Takri
The Tākri script (Takri (Chamba district, Chamba): ; Takri (Jammu Division, Jammu/Dogri script, Dogra): ; sometimes called Tankri ) is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic scripts, Brahmic family of scripts. It is derived from the Sharada ...
:) is a
Western Pahari language
The Western Pahari languages are a range of languages and dialects of Northern Indo-Aryan languages spoken in the western parts of the Himalayan range, primarily in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. They are also spoken in Jammu and Jaunsar ...
spoken in northern
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
Himachal Pradesh
Himachal Pradesh (; Sanskrit: ''himācāl prādes;'' "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a States and union territories of India, state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen Indian Himalayan ...
. It is associated with the people of the former princely state of Bilaspur in the Hills State.
Bilaspuri is classified as one of the varieties of the Himachali language group. However, Bilaspuri is listed as Punjabi in the census. According to the 2011 Census, the speakers of Bilaspuri/Kahluri are 295,805.
The dialect of the hilly part of
Hoshiarpur district
Hoshiarpur district is a district of Punjab, India, Punjab state in northern India. Hoshiarpur, one of the oldest districts of Punjab, is located in the North-east part of the Punjab state and shares common boundaries with Gurdaspur district in ...
is also known as ''Pahāṛī'' (
Takri
The Tākri script (Takri (Chamba district, Chamba): ; Takri (Jammu Division, Jammu/Dogri script, Dogra): ; sometimes called Tankri ) is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic scripts, Brahmic family of scripts. It is derived from the Sharada ...
: ).
Dialects
Following are the five dialects of Bilaspuri:
# North-east Bilaspuri (north-east of Kumar Hati); resemblance with Mandeali.
# North Bilaspuri (north of Kumar Hati); resemblance with Mandeali.
# West Bilaspuri: has the maximum Punjabi words of all Kahluri dialects.
# Central Bilaspuri: Bilaspur (historic) town and surrounding area; shares resemblance to Punjabi.
# Davin or Daur: east and south-east of Bilaspur (historic) town.
The dialects of Kahluri are so closely allied that one might call them one dialect Kahluri or Bilaspuri.
Writing system
The native script of the language is
Takri script
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 scrip ...
.
Proverbs
Status
The language is commonly called Pahari or Himachali. Before independence there were certain institutions which enjoyed states patronage to publish in Kahluri. All of these institutions today lie in ruins since independence to favour Hindi. With no institute that imparts teaching for this language, the language/dialect is endangered due to dominance of other recognised languages like Standard Punjabi or Hindi.
The demand for the inclusion of 'Pahari (Himachali)' under the Eight Schedule of the Constitution, which is supposed to represent multiple Pahari languages of Himachal Pradesh, had been made in the year 2010 by the state's Vidhan Sabha. There has been no positive progress on this matter since then even when small organisations are striving to save the language. Due to political interest, the language is currently recorded as a dialect of Punjabi, which was done on the basis of the conclusion made by G.A. Grierson who said Kahluri to be a 'rude' version of Punjabi. Since then linguists have changed this conclusion and have established it to be much more closer to others dialects of
Western Pahari
The Western Pahari languages are a range of languages and dialects of Northern Indo-Aryan languages spoken in the western parts of the Himalayan range, primarily in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. They are also spoken in Jammu and Jaunsar ...