KASHMIRI LANGUAGE

CULTURES OF PAKISTAN

KASHMIRIS

KASHMIRI LANGUAGE

Kashmiri  popularly known as Koshur, is a language from the Dardic subgroup of the Indo-Aryan languages and it is spoken primarily in the Kashmir Valley, in Jammu and Kashmir. There are approximately 5,527,698 speakers throughout India, according to the Census of 2001. Most of the 105,000 speakers in Pakistan are émigrés from the Kashmir Valley after the partition of India. They include a few speakers residing in border villages in Neelam District.

Kashmiri is especially close to the Shina language spoken in Gilgit, Pakistan. Outside the Dardic group, tonal aspects and loanwords of Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit origin connect Kashmiri to the neighboring Punjabi language, especially its northern dialects.

Kashmiri language

The Kashmiri language is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India, and is a part of the Sixth Schedule in the constitution of the Jammu and Kashmir. Along with other regional languages mentioned in the Sixth Schedule, as well as Hindi and Urdu, the Kashmiri language is to be developed in the state. Most Kashmiri speakers use Urdu or English as a second language.^[1] Since November 2008, the Kashmiri language has been made a compulsory subject in all schools in the Valley up to the secondary level.