Nuristanin.adj.
/ˌnʊərᵻˈstɑːni/, U.S. /ˌnʊrəˈstɑni/ A. n.
A member of a people inhabiting part of the Hindu Kush area of north-eastern Afghanistan. Also: any of the related Indo-Iranian languages spoken by these people; these languages collectively.The region was formerly known as Kafiristan and its people as Kafirs (see Kaffir n. 4). It was renamed Nuristan on the conversion of the population to Islam at the end of the 19th cent.: cf. Encycl. Islam (1960) at Afghānistān.
ΚΠ
1950 W. K. Fraser-Tytler Afghanistan 57 (heading) The Kafirs or Nuristanis.
1954 Man 54 151 The Nuristani considered as individuals are no complete unit as to race, language, or in any other cultural respect.
1973 Ann. Rev. Anthropol. 2 141 Nuristani, the third branch of Indo-Iranian is not represented in Europe at all.
1999 J. Elliot Unexpected Light (2000) ii. 52 A third of Nuristanis are reckoned to be blond.
B. adj.
Designating the Nuristanis or their languages.
ΚΠ
1967 Man 2 119 The possibility of some Nuristani peoples being descendants of an older, aboriginal population stratum cannot be excluded.
1975 Jrnl. Asian Stud. 34 562 Dupree also provides a map..showing the distribution of the Nuristani (Kafir) and Dardic dialects.
1998 A. Dalby Dict. Langs. 267/2 The Nuristani languages, so different that they are usually considered a separate branch parallel with Indo-Aryan and Iranian, are spoken in remote valleys of north-east Afghanistan by a total of about 60,000 speakers.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, December 2003; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.adj.1950