Initially, the main hindrance to "karkuns" was that of the language as those days the court language of Kashmir was Persian. The first thing for karkuns was to learn Persian for the sake of job hunting. They had, therefore, to drift through and pick up Persian as quickly as they possibly could. They were, in fact, able to gain a fair knowledge of Persian within a short spell of few years and attained high positions in governmental and non-governmental concerns. The converted kashmiris, on the other hand, did not respond so quickly with the result that karkuns were given due preference in all sorts of jobs in government circles.
The pandits, as a whole, had to pay heavy price towards this arrangement for their sustenance, in terms of losing hold on their on language. Gradually almost all kashmiri terms, especially nouns and adjectives, were replaced by Persian equivalents. Within a period of say 2-3 generations the old kashmiri terms faded out, with never to return, from the minds of newer generations. However, sizable portion of old kashmiri terms remained somewhat prevalent in Muslims and in far-flung areas like Kashtawar(Kishtwad) etc. , where most of the old kashmiri terms are in vogue even these days.
During the entire period from the beginning of 18th century AD. to end of 19th century AD., Persian language remained in high esteems, especially with karkun Brahmins ; so much so that, Persian knowing people were labeled as literates with high profiles and those bereft of Persian were categorized as illiterates and mean. A study of merely two primary Persian books namely "Gulistan" and "Bostan", was enough for a man to become a literate one. The matter did not end at that. Even the hymns in praises of different deities and other devotional songs (Leelas and Bhajans) where swollen with Persian terms. The famous mystic poets Pandit Krishan Joo Razdan says ".....Mushtaq loguth kaman madano.....". Same way Pandit Krishen Kar of Rainawari says ".....Mehter Chhu Panai Krishen Kar.....". There are hundreds of such instances where Persian was freely used in our devotional songs sung by Kashmiri Pandits.
In spite of these drastic changes in kashmiri language, the silver lining was that its fluidity i.e. , verb construction pattern and grammar etc. remained unchanged. All this is still going on according to what was basically derived from Sanskrit. This fluidity in kashmiri language is firm footed and hence cannot be changed under any circumstances. Even a slight amendment is not possible. This eternal quality in our language is a boon bestowed by Sanskrit.
The whole trend changed gradually during the 4th decade of 20th century. The Persian terms faded away steadily and English terms began to be used instead. Nowadays kashmiri spoken words contain nearly about 20% of English terms.
Towards the end of 17th century AD., the once flourishing kashmiri language with Shardha script in use, was reduced to a mere dialect with no script of its own. "Nastalek" script was tried and used but it did not fit in well to meet the requirements of most of the sounds spoken in kashmiri. Similarly, pandits on their part used Hindi pattern of Devanagari script which again was found miserably unsuitable for accommodating all the sounds (vowels). It became too difficult to read and write kashmiri freely in either of these two scripts. Hence people of both the communities got dispirited in learning kashmiri language as a subject like Hindi, English or Urdu etc.
To be continued in the next post...
By CL Nagri
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