Kishtwari language
language variety related to Kashmiri and Western Pahari spoken in Kishtwar, Chenab Valley
Kishtwari or Kashtwari is an Indo-Aryan language of the Dardic branch. It is closely related to Kashmiri language, with strong influences from neighbouring Western Pahari varieties. It is spoken by the Kishtwaris in Kishtwar district of Jammu division in Jammu and Kashmir, India.
Origin
Kishtwari originated from Prakrit – the spoken language of common people in ancient times. The literary language was Sanskrit which has a close relationship with Prakrit. It can be conveniently called a sister language of the Kashmiri language, as both have originated from Prakrit which is much simpler than Sanskrit.
Kishtwari has been preserved from the admixture of words and phrases from other languages and dialects. However, the original Prakrit spoken by common man of Kishtwar in olden times has absorbed some words from Dogri, Punjabi, and Persian languages to a limited extent. The present form of Kishtwari is directly descended from Prakrit, Pali or Sanskrit.
Classification
Grierson, in his Linguistic Survey of India, classified Kishtwari as a highly divergent variety of Kashmiri that had been profoundly influenced by neighbouring Punjabi and Western Pahari languages.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kishtwari language” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.