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:
“[T]here is no breaking out of the intentional vocabulary by explaining its members in other terms.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“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)
“The vocabulary of pleasure depends on the imagery of pain.”
—Marina Warner (b. 1946)