SRINAGAR: After alleged spelling mistakes in the Urdu lettering on the new `2,000 banknotes, Kashmiri experts have pointed out mistakes in Kashmiri language as well.

In the trouble-torn Valley, language experts are seeing the mistake as “insensitive”.

On the new note, Kashmiri spelling for two thousand rupees, which reads as “ze saas ropiye”, has been spelt with a wrong alphabet, changing the phonetics and pronunciation of the word. Instead of using alphabet ‘zaal’, the note starts with ‘zea’, which is a spelling mistake.

Earlier, many scholars were miffed that the new pink-coloured notes had at least three spelling mistakes in Urdu.

The first Urdu alphabet ‘dal’ has been written in a way that it reads ‘laam’, changing the entire word and the meaning of the word ‘do’ (two) to ‘lo’. The second word ‘hazaar’ (thousand) has a dot underneath the ‘ha’, so it is read as ‘bay’, making the word ‘bazaar’ instead of ‘hazaar’.

The words together read ‘lo bazaar’ instead of the intended ‘do hazaar’. Both Urdu and Kashmiri languages are written right-to left in an extension of the Persian alphabet, which is itself an extension of the Arabic alphabet. Speaking to Hindustan Times, language experts in Srinagar call it insensitivity.

“It is wrong and shows insensitivity towards the languages. The government should have been careful and it needs to be corrected,” said Shujaat Bhukari, president Adabi Markaz Kamraaz, a body working towards promotion of the Kashmri language.

Experts feel it shows carelessness on government’s part. “It is either carelessness or a deliberate attempt to insult a language. Why are such mistakes only in Urdu and Kashmiri only,” questioned Imdad Saqi, convener, Tehreek Baqa Urdu, another body working for the promotion of Urdu and other regional languages.

A Kashmiri woman said the spelling was so basic that a school-going child could have pointed it out.