Bhadarwahi language

Bhadarwahi (Bhadrawahi) is an Indo-Aryan language of the Western Pahari group spoken by the Bhadarwahi people of the Bhaderwah region of Indian administered Jammu and Kashmir.

The name Bhadarwahi can be understood either in a narrow sense as referring to the dialect, locally known as Bhiḍlāi, native to the Bhadarwah valley, or in a broader sense to cover the group of related dialects spoken in the wider region where Bhadarwahi proper is used as a lingua franca. In addition to Bhadarwahi proper, this group also includes Bhalesi, and Khasali (Khashali) dialect. The Churahi language is closely related.

Wiktionary has a category on Bhadrawahi language.

This article contains Indic text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks or boxes, misplaced vowels or missing conjuncts instead of Indic text.

The name of the language is spelt in the Takri as 𑚡𑚛𑚤𑚦𑚭𑚩𑚯. Variants include Bhaderwahi (𑚡𑚛𑚲𑚤𑚦𑚭𑚩𑚯), Baderwali (𑚠𑚛𑚲𑚤𑚦𑚭𑚥𑚯), Bhadri (𑚡𑚛𑚤𑚯), Badrohi (𑚠𑚛𑚶𑚤𑚴𑚩𑚯), Bhadlayi (𑚡𑚛𑚥𑚭𑚣𑚯), and Bhadlai (𑚡𑚛𑚥𑚭𑚃).

Phonology

**Vowels**
	Front	Central	Back
High	iː		uː
Lower High	i		u
Mid	e eː		oː
Lower Mid		ə	o
Low			ɑː

**Consonants**
		Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m		n		ɳ	ɲ
Stop	voiceless	p	t̪			ʈ	t͡ʃ	k
	aspirated	pʰ	t̪ʰ			ʈʰ	t͡ʃʰ	kʰ
	voiced	b	d̪			ɖ	d͡ʒ	ɡ
	breathy	bʱ	d̪ʱ			ɖʱ	d͡ʒʱ	ɡʱ
Fricative	voiceless			s	ʃ		ç çʰ		h
Fricative	voiced			z zʱ
Approximant		w		l			j
Trill				r
Flap or Tap						ɽ

According to Masica (1991) there are a set of lateral retroflex affricates /ʈ͡ꞎ ɖ͡𝼅 ɖ͡𝼅ʱ/ from old /Cr/ clusters.

Status

The language is commonly called Pahari. Some speaker may even call it a dialect of Dogri. The language has no official status. According to the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the language is of definitely endangered category, i.e. many Bhadravahi parents are not teaching this language to the children with which the number of its native speakers is decreasing. Some other languages, such as Kashmiri and Urdu/Hindi are taking this place. This is an archetypical natural human tendency of picking up the language of people placed better economically and socially.

Notable events

A daily news headlines program is broadcast by a news outlet The Chenab Times in Sarazi and Bhaderwahi languages to promote them.