intuitive, modern design. Users can search across multiple fields, including:
• Burushaski in its unique script (with full Unicode support)
• English translations
• Urdu translations
• Latin transliteration
• Grammatical categories

The app supports the specialized Burushaski alphabet. These characters are rendered with the Scheherazade font for accurate display, ensuring that Burushaski words appear exactly as intended.

The foundation of this digital dictionary is the result of decades of scholarship. Beginning in the 1940s, Prof. Allamah Nasiruddin Nasir Hunzai contributed significantly to Burushaski studies by developing specialized writing systems and initiating research efforts. The Burushaski Research Academy, working with academic partners, produced important reference works, including a three-volume Burushaski–Urdu Dictionary (published in 2006, 2009, and 2013) in collaboration with the University of Karachi and published by its Bureau of Composition, Compilation and Translation (BCCT).

By bringing these resources to iOS, the Burushaski Dictionary app helps safeguard over 80 years of linguistic and cultural work. The Unicode standard ensures that registered characters remain stable and reliably represented, protecting the accuracy and accessibility of the language for future generations.

Why Download This App?
• Explore one of the world’s rare languages.
• Learn vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation with accurate Unicode characters.
• Search in Burushaski, English, Urdu, or Latin transliteration.
• Support documentation and preservation efforts.
• A reliable reference for students, linguists, and language enthusiasts.

Whether you are a native speaker, a researcher, or a curious learner, the Burushaski Dictionary offers an accessible tool for engaging with this unique language.