1. Letter Prof. J. L. Kaul

Debatable issues - readers' opinions [in Kashmiri, urdu or English] are welcome.

A letter from Prof. J. L. Kaul:


In 1962, I had sent the manuscript of Zolana to the Cultural Academy for grant of financial aid. The Academy, following its standard procedure, sent it to for a review on which the decision would be based. The reviewer happened to be the devoted scholar of his time, Prof. J. L. He, with his keen desire to standardize Kashmiri writing style, made 18 comments to point out the inaccurate/inconsistent use of the script. Of course, he first said that he recommended grant of subsidy for the book “without prejudice to” his comments, but obviously he wanted it to be corrected.
After more than 47 years, Professor Kaul’s comments that were annexed to his letter and my (naive) reply are still in my possession. I am publishing it here today for three reasons;

 -  Showing the fundamental approach of the pioneers like Prof. Kaul and his contemporary scholars to the Kashmiri writing, it will help clear the minds of some critics who see a “conspiracy” in the efforts to standardize the script and the writing style.
- It will show how criticism can be voiced even in humble and sympathetic language, a quality some of our contemporary criticism can hardly claim. At no place does he reprimand me for my obvious ignorance or carelessness (that still sticks to me in many ways).
- Publishing it is my way of expressing my (somewhat belated) gratitude to him.
Muzaffar Aazim

Text of Prof. J. L. Kaul’s comments:

  1. I find ٛ used in the MS while it aught to be ٚ . I have myself corrected it wherever I found it, but I may have missed to point the inaccuracy.  It should be corrected. It is not یو٘د، وو٘تھ، لو٘گ but یۆد، لۆگ، وۆتھ۔ respectively.
  2. I also find at several places,  یۆد  (orیو٘د  as above) wrongly used where یۅ  should be used. E.g. it is notوۆزجار   but وۅزجار , not لۅکچار  but لۅکچار  not رۅٹ  but رۆٹ  not  سۅدرٕ کھۅن  but سۆدرٕ کھۅن .
  3. I recommend that we should keep to the spelling and pattern of writing familiar to us in Persian and Urdu in regard to the words borrowed or derived from Perso-Arabic wherever we can do so, without any great violence to the pronunciation and exigencies of prosody and the like in Kashmiri. I would therefore prefer abbreviations وق  to وکھ  and سخ  to سکھ   for وقت  and سخت  respectively; آفتابہٕ  to اختابہٕ , کاغذس  to کاکدس , مجنُون  to مجلون ,  دیێق  to دێخ ,  رُوح to رُح , صُبح  to صُبہٕ , شمع  to شمہٕ , غلٲمی  to  غۅلٲمی    and گۅلٲمی (though I would write قۅدرتُک  in preference to قُدرتُک )

I do, indeed, think that کاکدس۔  مجلون and the like are vulgarisus.

  1. Kashmiri does not have aspirates ڈھ،  دھ، جھ، گھ، بھ and while we may write بھگوان or proper nouns with aspirates, it would be wrong to write بھۆرُم  for بورُم .
  2. Nor does Kashmiri have any word with initial اِ or its longer form اِی  (……) and it would be incorrect to write  اِیہ for ییِہ , اِیم  for  یِیم (he will come) or اِونہِ  for یِونِہ  (coming). It is only words directly borrowed from Urdu-Persian which have not undergone a substantial change) that are written with these initial vowels e.g.  اِقرار or اِنسان .
  3. Words that are not derived from Perso-Arabic should not be spelled as if these were While we should write آغہ،  افسوس، صاف، خط، لفظ and numerous other words in their original-derivation spelling, we should certainly not write تھف ,  تھپھ not توفن  but توپھن . The reason is clear and obvious: تھف  is not derived from Perso-Arabic, and the original word is توپ  not توف .
  4. The author always uses بُہ . This is difference in pronouncing the word but, so far as I know, it is not correctly pronounced as بُہ , it should  be بٔہ and it is somewhere and sometimes differently accented as بٕہ or pronounced as  بو but never as بُہ .
  5. There are numerous words in Kashmiri in which tow letters sounds coalesce and to denote this the mark  ^ is used, e.g. تۯال، گۯوس، گۯون
  6. Then there is the confusion between the use of ی  and ے which is widespread. I must however point out he immense desirability [of] the phonetic convenience and linguistic correctness, in distinguishing between the use of ی  and  ے . ی  is used as a vowel, and ے both as a vowel and a consonant. Take an Urdu word - ایندھن، اِیشور، کھِیر، شیر، تِیر، اِنسانی، کُلی، کوٸی . We find ی  as end vowel (first three words), as medial vowel (4th, 5th and 6th words), and as initial vowel (last words). Now take کوٸے یار، سوٸے یار، خوٸے یار،  or (lion) چلے، گٸے، چل بسے، ارے، کھیل، لین دین، شیر – We find ی as consonant in the first three phrases, as in جوٸے  all Persian, then it is the end vowel in ارے،    چلے، گٸے and medial in شیر، لین دین، کھیل , and initial in ایلو – If I am right, I think it is confusing the use of the two, to write خوشبوی، تٲی، میونوی، تسُندی، چُھوی، یتھوی، بوی، کُنوی  for خۅشبوے، تٲے، میونُے، چُھے، تسندُے، بوے –
  7. If we write دیُت , why must we write کیۆت ? There are quite a few of these confusions also.
  8. We don’t have in Kashmiri ڑ  but ڈ and so it is کڈ not کڑ – بٔڈِس  not بٔڑِس  –
  9. Why do we write وُچھو  for وُچھ ? Our masnavi writers wrote چانُو  for چون , which is obviously wrong.
  10. I have marked some verses with ? in the margin denoting that I have not been able to decipher the words or their meaning. I would draw particular attention to the last verse but [and] tow of the ghazals entitled موت تہ شٲعر – I have also ventured to point out grammatical inaccuracies (not many) and, what is more, to suggest improvements at places.
  11. I would suggest that where letters do not join like [illegible] ی  or ے , the pattern should be more akin to Persian/Urdu even when the grammatical form has to be Kashmiri. I would write بے قرٲری یِہ  and not بے قرٲریِہ , while I may write بے تٲبی یہِ  or بے تٲبیِہ – But this is only a suggestion.
  12. I would fix the pattern میخانہ rather than مے خانہ – But does it matter?

[The copy I received was not in the hand writing of Prof. Kaul but typed by some official of the Academy. Some errors might have occurred at that level.]