and are
high front unrounded vowels. These are close to Hindi-Urdu
as in milna: 'to meet' and
as in asli: 'real'. They are also like the vowels in English bit
and beat, respectively.
In Kashmiri
and are
in free-variation with palatalized glides yi and yi: in initial
position. In initial position
and are
found in the speech of educated Kashmiri speakers, while yi and
yi:
have a high frequency in the speech of uneducated Kashmiris. This may be
partly due to the influence of Hindi-Urdu.
Introduction
