English-speaking grandma from Kashmir takes internet by storm

INTERNATIONAL DESK: A 36-second video of an elderly Kashmiri woman flaunting her newly acquired English skills has taken the internet by storm.

The video, which was originally uploaded on Twitter by one Syed Sleet Shah, has found its way to other platforms such as Whatsapp and Facebook as well.

The young man names certain fruit, vegetables and animals in Kashmiri and asks the woman, clad in traditional attire and easily looks to be in her 80s, to identify them in English.

Though she falters the first time while identifying ‘cat’, she then makes up for it by pronouncing the animal as ‘kyaet’, and her overbearing Kashmiri pronunciation seems to have won over the people.

She goes on to identify onion, apple, garlic and dog in a unique accent, and the video has become a social media hit.

Although the location of the woman is not known, the accent of the man recording the video suggests that they belong to a rural district of the valley. Many Twitter users responded with kind comments on the post.

“The fluency of Kashmiris in English – even of people in their 80s is always impressive – ia (is) it because the languages have a mother root?” one of the users wrote.