Kashmiri has the following vowel phonemes:
Vowels[]
Front Central Back High i iː ɨ ɨː u uː Mid unrounded. e eː ə əː ɤ ɤː rounded. ø øː ɵ ɵː o oː Low unrounded. æ æː a aː ʌ ʌː rounded. ɶ ɶː ɒ ɒː ɔ ɔː
Consonants[]
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Alveolo -palatal |
Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||||
| Stop / Affricate |
plain | p b | t d | ts | ʈ ɖ | tʃ dʒ | k ɡ | ʔ |
| aspirated | pʰ bʱ | tʰ dʱ | tsʰ | ʈʰ ɖʱ | tʃʰ dʒʱ | kʰ ɡʱ | ʔʰ | |
| Fricative | ɸ β | θ ð | s z | ʂ ʐ | ʃ ʒ | x ɣ | h ɦ | |
| Approximant | central | ɹ | j | ɰ | ||||
| labial | ɥ | w | ||||||
| lateral | l̪ | l | ʎ | ʟ | ||||
| Trill | ʙ | r̪ | r | |||||
| Flap | ⱱ̟ | ɺ | ʎ̆ | ʟ̆ | ||||
Archaisms[]
Kashmiri, as also the other Dardic languages, shows important divergences from the Indo-Aryan mainstream. One is the partial maintenance of the three sibilant consonants s ṣ ś of the Old Indo-Aryan period. For another example, the prefixing form of the number 'two', which is found in Sanskrit as dvi-, has developed into ba-/bi- in most other Indo-Aryan languages, but du- in Kashmiri (preserving the original dental stop d). Seventy-two is dusatath in Kashmiri, bahattar in Hindi-Urdu and Punjabi, and dvisaptati in Sanskrit.
Certain features in Kashmiri even appear to stem from Indo-Aryan even predating the Vedic period. For instance, there was an /s/ > /h/ consonant shift in some words that had already occurred with Vedic Sanskrit (this tendency is even stronger in the Iranian branch of Indo-Iranian), yet is lacking in Kashmiri equivalents. The word rahit in Vedic Sanskrit and modern Hindi-Urdu (meaning 'excluding' or 'without') corresponds to rost in Kashmiri. Similarly, sahit (meaning 'including' or 'with') corresponds to sost in Kashmiri.