Kashmiri

The beautiful state of Jammu and Kashmir has plenty to be spoken of. Apart from the mind-blowing landscapes and the quaint hill stations the beautiful Kashmiri language spoken by the local inhabitants has an inexplicable charm of its own.

Kashmiri or Koshur is originally an Indo-Aryan language that has generally been classified by linguists in the same group as the northwestern Khowar, Dardi and Shrinya dialects. Some linguists are also of the opinion that there are some Indo-Iranian traces in the language.

Kashmiri is language is primarily spoken by the residents of Kashmir valley , located in the heart of Jammu and Kashmir. One of the 23 officially recognized languages of India, a survey has recorded over 4,611,000 speakers of the Kashmiri language. It has been supposed that possibly 4,391,000 Kashmiri speakers are residents of the Indian subcontinent while the others belong to Pakistan.

Essentially a V2 word order language, ancient Kashmiri manuscripts written in Sharada and Perso-Arabic script have discovered. Currently, however Kashmiri is mainly written in Perso-Arabic or Devanagari scripts. Continuous political turmoil and repeated strifes have hindered the growth and progress of Kashmiri. Hence, nowadays it is mostly a colloquial spoken language.

Kashmiri language, whose history can be traced back to over 750 is considered to be a modern language. The Kashmiri government is rather keen to preserve the ancient language and its heritage and thus is endeavoring to introduce the language in the curriculum of the various government schools and colleges.

Last Updated on 8/29/2011