The study reports the findings of a survey undertaken to comprehend the factors that have enabled a group of around 350 Burushos to maintain their ethnic identity including their language after 125 years of their immigration to Kashmir in Jammu and Kashmir State of India. The group has been able to resist the assimilatory forces and has maintained itself as a distinct entity vis-a-vis the dominant Kashmiri host society. The study has drawn upon the empirical tool of ethnolinguistic vitality as a reflection of the group’s sustainability as a collective entity in terms of their ethnic as well as linguistic identity. The study also reveals the attitude of native Kashmiris towards the group as perceived by group members. This perceived attitude of the group members has been explained in terms of its bearing on the vitality and identity of the group. The study is based on 50 semi-structured questionnaires and four unstructured interviews. The questionnaire has been partly developed on the basis of six factors identified by UNESCO (2003) in the evaluation of ethnolinguistic vitality. The paper concludes that an ethnically small immigrant group can survive the assimilatory forces and maintain their ethnic identity even if the ethnolinguistic vitality of the group is quite low on most of the measurable factors.
Gurezi Shina is a lesser known variety of Shina language being spoken by the inhabitants of Gurez, a remote northern valley in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. The paper reports a part of the findings of a major research study, undertaken for the description and documentation of this language with an aim to substantiate efforts for its preservation. The paper is a first attempt to present the sound system of Gurezi Shina in detail; the vowels and consonants of the language have been identified through minimal pair of words. Distribution of sounds in words are given in detail. An introduction to the linguistic classification of the language has also been presented. The data for the study have been collected during several field visits to Gurez valley.
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