Kashmiri

Kashmiri is the principal language of the state of Kashmir, long disputed between India and Pakistan. In India it is one of the official languages recognized by the constitution. Though generally considered to belong to the Indic group of Indo-European languages, Kashmiri's exact affiliation is still uncertain, and it is thought by some to constitute a separate subgroup. Latest figures show about 3 million speakers.

Kashmiri is written in both the Devanagari (Hindi) and the Arabic script, each with additional diacritical marks for special sounds in the language. The former is generally used by Ilindus, the latter by Moslems. Moslem speakers of Kashmiri also tend to use many words of Persian and Arabic origin.