The Kashmiri Language

Wherever Islam has gone, it has had an extraordinary influence over the language of the land and its script. The present Persian and the Pre-Ataturk Turkish languages are instances of the Kind. These, in turn, have influenced others. The Persian and the Turkish languages have been greatly influenced by Islam. In India, though Islam has not given a wholly new language to the country, it has substantially transformed the Braj Bhasha (Vraja Bhasha) into the Urdu or Hindustani of our day.

A not dissimilar process has taken place in Kashmir. The original Dardic language has supplied the skeleton. Sanskrit has given it flesh, but Islam has given it life. And the modern Kashmiri language laid the foundations of its present-day literature during Muslim rule.

Hitherto it was believed that the Kashmiri language was of Sanskrit origin. But professor Ernst Kuhn of Munich was perhaps the first to suggest that the Hindu Kush dialects together with Kashmiri formed a separate group within the body of Indo-Aryan languages and suggested distinction by some phonetical peculiarities. The researches of Sir George Grierson have now established the fact that the claim of Sanskrit origin of Kashmiri cannot be sustained and that Kashmiri belongs to the Dard group of the Dardic languages. It has, however, for many centuries been subject to Indian influence and its vocabulary includes a large number of words derived from India, which has given support to the supposition that it is derived from Sanskrit. Some people in Kashmir still hold this view; but the result of the researches of Sir George has been accepted by scholars who can speak with authority on the subject. In order, therefore, to trace its history, it is essential that we should know that Dard signifies.

The presumption is that there was, in pre-historic times, a language known as Aryan, spoken by the common ancestors of the Iranians and of the Indo-Aryans in the Oasis of Khiva. “The original home, whence the Aryans separated from the ancestors of other Indo-European languages,” says Sir George “is believed to have been the steppe-country of Southern Russia.” The common ancestors of the Indo-Aryans appear to have followed up the course of the Oxus and the Jaxartes into the high lying country round Khuqand and Badakhshan. A portion of them separated from the others, marching south over the western passes of the Hindu Kush into the valley of the river Kabul. Thence it moved into the plains of India where they settled, as the ancestors of the present Indo-Aryans. The Aryans who remained behind, on the north of the Hindu Kush and who did not share in the migration to the Kabul valley, spread eastwards and westwards. Those who migrated to the east occupied the Pamirs and now speak Ghalchah. Those who went westwards occupied Merv, Iran and Baluchistan and their descendants now speak those languages which, together with the Ghalchah languages, are classified as Iranian. Apparently, therefore, the Iranian Languages are the direct descendants of the ancient Aryan stock, while the Indo-Aryan languages represent a branch which issued from the parent stem at a very early date.

The Dardic language possesses many characteristics which are peculiar to themselves. In some other respects, they agree with Indo-Aryans and, in yet other respects, with Iranian languages. They do not poses all the characteristics either of Indo-Aryan or of Iranian. It is assumed that, at the time when they issued from the Aryan Languages, the Indo-Aryan language has already branched forth from it. The Aryan language had, by that time, developed further on its own lines in the direction of Iranian; but that development had not yet progressed so far as to reach all the typical characteristics of Iranian. The Aryan language still retained some, though not all, of the characteristics which it possessed when the Indo-Aryans set out for the Kabul Valley. In brief, Aryan is the parent stock, from which shoots off the Indo-Aryan language at a very early date and passes down to India. Then, before the other branch of the parent-stock becomes actually Iranian, another branch, the Dardic, shoots off and settles in dardistan, namely, Chitral, Chilas, Gilgit, Dareyl(Yaghistan), etc.

The word ‘Dard,’ says Sir George, has a long history and the people bearing the name are a very ancient tribe. They are spoken of, in Sanskrit literature, as ‘Darada’ which is frequent occurence, not only in geographical works, but also in the epic poems and in the Puranas. Kalhana often refers to them under the name of ‘Daradas’ or Darads and mentions them as inhabiting the country where we now find the Shins who, at the present day are called Dards. Greeks and Romans included, under the name of the Dard country, the whole mountainous tract between the Hindu Kush and the frontiers of India proper. Accordingly, this tract embracing Astor (called by Dogras, Hasora) Bunji, Chilas, Gilgit, Hunza, Nagar, Punial, Yasin and Chitral, has been Known to outsiders as Dardistan, though this is not strictly accurate as it includes much of the country not occupied by Dards. The Aryan languages spoken in this tract are, therefore, conventionally or conveniently termed Dardic. But it appears that the inhabitants nowadays resent these names of Dard, Dardistan and Dardic when applied to them, to their country, or to their language. They want their own distinctive names to be used for them. As a matter of fact, Dards call Kashmir not Kashmir, but Kashrat.

Dardistan was once inhabited by tribes whom Sanskrit writers grouped together under the title of Picacha. But exception has been taken to the use of this word as it connotes a cannibal demon and therefore that term has been given up and the name Dardic used instead. It denotes a combination of three groups (a) Kafir, (b) Chitrali (c) Dard group proper. This last consists of (1) Shina (2) Kashmiri, (3) and Kuhistani.

Kashmiri – or as the people call it – Koshur- is the language of the Valley of Kashmir and of the neighbouring valleys. Although it has a Dardic basis, it has come, to a large extent, under the influence of the Indo-Aryan languages spoken in its southern parts. It is only one of the Dardic language that has a literature; and is estimated to be spoken by 1,413,166 people in Kashmir according to the census of 1931 and over 8,000 emigrants in the North-Western Frontier, the Punjab and other Provinces. Kashmiri has also overflowed the Pir Pantsal range into the Jammu province of the state. It has one true dialect which is called Kishtwari and is estimated to be spoken by 7,464 according to the Linguistic Survey.

In the standard Kashmiri of the Valley, there are minor differences of language, for instance, the Kashmiri spoken by Musalmans slightly differs from that spoken by Pandits. Not only is the vocabulary of the former more filled with words borrowed from Persian (and Turkish and Arabic), but also there are slight differences of pronunciation. Again, there is the sidtinction between town and village talk or between grust and gandur (uncouth and refined). Then, there is the distinction between the language of prose and that of poetry.

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