International Journal of Linguistics Studies ISSN: 2754-2599 DOI: 10.32996/ijls Journal Homepage: www.al-kindipublisher.com/index.php/ijls IJLS AL-KINDI CENTER FOR RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT Copyright: © 2024 the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Published by Al-Kindi Centre for Research and Development, London, United Kingdom. Page | 8 | RESEARCH ARTICLE Language Maintenance and Language Shift of Poguli Spoken in Jammu and Kashmir, India Dr. Neelofar Hussain Wani 1 ✉ and Dr. Sarwat Un Nisa 2 12 King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia Corresponding Author: Dr. Neelofar Hussain Wani, E-mail: nwani@kku.edu.sa | ABSTRACT The present paper involves a comprehensive language maintenance and shift of Poguli. It seeks to look at their sociolinguistic profile to understand the influence of the majority ethnic/linguistic community with their language on this group. It focuses on the language maintenance and language shift of the Poguli speech community living in Chinab valley of Jammu and Kashmir and tries to study and understand their linguistic usage, patterns of language use, identity, status, and patterns of language use occurring in this community. To make matters more interesting, this Poguli speech community is dominated by many neighbouring languages and attempts to look at the levels of influence of these languages on this community. The paper is an attempt to postulate where this linguistic battle is likely to lead. | KEYWORDS Dialectology, Poguli, Contexts of Acquisition, maintenance and shift, retention, identity. | ARTICLE INFORMATION ACCEPTED: 01 April 2024 PUBLISHED: 08 April 2024 DOI: 10.32996/ijls.2024.4.2.2 1. Introduction Jammu and Kashmir were the northern-most states of India. Now, it is India's union territory. After the Government of India repealed the special status accorded to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Indian constitution in 2019, the parliament of India passed the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act, which contained provisions that dissolved the state and reorganized it into two union territories- Jammu and Kashmir in the west and Ladakh in the east, with effect the from 31 st October 2019. 1 Understanding the complex dynamics of language development in a multi-lingual region like Jammu and Kashmir is not only a challenging task but also important for creating informed opinions about the status of languages and their role in identity formation. A long history of language contact has often obscured the original linguistic differences between various languages spoken in the region, and sometimes, it is almost impossible to tell which language has influenced which language. As is the case of other parts of the subcontinent, multilingualism is mostly a norm in this region, especially in the areas of multi-ethnic contact. In the context of Jammu & Kashmir, Urdu was the only official language before September 2020 and is the most used language in the public domain, especially in educational institutions, government offices and media, though now English appears to be steadily taken over Urdu. Urdu is also the main language of the Jammu and Kashmir media, which includes radio, television, and newspapers. Now, from September 2020 onwards, Kashmir, Dogri, Hindi, Urdu and English are now official languages of Jammu and Kashmir. With respect to second language proficiency in Urdu, Hindi, Dogri, Siraji, Kashtiwari and Kashmiri, there are varying degrees of multilingualism among Poguli speakers based on various social factors. 1 . Jammu Kashmir Article 370: Govt revokes Article 370 from Jammu and Kashmir, bifurcates state into two Union Territories". The Times of India. PTI. 5 August 2019.