Kashmiri Language - A brief note

Kashmiri (کٲشُر ۔ کوشُر) is spoken in the Jammu and Kashmir State of India, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir in Pakistan. In India, it is listed as one of the 23 nationally recognized or scheduled languages. In the Indian part of the Jammu and Kashmir State, it is taught at all levels in the educational institutions including the Kashmir University’s postgraduate department of Kashmiri. Kashmiri speaking people living in the State and many countries all over the world are estimated at about 4.6 million.
Kashmiri has a rich stock of folklore, and mystic and romantic poetry dating back to 14th century. Last six or seven decades have seen a rapid increase in the number of books published in various genera of literature, some by individual authors and many by the State’s Cultural Academy, Kashmir University, Sahitya Akademi of India, and various other institutions.
It is written in Arabic script modified to suite its specific needs. Attempts to standardize its writing system made in mid 20th century were by and large fruitful.

Adapting itself to the modern technology, Kashmiri has benefited from the InPage software that is generally used for publishing though many authors prefer to rely on calligraphy, an art for which Kashmir has been historically famous. InPage files need to be exported as images for the Web. Since some of the specific characters of Kashmiri have not been encoded as yet, it is dependant on image-based rather than text-based web contribution that restricting its media presence.

No language can survive without adapting fully to the modern technology. Study of Kashmiri in USA, where it is recognized as one of the critical or Less Commonly Taught Languages, does not compare well with other languages in the group. With this in view we have made a humble effort to design a keyboard and make a font by upgrading an existing Urdu font to go with it. This combo software makes it possible to write Kashmiri, Urdu and English correctly and publish the text on the web. For viewing/reading on the internet only the font Narqalam will need to be installed, but for writing, the Kashmiri keyboard will be required. This software is available free of cost from info@kashmirilanguage.com or kashmirilanguage@hotmail.com

This software has been designed by Muzaffar Aazim. Muzaffar Aazim is a poet and writer and has publications in Kashmir, Urdu and English to his credit. He has designed this software for free distribution for educational and research purposes. He considers this work only an initial step intended to stimulate Kashmiri software technicians to come forward and contribute to the growth of this rich and much ignored language. As it is, this software can be used to enhance the Web presence of the language.