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:''For other uses, see Kashmiri (disambiguation)''
'Kashmiri' (कॉशुर, کٲشُر ''Koshur'') is a northwestern Indo-Aryan language spoken primarily in the valley of Kashmir, a region situated mostly in the Jammu and Kashmir state of India.^[1][2][3] It has about 4,611,000 speakers: 4,391,000 of whom reside in India and 105,000 of whom reside in Pakistan.^[4] While Kashmiri belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family of languages it is sometimes placed in a geographical sub-grouping called Dardic.^[5] It is one of the 23 scheduled languages of India.^[6]
It is a V2 word order language. Kashmiri has remained a spoken language up to the present times, though some manuscripts were written in the past in the Sharada script, and then in Perso-Arabic script. Currently, Kashmiri is written in either the Perso-Arabic script (with some modifications) or the Devanagari script.
Literacy in Kashmiri is continuously neglected due to various political reasons and lack of formal education in it. It is now mostly relevant in its spoken form, and the speakers of this language are also decreasing in number. Note that the primary official language of the state of Jammu and Kashmir is not Kashmiri, but Urdu. Some Kashmiri speakers use English or Hindi as a second language.^[4] In the past few decades, Kashmiri was introduced as a subject at the university and the colleges of the valley. At present, attempts are on for inclusion of Kashmiri in school curriculum.
In 1919 George Abraham Grierson wrote that “Kashmiri is the only one of the Dardic languages that has a literature”. Kashmiri literature dates back to over 750 years, this is, more-or-less, the age of many a modern literature including English.
There is only one online newspaper in Kashmiri, though a number of literary magazines are published regularly.

Contents

Kashmiri poetry

References

See also

External links

Kashmiri poetry

The Kashmiri language has a rich literary heritage. It has been the language of numerous sufi and folk poets. The songs in the Kashmiri language are called gewun /gewun/ and the chorus songs are known as wonwun /wonwun/.
The earliest literary composition in Kashmiri that has survived is the poetry of Lalleshvari, a 14th century mystic poetess.^[8]
Amongst great Kashmiri writers was Mahmud Gami, a prolific writer who used with equal competence almost all forms of poetry in Kashmiri - mathnavi, vatsun, ghazal, rouf, na’t - although his greatest contribution is in the area of mathnavi. His free rendering and adaptation of several Persian mathnavis inaugurated a long tradition of mathnavi writing in Kashmiri which includes such distinguished names as those of Wali-ul-lah Mattoo, Abdul Ahad Nazim, Wahhab Parrey, Muhi-ud-Din Miskeen, Amir-ud-Din Kreri, Maqbool Shah Kralawari Shams-ud-Din Hairat. and Mir Haseen Subla`.Sufi Peot.

References

1. Koshur: An Introduction to Spoken Kashmiri
2. Kashmiri Literature
3. Kashmiri Language: Roots, Evolution and Affinity
4. Kashmiri: A language of India
5. Kashmiri language
6. Scheduled Languages of India
7. Kashmiri: A language of India
8. The Poplar and the Chinar: Kashmir in a Historical Outline

See also

★ Kashmiri literature

★ List of topics on the land and the people of “Jammu and Kashmir”

★ List of Kashmiri poets

★ Neab International Kashmiri Magazine

External links

★ Grierson, George Abraham. A Dictionary of the Kashmiri Language. Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1932.

★ ''Linguistic Studies in Kashmiri'' by Omkar N Koul New Delhi: Bahri Publications, 1977.

★ ''Aspects of Kashmiri Linguistics'' edited by Omkar N Koul and Peter Edwin Hook New Delhi: Bahri Publications, 1984.

★ ''An Intensive Course in Kashmiri'' by Omkar N Koul Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages, 1985.

★ ''An Intermediate Course in Kashmiri'' by Omkar N. Koul Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages, 1994.

★ ''Kashmiri: A Cognitive-Descriptive Grammar'' by Kashi Wali and Omkar N Koul London: Routledge 1997.

★ ''Kashmiri-English Dictionary for Second Language Learners'' by Omkar N. Koul, S. N. Raina and R. K. Bhat Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages, 2000.

★ ''Modern Kashmiri Grammar'' by Omkar N Koul and Kashi Wali Springfield: Dunwoody Press, 2006.

★ ''Spoken Kashmiri: A Language Course'' by Omkar N. Koul Delhi: Indian Institute of Language Studies, 2006.

★ ''A Dictionary of Kashmiri Proverbs'' by Omkar N. Koul Delhi: Indian Institute of Language Studies, 2006.

★ ''A Course in Kashmiri Language'' by Roop Krishen Bhat Delhi: Indian Institute of Language Studies, 2007.

★ Kashmiri: A Grammatical Sketch by Omkar N. Koul

★ Personal names in Kashmiri by Omkar N. Koul

★ Studies in Kashmiri Linguistics by Omkar N. Koul

★ Reduplication in Kashmiri by Omkar N. Koul

★ ''Kashmiri Language, Linguistics and Culture: An Annotated Bibliography'' by Omkar N. Koul Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages, 2000.

★ Topics in Kashmiri Linguistics edited by Omkar N. Koul and Kashi Wali New Delhi: Creative, 2002.

★ Kashmiri Language and Society by Omkar N. Koul

★ Modes of Address in Kashmiri by Omkar N. Koul

★ Modes of Greetings in Kashmiri by Omkar N. Koul

★ Ethnologue entry for Kashmiri

★ Kashmiri Newz

★ An Introduction to Spoken Kashmiri

★ Kashmiri Songs

★ Koshur: An Introduction to Spoken Kasmiri

★ Basic words and phrases in Kashmiri language

★ Kashmiri literary magazine

★ Kashmiri online newspaper

★ Kashmiri

★ Apharwat - a Kashmiri literary blog

★ Muzaffar Aazim - A contemporary Kashmiri writer

★ A sampling of Wanawun - Search For 'Wanawun' Kashmiri folk chorus

★ Gulmarg - A collection of Kashmir Views, original poetry and information

★ Kashmiri Alphabet