Long Records
Kashmir Orthography Project Document
Author : Long Records (Yaver Javid)
Organisation: Kashmir Orthography Project

Aims

It’s meant to give a roman script to the Kashmiri such that:

  1. It is accurate to the pronunciation
  2. In some sense it adheres to the cultural norms of the speakers
  3. To give it a unique style

Reason :

To make Kashmiri more accessible in this age of romanisation.

Rules

  1. All vowels and consonants should be written explicitly.
  2. The consonants are :
    Letter Example Letter Example
    B Ch Chure (Gun Powder) (t͡ʃʰ)
    Tch Tchalakh (Wise) (t͡ʃ) Cx Cxaman’y (Cheese) (t͡s)
    Cxh Cxhaï (Shadow) (t͡sʰ) D Dukan (Shop)
    Dd Ddandde (Stick) F
    G H
    J K
    Kh Khar (Donkey) L
    M N
    P Pf Pfëran (Winter Cloak)
    Q For Arabic Qaaf R
    S Sch
    T Talvaar (Sword) Tt Ttamaattar (Tomatos)
    Th Thael’y (Plate) Tth Tthande (Cold)
    V Y
    Z
  3. X doesn’t exist independently. W will be only for English words.
  4. The Vowels/Phones Are :
    Glyph Example Usage IPA Long Form Example Usage IPA
    A KHAR (Donkey) /a/ AA BAAR (Weight) /aː/
    E Bate (Rice) /ɨ/ AE Taer (Cold) /ɨː/
    C WCLUR (Wular Lake) /ɔ/ CA SCAD (One and a Quarter) /ɔː/
    O Mor (Chicken Coop) /o/ Oa Doar (Era) /oː/
    Ë KHË (Eat) /ʲa~e/ Ĺ Ärandul (Rake) /ʲaː~eː/
    I BËNI (Sister) /i/ EE TEEL (Oil) /iː/
    U PUJ (Butcher) /u/ OO ZOOL (Lights) /uː/
    Ï KHÏ (Rust) /ai/ AÏ CXHAÏ (Shadow) /aːi/
    Ö SÖ (Nettle) /oai/ OÖ BOÖ (Brother) /oːai/
    Ü NÜL (Raw) /ju/ ÜÜ NÜÜL (Blue) /juː/
    Æ Kær (Wood Beam) /ə/ ÆA Kæaschur (Kashmiri) /əː/
  5. ¹ Ä should not be used if the sound comes at the end. Use é instead. Also for the izafat either use é in the middle with spaces on the both sides or connected it to the first word eg hayaaté javidaa'n, hayaat é javidaan
  6. The nasalisation should be marked after the vowel by ‘n. If the palatalisation is in between a phone you may just use '.
  7. The palatalisation should be marked after the consonant by ‘y or simply by ', but in case the next letter is n or y then it must be the full 'y.
  8. The sentence should start with a capital letter.
  9. All proper nouns should be capitalised & nouns may be capitalised.
  10. These are the symbols :
    Symbol Usage
    . For ending the sentences
    ; Marking the end of a thought in a sentence
    “ For quoting
    : Introduces a short or long description/realisation/inference of the clause preceding it.
    ? Ending The Questions
    , To pause or to separate
    ! Marking The Emphasis
    () Parenthesis
    & Short For “te” in Kashmiri.
    / Short for “or” between a list of nouns
    é:n The sound made in the central Kashmir to say "yes".
  11. The letter daad is pronounced as zaad in Kashmiri hence it will be represented by z. Unless you are quoting Arabic or writing the Quran's Transliteration.
  12. For tashdeed you may put a hyphen between the letters, if you must.
  13. The word Allah should be written as it is: “Allah”.
  14. Arabic words with AL in the beginning shall be written with a hyphen in between, eg. Al-Kitaab, Ar-Risaala etc. If the word is capitalised then the starting letter of both parts should be capital letters.
  15. For Arabic imports ending with ta-marbuta shall be marked with ht, eg. Madrasaht, Madrasaht ul Uloom.
  16. Arabic Joiner “ul” & Persain "o" shall be marked with e and o respectively eg. Uloom o Fanoon.
  17. Names from Arabic can be written as it is or by their adapted pronunciation. But words shall be written as they are pronounced in Kashmiri.
  18. Bh, Jh, Ddh, Dh & Gh aren’t found in Kashmiri hence they must be written as B, J, Dd, D & G for the Urdu/Hindi imports.
  19. WG shall be used for wagairah like the English “etc”.
  20. LN should be used to introduce the list of examples. Like the English “eg”.
  21. For common era dates use “ee” (stands for eesvi) at the end of the date and for hijri use “h” eg 1400h, 1506ee, 12-Joon-2012, 12-ramzan-1400 etc.
  22. The English numerical system & English mathematical symbols should be used.
  23. [Yithï] should be used like the English [sic.]
  24. Actual Kashmiri pronunciations of Place Names should be spelled. Like Pulvom etc.