Dards

The Dards are the peoples of the mountains of north-west Kashmir and northern Pakistan, including Gilgit, Chitral and Kohistan, who speak Dardic languages such as Shina and Khowar. Their name, found in ancient Sanskrit and Greek sources as Daradas and Derdai, was revived by 19th-century British writers, notably Gottlieb Leitner, as a general term for these communities, which were ruled by local rajas and mirs until British times.