Kishtwari or Kashtwari is a northern Indo-Aryan language closely related to the
Kashmiri language
Kashmiri () or Koshur (, /kəːʃur/) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by around 7 million Kashmiris of the Kashmir region, primarily in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
In 2020, the Parliament of India passed a bill to make ...
, with strong influences from neighboring
Western Pahari varieties, spoken in
Kishtwar district in
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. Kishtwari has historically been classified as a dialect of Kashmiri by scholars such as
George Abraham Grierson
Sir George Abraham Grierson (7 January 1851 – 9 March 1941) was an Irish administrator and linguist in British India. He worked in the Indian Civil Service but an interest in philology and linguistics led him to pursue studies in the languag ...
, and is partially intelligible with Kashmiri, but Kishtwari speakers maintain a separate identity from Kashmiri people, culturally identifying more closely with neighboring Pahari populations of Paddar, Doda-Bhadarwah and the rest of the Chenab Valley. Also Kishtwari speakers are of different ethnicities – mostly migrated from
Bengal
Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...
,
Rajasthan
Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern si ...
and
Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...
during 11th century to 17th century.For those that consider Kishtwari as a divergent dialect of Kashmiri (discounting speaker sensibilities), it is one of the two Kashmiri varieties are spoken outside of the
Kashmir Valley
The Kashmir Valley, also known as the ''Vale of Kashmir'', is an intermontane valley concentrated in the Kashmir Division of the Indian- union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The valley is bounded on the southwest by the Pir Panjal Range and ...
(the other being
Poguli
Pogali or Pugali, more recently known, together with neighboring languages, as Panchali or Khah, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in parts of the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir, India. Its area encompasses the Pogal and Paristan valleys, and c ...
, which is even more distinct and not intelligible with either Kashmiri or Kishtwari). Kishtwari is also tonal, like neighbouring languages such as
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 Prade ...
and
Punjabi. For those who consider Kishtwari as intermediate, linguists like
Siddheshwar Varma
Siddheshwar Varma (1887–1985) was an Indian linguist, phonetician, grammarian and scholar, known for his knowledge of over 30 languages. He was the secretary of the International Moral Education Congress for India (1923) and the author of such ...
have argued Kishtwari as Kashmir dialect and called kishtwari an intermediate between Western Pahari and Kashmiri.
Overview
Grierson, in his
Linguistic Survey of India
The Linguistic Survey of India (LSI) is a comprehensive survey of the languages of British India, describing 364 languages and dialects. The Survey was first proposed by George Abraham Grierson, a member of the Indian Civil Service and a linguist w ...
, classified Kishtwari as a highly divergent variety of
Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to:
* People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir
* Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley
* Kashmiri language, their language
People with the name
* Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...
that had been profoundly influenced by neighbouring Punjabi and Western Pahari languages. Grierson noted that Kishtwari is more conservative in certain aspects than other Kashmiri dialects, as evidenced by the retention of subject pronoun
thu, in addition to the
present participle
In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...
an, features that have disappeared in Standard Kashmiri. A wordlist and preliminary grammatical sketch of Kishtwari were compiled in ''The Languages of the Northern Himalayas''.
The 1911 Census of India recorded 7,464 speakers of Kishtwari.
Script
Grierson remarks that an idiosyncratic variant of
Takri
The Tākri script (Takri (Chamba): ; Takri (Jammu/Dogra): ; sometimes called Tankri ) is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic family of scripts. It is derived from the Sharada script formerly employed for Kashmiri. It is the sister script ...
is used to write the Kishtwari language; as well as observing that there does not appear to be standard spelling nor a consistent orthography.
References
{{Indo-Aryan languages
Kashmiri language
Kishtwar district