Bhadarwahi is an

Indo-Aryan language The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, Pa ...

of the

Western Pahari The Western Pahari languages are a group of Northern Indo-Aryan languages that are spoken in the state of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir and parts of Uttarakhand and Punjab Languages The following lists the languages c ...

group spoken in the

Bhaderwah Bhaderwah or Bhadarwah (also ''Bhaderwah Valley'') is a town, tehsil, sub-division and also additional district in the Doda district of the Jammu Division of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It is also known as Chota Kashmir (Mini Kashmir) for its sc ...

region of

Jammu and Kashmir Jammu and Kashmir may refer to: * Kashmir, the northernmost geographical region of the Indian subcontinent * Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), a region administered by India as a union territory * Jammu and Kashmir (state), a region administered ...

, India. The name Bhadarwahi can be understood either in a narrow sense as referring to the dialect, locally known as Bhiḍlāi, native to the Bhadarwah valley, or in a broader sense to cover the group of related dialects spoken in the wider region where Bhadarwahi proper is used as a lingua franca. In addition to Bhadarwahi proper, this group also includes Padri, Bhalesi, and Khasali (Khashali) dialect. The Churahi language is closely related. The name of the language is spelt in the Takri as . Variants include ''Bhaderwahi'' (), ''Baderwali'' (), ''Bhadri'' (), Badrohi (), ''Bhadlayi'' (), and ''Bhadlai'' ().

Phonology

According to Masica (1991) there are a set of lateral retroflex affricates /ʈ͡ꞎ ɖ͡ɭ ɖ͡ɭʱ/ from old /Cr/ clusters.

Status

The language is commonly called Pahari. Some speaker may even call it a dialect of

Dogri Dogri ( Name Dogra Akkhar: ; Devanagari: डोगरी; Nastaliq: ; ) is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken in the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir, India, with smaller groups of speakers in adjoining regions of western Himachal Pra ...

. The language has no official status. According to the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the language is of definitely endangered category, i.e. many Bhadravahi parents are not teaching this language to the children with which the number of its native speakers is decreasing. Some other languages, such as Kashmiri and Urdu/Hindi are taking this place. This is an archetypical natural human tendency of picking up the language of people placed better economically and socially.

Notable events

A daily news headlines program is broadcast by a news outlet The Chenab Times in Sarazi and Bhaderwahi languages to promote them.

References

Sources

* {{Western Pahari languages Languages of Jammu and Kashmir Endangered languages of India