Kashmiri

Kashmiri, the dominant people of Kashmir, North-West India, who are of nearly pure Aryan stock; tall, strong, well-built, with regular European features, light olive and even fair or ruddy complexion. The language (Kashur) is a Prakrit, or Neo-Sanskritic tongue, spoken with considerable diversity in the different provinces, and overcharged with Persian elements. It is a harsh, rude language, which appears never to have been cultivated, although there was an old Kashmiri alphabet, the so-called Sharada Achhar, which was introduced into Tibet in the 7th century. This script appears to have been used exclusively for Sanskrit works, and is, in fact, incapable of rendering the peculiar Kashmiri phonetics. Modern Kashur is written with the Persian alphabet, at least by the Mohammedans, who form the bulk of the population; inhabitants of Kashur speech about 1,650,000 (1891).