Known for its unique morphology, the Koshur language, more commonly called Kashmiri, is spoken by more than five million people in some 14 dialects. It is the only Asiatic language that bears a resemblance to English in its structure of subject-object agreement. Yet while linguists continue to argue over its unique origin and script, successive state and central governments have directly contributed to the degeneration of Koshur. From a state of 'language attrition', there is now a situation of outright language loss. The market-driven primary-education system in the state is the main reason for this decline.
It was only after Maharaja Hari Singh's rule in J & K ended during the late 1940s that the nearly 900-year-old Kashmiri language was finally introduced into schools at the primary level, not only as a subject but also as a medium of instruction. It was not to last. A handful of Hindu and Buddhist leaders resisted the move, and the decision was withdrawn almost immediately. Since then, the state government has several times announced moves to introduce Kashmiri as an optional subject in primary schools, but this plan has never been implemented.
The language had been similarly weakened over the centuries by Kashmir's rulers, administrators and state government, all of which opted for Urdu as the official state language. While Kashmiri today remains restricted to spoken interactions, a slim majority (53 percent) of people in the multilingual state of J & K do still speak Kashmiri. While it was never declared a court language, even in its homeland, Koshur resolutely remains a people's language amidst official indifference.
The Kashmir Valley elite have something of a history of adopting foreign languages, such as Persian, Sanskrit and Urdu. It was thus these languages that found their ways into the royal courts and corridors of state government. In this process, those voices urging official patronage for the native language were often suppressed in the wake of high-pitched arguments based on national or regional unity. Sixty years after the end of the Dogra monarchy, Kashmir's middle and upper classes are again repeating history, and learning Urdu, English or Pahari. Rather than imbibing it naturally, the Koshur mother tongue is being consciously transferred to the young only as an afterthought, if at all. With this gradual alienation from the language, there now appears on the horizon a generation of Kashmiris who will speak their mother tongue only as a symbol – akin to the shikarawallas, the famed boatmen of Dal Lake, speaking fragments of French.