“Kashur, the language of the Kashmiris, is said to be a Prakrit of the pure and original Sanskrit, and some say that it was in former times a written language in Sharada characters, Sharada being a brother form of the Devanagari. Most of the learned Kashmiris state that the Kashur vocabulary is a polyglot, and that out of every hundred words 25 will be Sanskrit ,40 Persian, 15 Hindustani, and 10 Arabic. The remaining 10 will be Tibetan, Turki, Dogri and Panjabi.” - Sir Walter Lawrence.
“Kashmiri is a Prakrit, one of the languages descended from the Sanskrit, or rather from one of the dialects out of which the classical Sanskrit was formed. It differs, however very considerably from all its Indian sister-tongues. Nearest to it comes Sindhi. It has the greatest importance for the comparative grammar of the Indian vernaculars, because, for instance, it so clearly reveals the manner in which the new cases of the declension have been formed from the old bases, a point which in other languages is exceedingly difficult.” - Georg Buhler.
"Its grammar is perfect, the etymology and syntax being regulated by cast and fast rules with rare exceptions. There exists a rich stock of its literature, which is full of loftiness of thought and sweetness of language written either in Sharada or Persian character or is recited orally, descending thus from generation to generation.” - Pandit Anand Kaul.
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Specimen of Kashmiri in Sharada script |
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