[1][2][3] They have approximately 214,000 speakers primarily in Nuristan and Kunar provinces in northeastern Afghanistan and a few adjacent valleys in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Chitral District, Pakistan.

The older name for the region was Kafiristan due to their pre-Islamic religious practices, but this term has been abandoned in favor of Nuristan ("land of light").

The prehistory of Nuristani is unclear, except that it apparently split off from the rest of the Indo-European languages as part of the Indo-Iranian branch.

[7] The most archaic layer of Nuristani lexicon is the common inheritance from Proto-Indo-European, shared with other Indo-European languages.

Due to the relative isolation of the Nuristan region until the turn of the 20th century, the Nuristani languages were thought to have retained some inherited words from the ancient Indo-Iranian religion, predating Hinduism and Zoroastrianism.

[8] Remnants of inherited Indo-Iranian elements may have survived in some Prasun theonyms with hitherto unknown etymologies.

lustlēnjǝwógnīoyinī́gnaḍǝmrē-slust lēnjǝwógnī oyinī́g naḍǝm rē-s"Eating (a ritual dish) without having raised the hands (in pre-Islamic prayer) was unlawful/improper.