Kashmiri/Lesson 1

= Phonology and Alphabet = Kashmiri, like other languages, has some sounds in common with English. In case some sound in common to both English and Kashmiri, or the former has a sound approximately the same as a Kashmiri sound, a description is given in terms of the English sound. However, Kashmiri possesses a lot of sounds not found in English or other Indo-Aryan languages.

Just a heads up: there are some subtleties in the actual articulation of these sounds, but not knowing them initially won't reduce your level of intelligibility to a native speaker. These subtleties are covered progressively in upcoming lessons.

Vowels
This section covers vowels found in Kashmiri.

Palatalisation
Kashmiri, like Russian, possesses a set of palatalised consonants, which can be thought of as regular consonants but pronounced with the middle part of the tongue raised towards the roof of the mouth. Don't focus too hard on Russian, since there is a difference in Kashmiri and Russian palatalise their consonants. All consonants can be palatalised, except these: c, ch, j. These sounds are palatalised by definition, so they cannot be palatalised further.

Palatalisation is important in Kashmiri. In fact, palatalising a consonant can completely change the meaning of a word. In some cases, a word might exist with some consonant palatalised and not without palatalisation, and vice versa.

Examples As you can see, palatalisation plays an important part in forming plurals. However, there is more to palatalisation than just this specific use.

Palatalisation is indicated in this course in but the case of 'e' and 'i', both of which are considered to palatalise the preceding consonant in all cases. So, in beni 'sister(s)', the 'b' is palatalised due to being followed by an 'e' sound.