The Vanishing Voice of Valley

As the Kashmiri language fades from homes, classrooms, and public life, the region risks losing more than just words.

- Younus Yousuf Ganie

When people think about Kashmir, they mostly think about politics. But what’s slipping away silently, with barely any attention, is the Kashmiri language itself.

The language is thinning out from homes, schools, and streets. It is not just the loss of a way to speak. It is the loss of a way to remember, to think, to exist.

The Kashmiri language once carried the songs of the fields, the rhythms of villages, the sharp wit of grandmothers, the poetry of Habba Khatoon. It was the language of long fireside talks, of folk tales that travelled across mountains.

Now, it’s mostly reduced to a murmur in rural homes and brief exchanges between older people. It rarely enters classrooms. It is absent from the daily life of cities. It is missing from the spaces where young people shape their futures.

The breakdown didn't happen overnight. The migration of Kashmiri Pandits in the 1990s tore a deep wound into the culture. They were among the strongest keepers of the language, and their forced departure left entire strands of Kashmiri speech without a home.

Then the decades of conflict pushed cultural life to the side. Survival took priority, and language slipped further into silence.