Linguistics Group FJWU 2015: Purik – The Dear Departed by Hena Khan

Assignment # 1
Submitted by Hena Khan

Purik – The Dear Departed
An Account of Language of the Lost Kargil

The Land, People and Religion

Purik is the language spoken by a group of Tibetan Muslims with a slight Dardic admixture. Puriks live south of the Balti in Ladakh and Baltistan. Majority of Purik are native to North Jammu and Kashmir, Kargil district, mainly Suru valley and Dras valley, although significant numbers reside in Leh. A considerable number of Puriks are also present in China. Take a look at the maps below:

Pakistani linguists affix strong emotional affiliations with the loss of Purik as their regional language at the hands of 1999 Kargil conflict, which placed the District into Indian Territory.

Islam forms another link between Pakistan and Puriks who are Shia Muslims by religion, although significant Sunni Muslims and a small minority of Buddhists and Bön followers also reside in isolated areas.

The Language 2001 Census records a total number of 37,700 native speakers of the language.. Like the Balti, the Puriks speak an archaic Tibetan dialect closely related to Balti and Ladakhi, though not easily intelligible with either.

A number of names for the language are popular among its users, as demonstrated below:

Various Names of Purik

Apart from its dominant use in Kargil District, many Purik have shifted to Balti due to low proficiency in Urdu. It is also used as a second language (L2) by Balti and Shina speakers where the literacy rate in L2 is 61% according to 2001 census.

Purik Language is classified as Sino-Tibetan, Tibeto-Burman, Western Tibeto-Burman, Bodish, Central Bodish, and Western Tibetan. Its code is ISO 639-3prx. Its status on the language cloud is 5 , as represented in the grid given below, which means it is a developing language being in vigorous use, with literature in a standardized forms being used by some though this is not yet widespread or sustainable. Purik is written in Arabic script [Arab] before it was being written in Tibetan script [Tibt] which is no longer in use now.

Purik in the Language Cloud

Given below is a sample Transliterated Purki text. Note especially, how language description for future referencing provides a politically biased content i.e. patriotism for the new mother Land