Kashmiri

Kashmiri is the official state language of Jammu and Kashmir, and one of the 22 scheduled languages of India. It is also one of the 106 languages listed in the 8th schedule of the Constitution of India. Kashmiri is spoken by around 12.5 million people, mainly in the Jammu and Kashmir Valley. Kashmiri is a member of the Dardic group of the Indo-Aryan languages, which also includes Shina and Khowar. Kashmiri is believed to have diverged from the other Dardic languages around the 10th century. Kashmiri has a rich literary tradition, with Kashmiri poets writing in a variety of genres including love poetry, nature poetry, Sufi poetry and political poetry. The earliest known Kashmiri literature is the Rajatarangini, a history of Kashmir written by Kalhana in the 12th century. In the 14th century, Mirza Haider Dughlat wrote the Tarikh-i-Rashidi, a history of Kashmir from the 13th century to his own time. In the 16th century, Ali Akbar Khan wrote the Akbarnama, a history of the Mughal Emperor Akbar. Kashmiri was the court language of the Kashmir Sultanate, and remained the official language of the Court of Kashmir until the 19th century. In the 20th century, Kashmiri was the lingua franca of the Kashmir Valley and was spoken by all sections of society. However, with the outbreak of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947, many Kashmiri Hindus fled the Valley, and Kashmiri Pandits who remained were often discriminated against. As a result, the use of Kashmiri declined, and it was mostly spoken by the older generation. However, in recent years there has been a revival of interest in the Kashmiri language, with a number of schools teaching it and a number of books and newspapers being published in Kashmiri. There is also a growing body of Kashmiri literature, both in prose and poetry.