Abstract
Abstract Four Indo-Aryan linguistic varieties are spoken in the state of Jharkhand in eastern central India, Sadri/Nagpuri, Khortha, Kurmali and Panchparganiya, which are considered by most linguists to be dialects of other, larger languages of the region, such as Bhojpuri, Magahi and Maithili, although their speakers consider them to be four distinct but closely related languages, collectively referred to as “Sadani”. In the present paper, we first make use of the program COG by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) to show that these four varieties do indeed form a distinct, compact genealogical group within the Magadhan language group of Indo-Aryan. We then go on to argue that the traditional classification of these languages as dialects of other languages appears to be based on morphosyntactic differences between these four languages and similarities with their larger neighbors such as Bhojpuri and Magahi, differences which have arisen due to the different contact situations in which they are found.
Highlights
While the first official language of the state of Jharkhand in eastern central India is Hindi, over 96% of the state population speaks a local tribal or regional language as their first (L1) or second language (L2) on a daily basis, and only 3.7% of the people speak Hindi as their first language (JTWRI 2013:4–5)
Four Indo-Aryan linguistic varieties are spoken in the state of Jharkhand in eastern central India, Sadri/Nagpuri, Khortha, Kurmali and Panchparganiya, which are considered by most linguists to be dialects of other, larger languages of the region, such as Bhojpuri, Magahi and Maithili, their speakers consider them to be four distinct but closely related languages, collectively referred to as “Sadani”
The preceding sections have shown that Sadri/Nagpuri, Khortha, Kurmali and Panchparganiya form a clear, compact genealogical Sadani group within the Magadhan sub-group of Indo-Aryan, and all four of the quantitative analyses undertaken, i.e., UPGMA and Neighbor-Joining for both lexical and phonetic similarity, show that all four Sadani languages are more closely related to one another than to any other language in the family, including the other Magadhan languages
Summary
While the first official language of the state of Jharkhand in eastern central India is Hindi, over 96% of the state population speaks a local tribal or regional language as their first (L1) or second language (L2) on a daily basis, and only 3.7% of the people speak Hindi as their first language (JTWRI 2013:4–5). More general meaning, and that which reflects the situation in Jharkhand today, Sadani refers to the four closely related Indo-Aryan varieties Panchparganiya, Khortha, Kurmali and Sadri/Nagpuri collectively, which are spoken throughout Jharkhand and neighboring states. These four varieties are generally considered independent languages in the region. All four of these languages belong to what has often been referred to as the “Bihari” branch of Indo-Aryan, a term going back at least to Grierson (1903) which includes the Sadani languages in our use of the term and Bhojpuri, Maithili,. We deal with this topic in detail and suggest, based on preliminary data, that the local tradition very likely best represents the genealogical classification of these languages
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