'Mubarak' or 'Poushta'
By Maharaj Krishen Raina
For quite some time now, there
has been a debate on the internet
whether we need to say
‘Mubarak’ or ‘Poushta’ while greeting on Herat, Navreh etc. Some
enthusiasts, particularly from our younger
generation, strongly advocate removal of
word ‘Mubarak’ from the Kashmiri vocabulary on the plea that it is a Persian
word thrusted upon us during the Afghan
rule, while, according to their views
Poushta is the original word which we need
to put to use instead. While persuading
people to use words like ‘Poushta’wherever suited, can not be termed as
wrong, discontinuation of use of words like
‘Mubarak’ can only be detrimental to the Kashmiri language. It is ‘Mubarak’ today, itcan be another word tomorrow. Do we
need to cleanse our language of all the
words which we think are Persian or Arabic
in nature, hence alien.
In today’s world, there is freedom of speech. Any body and every body is
entitled to put forth his or her views on
any subject and invite people to listen to
him or her. However, the freedom of
speech does not mean one should enforce
one’s views without conviction. In the first place, we need to understand the
evolution of Kashmiri language.
Vedic Sanskrit is the original source of
our language because it is said to have been
the language people of Kashmir spoke
about six thousand years back. Some
people argue that Kashmiri has nothing to
do with Sanskrit. In their opinion, main
source of the Kashmiri language is Dardi
and many of its words have come from
Shina. Again a section believes that
F Kashmiri has also been influenced by Ibrani
spoken by Jews, who lived
in Kashmir long back.
European scholar Buhler
even suggests that
Kashmiri is more akin to
Sindhi than to Sanskrit.
In a research article,
Late Ramchand Kaul states that Kashmiri
language went through many changes and
adopted words from Chinese, Tibetan,
Russian, Persian, Arabic, Punjabi etc. to
reach the present state. Another European
Scholar G.T.Vane has come to this conclusion
that Kashmiri language is comprised of 50 %
Sanskrit, 10 % Persian, 5 % Hindi and 2 %
Arabic words, rest of the words are Tibetan,
Dardi and Dogri. So, will it be worthwhile to
free our language of all Persian and Arabic
words? I am sure, not. Even
Mahamahopadhyaya Mukund Ram Shastri
and Sir George Grierson have not been able
to do so while compiling the Dictionary of
Kashmiri Language.
In one of the e-mails addressed to our
young generation, Shri T.N.Dhar Kundan,
our Consulting Editor and a well known
scholar has rightly said that a language grows
by adopting and assimilating words from
other languages. Once this is stopped there
will be stagnation. Taking cue from Kundan
Sahib, I would like to ask if we can have
replacement for the words directly
borrowed from Persian and Arabic like etc. which we so vehemently use in our daily life.
Source: Milchar
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