Kashmiri language

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{{language |name=Kashmiri |nativename=Template:Lang, Template:Lang kạ̄šur, Template:Lang kašmīrī |familycolor=Indo-European |states=India, Pakistan |speakers=4.6 million |fam2=Indo-Iranian |fam3=Indo-Aryan |fam4=Northwestern zone |fam5=Dardic |iso1=ks|iso2=kas|iso3=kas}}

For other uses, see Kashmiri (disambiguation)

Kashmiri (Template:Lang, also Template:Lang, Kashmiri: Template:Lang) is a Dardic language spoken primarily in Kashmir, a South Asian region now split between India, Pakistan and China. It has about 4,611,000 speakers. It belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European family of languages.

It is an SVO language. Kashmiri has remained a spoken language up to the present times, though some mansuscripts were written in the past in the Sharada script, and then in Perso-Arabic script. Currently, Kashmiri is written in Perso-Arabic script with some modifications. The earliest literary composition in Kashmiri that has survived is the poetry of Lalleshvari, a 14th century mystic poetess.

Literarcy 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. 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.

There's only one [newspaper in Kashmiri], though a number of literary magazines are published regularly.

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/.

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