Introductory Pages - An Introduction to Spoken Kashmiri

II. THE SOUNDS OF KASHMIRI
Introduction
An Introduction to Spoken Kashmiri
by Braj B. Kachru
In this section, we shall discuss the sounds of Kashmiri, and provide illustrations to give the
learner the basic idea of these sounds. A detailed drill-oriented section, entitled Pronunciation
Practice (see.2.0), follows this section. It is expected that both the teacher and the student will
concentrate on that section both the teacher and student will concentrate on that section in order
to focus on the particular sounds which a learner might in order to focus ont he particular
sounds which a learner might find difficult. The only way to learn a non-native sound is to
understand its production, and then drill until a native speaker or language is satisfied that it is a
close approximation of the sounds.
The sounds of Kashmiri have been divided into two main sections: vowels and consonants.
Vowels
There are eight vowels in Kashmiri, i.e.
a) two high vowels, front and back: i and u
b) two mid vowels, front and back: e and o
c) one lower-mid back vowel: N
d) three central vowels, high, mid, and low: 0, ? and a.
All eight vowels have long forms. Note the following.
i) i and i: are high front unrounded vowels. These are close to Hindi-Urdu i as in milna: ‘to
meet; and i: as in asli: ‘real’.
They are also like the vowels in English bit and beat, respectively.
In kashmiri i and i: are in free-variation with palatalized glides yi and yi: in initial position.
Consider, for example, insa:n yinsa:n ‘a man’ and idra:r ~ yidra:r ‘urine’. In initial position i
and i: are found in the speech of educated kashmiri speakers, while yi and yi: have a high
frequency in the speech of uneducated kashmiris. This may be partly due to the infulence or
Hindi- Urdu.
In learning kashmiri as a second or foreign language, it may be. desirable to focus on i and i: in
initial positions rather than on yi and yi:
Examples:
i insa:n man
imtiha:n examination, test
bihun to sit down
khir rice pudding
© 2006 Braj B. Kachru (http://kachru.com) 10
http://koshur.org/SpokenKashmiri