Kashmiri Alphabet & Letters

Kashmiri, which its speakers call Koshur (کٲشُر), is an Indo-Aryan language of the Dardic group, spoken in the Kashmir Valley and the hills around it. Its official script is Perso-Arabic, written right to left, usually in the flowing Nastaliq style, with the same joining letters as Urdu. CLDR, the Unicode project's language database, lists 46 letters for it: the Arabic and Persian base, Urdu's retroflex ٹ ṭ, ڈ ḍ and ڑ ṛ, the nasal ں, the round ہ and the final ے, and Kashmiri-specific forms such as أ, ٲ, ۄ and ؠ. Current orthographic guidance recommends وٚ for short o; ۆ is a nonrecommended alternative.

Two things shape the alphabet. Kashmiri has aspirated consonants, written as in Urdu by adding ھ, the two-eyed he: کھ kh, پھ ph, تھ th. And it has many vowels, including the central vowels ə and ɨ, for which Arabic had no letter. That is why Kashmiri needed new vowel letters and marks, and why its careful spelling writes its vowel signs out. As in Urdu, ث س ص all sound s and ذ ز ض ظ all sound z; the extra Arabic letters mostly spell words borrowed from Arabic and Persian.

Kashmiri vowels and related letters: ٲ, ۄ, ؠ and the vowel marks

أ, alif with an ordinary hamza, writes the short central vowel ə at the start of a word, and ٲ, alif with a wavy hamza, writes its long partner əː, the first vowel of the language's own name کٲشُر. Inside a word the short ə is the small hamza ٔ placed on a consonant, as in کٔشیٖر, Kəshīr, the Kashmiri name of Kashmir. The hamza below, ٕ, writes the short ɨ, a vowel between i and u said with spread lips, and the wavy hamza below, ٟ, writes the long ɨː. Unicode once had a single letter for alif with that mark, ٳ, but now asks writers to type alif followed by ٟ (اٟ) instead.

Kashmiri distinguishes short o from long o: short o is written وٚ (waw plus a small-v-above mark), while plain و writes long o. ۄ, waw with a small ring, writes ɔ; ۆ occurs in some Kashmiri text but is not the recommended spelling. ٗ, the ulta pesh or inverted damma, sits on و for a long ū, and ٖ, the small alif below called khaṛī zer, appears on ی in words such as کٔشیٖر. The familiar َ zabar, ِ zer and ُ pesh write a, i and u.

ؠ, the Kashmiri yeh, is not a vowel at all. Written at the end of a word, it shows that the consonant before it is palatalised, said with the tongue raised toward the hard palate, a difference that changes the word. It is a separate letter from ی and ے, and Unicode named it after the language: U+0620 ARABIC LETTER KASHMIRI YEH.

Kashmiri script in Devanagari and Sharada

Many Kashmiri Pandits, the Hindu Kashmiris, write the language in Devanagari, the script of Hindi, and CLDR keeps a Devanagari letter set for Kashmiri too. Kashmiri has no native voiced aspirates, so the letters घ, झ, ढ, ध and भ occur in unassimilated Sanskrit and Hindi loan spellings. The nukta ़ after च and छ gives च़ and छ़ for the Kashmiri affricates ts and tsh, and the candra signs ॅ and ॉ help write Kashmiri's own vowels; the language's name is written कॉशुर.

Before either, Kashmir wrote in Sharada, the script of medieval Kashmir, named after the goddess Sharada of the temple Sharada Peeth. For centuries it carried Sanskrit and Kashmiri manuscripts, and Kashmiri Pandit priests kept using it for religious texts and horoscopes long after Perso-Arabic had become the everyday script. Sharada was added to Unicode in 2012, in version 6.1. Its letters are here for readers of old manuscripts and for learners reviving it; they need a font such as Noto Sans Sharada.

How to type Kashmiri letters

On a computer, the easiest start is an Urdu keyboard, which types every letter Kashmiri shares with Urdu. Windows: add Urdu under Settings › Time & language › Language & region and switch with Win + Space. Mac: add Urdu in System Settings › Keyboard › Input Sources. The Kashmiri letters and marks are then quickest by code. In Word, type the code and press Alt + X: 0672 ٲ, 06C4 ۄ, 065A ٚ (after waw for short o), 0620 ؠ, 0654 ٔ, 0655 ٕ, 065F ٟ, 0657 ٗ. On Linux press Ctrl + Shift + U, type the code and press Enter; in HTML write ٲ and so on.

On phones, Gboard and other keyboard apps offer Kashmiri layouts; search the language list for Kashmiri. For Devanagari, a Hindi keyboard types every letter in the Devanagari rows; add the nukta after च or छ for च़ and छ़. Kashmiri text shows correctly only in a font that knows its letters, so if ٲ, ۄ or ؠ turn into boxes, switch to a Nastaliq or Naskh font with Kashmiri support, or simply tap any letter on this page to copy it.

Where Kashmiri is spoken

India's 2011 census counted about 6.8 million Kashmiri speakers, most in Jammu and Kashmir 🇮🇳, especially the Kashmir Valley around Srinagar, Anantnag, Baramulla and Sopore, and the Chenab valley districts of Doda and Kishtwar. Pakistan's 2023 census recorded 274,080 Kashmiri mother-tongue speakers in the areas it covered; Kashmiri families also live in cities in both countries and abroad. Kashmiri is one of the 22 languages of the Eighth Schedule of India's constitution, and since 2020 an official language of Jammu and Kashmir, alongside Dogri, Hindi, Urdu and English.

It is the language of the shikara boatmen on Dal Lake and of the floating vegetable market held there at dawn, of the mystic verses of Lal Ded and Nund Rishi, and of the wazwan wedding feast. For its neighbours see the Urdu collection, which shares most of these letters, the Hindi collection for Devanagari, and Dogri, Gujari and Balti, the other languages of the region.