Kashmiri in Social Media

December 11, 2011

Post your comments at the bottom of this page.

Using Roman script for Kashmiri hardly projects anyone as conscious or conscientious. The script is a part of the “personality” of a language. I believe we all agree Kashmiri should be written in Kashmiri script; in Karnataka, Kannada is written in Kannada script .

Computer, the greatest achievement of human innovation, has come to stay; we need to come to grips with it. We need to face its challenges by constant and cooperative effort; we need to tame it; in plain English, we need to be computer-literate.

It was perhaps 1956/57 when my good teacher, Prof. J. L. Kaul, then an Advisor to Radio Kashmir, had to approve my script of a “Talk”, basically for political correctness, before it could be broadcast. But the teacher in him could not and would not ignore its linguistic aspect. Calling me to his room and pointing to a certain word, he asked me to read it out for him. When I did, he frowned, “Yes, that it is; I was only thinking by what trick of my imagination I could read it.” [I was quite a grownup person of 22/23 then.] The traditional teacher’s stick of this sentence strikes my “palm” even today.

I am not comforted or consoled when some writers choose to use “tricks of imagination” to write their quite beautiful and thoughtful Kashmiri poetic compositions in Roman script; each at peace with the way he likes. My own tricks of imagination fail to read some of their lines; that leaves me frustrated.

A good teacher, Prof. J. L. Kaul would call it vagarious. Good teachers, Prof. Hajni and Prof. Toshkhani would wonder what they spent their lives for. I am not talking of errors someone may make in writing. In media like Facebook, you don’t look for someone’s errors or mistakes. The problem here is that no standard is fixed or followed. Do I want us to fix standards for writing Kashmiri in Roman script? Though important at its own place, not certainly here.

The natural thing for us all would be to write Kashmiri in Kashmiri scripts when using our websites or social media like Facebook, Twitter and the rest.

We have lost quite a bit of Kashmiri language's literary/cultural wealth by our failure to take ourselves seriously. Most of Lal Ded’s and Nund Reshi’s poetry is not evaluated and appreciated for the much deserved beauty of its language just because that has been tattooed by haphazard ways of its recording. 50’s of 20th century and onwards, and thanks to the above mentioned leaders and their co-workers, things have appreciably improved. Any sign of our easy going attitude will subvert the achievement.

Kashmiri Keyboard:

1) has been offered by someone who worked hard for a longtime to make it, and made it user-friendly,

2) has two accompanying fonts, one Nastaleeq, and one Naskh,

3. facilitates reading Kashmiri on the Internet in many other commonly used fonts where only 2 charactes would look different,

4) is free and without any obligation, and’

5) is very close to the keyboard layout used for InPage with which some of us are already familiar. (a for Alif, etc.)

Of course, we have to put in some effort to learn to use this facility in Microsoft Office products and OpenOffice products. We also need to learn which Browsers serve us best, and learn how we may modify the “Options” in our Browser. I am sure all this is much easier than passing the Matriculation Examination that many of us have comfortably done. We can do things. Neab and its complimentary programs are offering supervised space on the Web. Kashmirilanguage.com is offering free software and needed assistance if asked for.

Let us all use it.

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November 11, 2001
The Kashmiri software we made is meant to be used for educational and creative activities, and your pleasure. Download and use it. It is free.
This software is imperfect in some respects. Making mistakes is a part of the process of growth. Find the shortcomings, point them out to us; we will try our best to correct them, or, do you have a suggestion for improvement!
Electronic media is the future of the world. We have to come to grips with it. We do hope our technical experts to take notice of this little quasi-technical initiative; add to it; improve it to perfection.
Electronic equipment is developed in an atmosphere that may be significantly differ from yours. Creative efforts are needed to “tame” it for your purpose. If you are Kashmiri-speaking or Kashmiri-learner with knowledge of computer related activities help us with your contribution however small it may be.

For now, our TIP:
Does your Browser fail to satisfy your desire to see Kashmiri text properly. Internet Explorer allows you to use your option. Tell us and we will help with a little patch.
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November 14, 2011
We are happy, the premier Kashmiri software developed and humbly offered free of cost and obligation by Kashmirilanguage.com has been received with excitement and satisfaction. We think the currently existing gap between the creative activity and regular school education of the language needs to be reduced. We also believe that the use of computers for this purpose cannot be avoided and should not be delayed.

Our Thanks
To them, who realize its importance for education and language development of language, and who, notwithstanding its imperfections, offer their support, we gratefully say THANK YOU!