Preface
This
book is aimed at enabling you to write Kashmiri in the Roman script. Most people
are familiar with this script, since English and a number of other languages are
written in it.
We have written this book
keeping in mind two kinds of readers: the first comprise those who already know
how to speak Kashmiri. Such people would need to write the language, to express
their thoughts in it, and to use it to preserve the vast "spoken
riches" of the language. We f.mp3ly believe that this large number of
Kashmiri - speaking people are really keen to express themselves in writing, but
are unable to do so for want of an effective script. The second group comprises
that large body of interested persons, who are keen to learn Kashmiri, even
though they do not know the Devnagri or the Persian scripts. For them, this book
will open up the possibilities of learning Kashmiri without having to go through
the painful process of first learning a "new" script and then moving
on to the language.
We are conscious of the fact
that attempts to popularize the Devnagri and the Persian script for Kashmiri
have been made; but very few Kashmiris today use those scripts. We attribute
this solely to the widespread use of English today, and feel that the time has
now come to introduce a simple and effective method of writing Kashmiri in Roman
script.
The only pre-requisites for
picking up the script are an adequate knowledge of English. If you already know
Kashmiri, that will help. But once you have mastered the script, you can
dispense with the "tool" that we have used to explain the script to
you (namely, the English language) and proceed strictly in Kashmiri.
A lot of work has been done by
researchers in the past to develop an effective Roman script for Kashmiri.
Sadly, all those efforts remained strictly confined within the walls of
academia, and no Kashmiri speaking individual ever could use such scripts. We
do, however, acknowledge the immense contribution made by all such researchers
in India and abroad.
We hope this book finally serves
to encourage the writing of more and more books in Kashmiri by modern Kashmiris.
December 1996
- Bharat Wakhlu
- Omkar N. Wakhlu
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