Vocabulary
Though Kashmiri has thousands of loan words (mainly from Persian and Arabic) due to the arrival of Islam in the Valley, however, it remains basically an Indo-Aryan language close to Rigvedic Sanskrit. There is a minor difference between the Kashmiri spoken by a Hindu and a Muslim. For 'fire', a traditional Hindu will use the word agun while a Muslim more often will use the Arabic word nar. Shashishekhar Toshkhani, a scholar on Kashmir's heritage, provides a detailed analysis where he shows extensive linguistic relationship between the Sanskrit language and the Kashmiri language, and presents detailed arguments contesting George Grierson's classification of the Kashmiri language as a member of the Dardic sub-group (of the Indo-Aryan group of languages). Kashmiri has strong links to Rigvedic Sanskrit. For example 'cloud' is obur, 'rain' is ruud (from the Rigvedic Aryan god Rudra).
Read more about this topic: Kashmiri Language
Famous quotes containing the word vocabulary:
“My vocabulary dwells deep in my mind and needs paper to wriggle out into the physical zone. Spontaneous eloquence seems to me a miracle. I have rewritten—often several times—every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“I have a vocabulary all my own. I “pass the time” when it is wet and disagreeable. When it is fine I do not wish to pass it; I ruminate it and hold on to it. We should hasten over the bad, and settle upon the good.”
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“[T]here is no breaking out of the intentional vocabulary by explaining its members in other terms.”
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