Khowar (کھوار), also known as Chitrali, is a Dardic language spoken by 400,000 people in Chitral in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in the Ghizer district of Gilgit-Baltistan (including the Yasin Valley, Phandar Ishkoman and Gupis), and in parts of Upper Swat. Speakers of Khowar have also migrated heavily to Pakistan's major urban centres with Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi, having sizeable populations. It is spoken as a second language in the rest of Gilgit and Hunza. There are believed to be small numbers of Khowar speakers in Afghanistan, China, Tajikistan and Istanbul.

Khowar has been influenced by Iranian languages to a greater degree than other Dardic languages and has less Sanskritic elements than Shina or the Kohistani languages. John Biddulph (Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh) was among the first westerners to study Khowar and claimed that further research would prove Khowar to be equally derived from "Zend" (Avestan, Old Persian) and Sanskrit.

The Norwegian Linguist Georg Morgenstierne wrote that Chitral is the area of the greatest linguistic diversity in the world. Although Khowar is the predominant language of Chitral, more than ten other languages are spoken here. These include Kalasha-mondr, Palula, Dameli, Gawar-Bati, Nuristani, Yidgha, Burushaski, Gujarati,^{[citation needed]}Wakhi, Kyrgyz, Persian and Pashto. Since many of these languages have no written form, letters are usually written in Urdu, Pakistan's national language.

The Wakhi people, or Khik (called Guhjali in upper Hunza), are an ethnic group originating in the Wakhan of today's Afghanistan. They also live in adjacent areas of Tajikistan and Xinjiang and in Pakistan (in Chitral District and Gojal). They speak the Wakhi language.

A very rough estimate puts the population of Wakhis at about 100,000.^{[citation needed]} The population is divided among four different countries: Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, and Xinjiang in western China. In China and Afghanistan the Wakhi are officially recognized as "Tajiks", while in Tajikistan Wakhi are recognized by the state as Tajiks but also self-identify as Pamiris. The religion of Wakhis is Nizari Ismaili Shia Muslim, being followers of the Aga Khan.

In Pakistan, the central organization of Wakhis is the Wakhi Tajik Culture Association Pakistan (WCA), an organization that is working with the Pakistani Ministry of Culture and Tourism and Lok Virsa Pakistan. The WCA aims to preserve the Wakhi language and culture and to record its poetry and music. The WCA has arranged more than twenty programmes since 1984, including cultural shows, musical nights, large-scale musical festivals with the collaboration of Lok Virsa Pakistan, Aga Khan Cultural Service Pakistan (AKCSP), and Pakistan Television. In 2000, the WCA won a "Best Programme" organizer award in the Silk Road Festival from the President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf.