The Burushaski language is considered a language isolate (i.e, has no known historical or linguistic relationship to any other languages) by many linguists. Burushaski is spoken by around 350 people of the Burusho community of Kashmir and around 100,000 people of the Hunza, Nagar and Gupis-Yasin districts in Gilgit-Baltistan. Photo: Nazrah Khan and Darash Dawood
Culture
How a unique language survives in Kashmir’s tiny Burusho community
Despite being a small population, the Burusho community has been able to preserve their language through intergenerational communication and by prioritising their mother tongue over other languages in Kashmir
The Burushaski language is considered a language isolate (i.e. it has no known historical or linguistic relationship to any other languages) by many linguists. Burushaski is spoken by around 350 people of the Burusho community of Kashmir and around 100,000 people of the Hunza, Nagar and Gupis-Yasin districts in Gilgit-Baltistan.
Most members of the Burusho community in Kashmir are descendants of two former kings of the erstwhile princely states of Hunza and Nagar (located in present-day Gilgit-Baltistan). The community migrated to Kashmir in 1888 after their forefathers were persecuted by the British.