 Kashmiri: A Phonological Sketch

Abstract. Kashmiri is an Indo-Aryan language spoken predominantly in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, India and in some parts of Pakistan. Some phonological and morphological features of this language make it peculiar among Indo-Aryan languages. This write-up provides a phonological sketch of Kashmiri. The description of Vowels and Consonants is given in order to build a general idea of the phonological system of the language. The process of nasalization is phonemic in Kashmiri. The aim of this write-up is to describe and show all the phonological features of the language, particularly those that are uniquely found in this language. In addition, an attempt has been made to describe and explain the various phonological processes such as Palatalization, Epenthesis and Elision, which occur in Kashmiri. All such processes are described with appropriate examples and the data comprising of lexemes and sounds for examples is primary data used by the author who is a native speaker of the language. Given to the peculiar features of this language, the process of homonymy, which is homographic in nature, is described with appropriate examples.