Abstract

This paper on the Mithilanchal Urdu, a dialect of the Indo-Aryan language family, would be an interesting study in the time of the Corona Pandemic, as it may be considered a minority language or dialect and such languages and dialects have been found to be especially vulnerable in the times of calamities like the present COVID-19 pandemic. However, this paper would basically provide a baseline upon which post-pandamic studies can be based for exploring the effect of the pandemic. The present study reflects the segmental phonology of Maithili Urdu, a dialect of the Indo-Aryan language family, spoken mainly in the Mithilanchal region of the state of Bihar in India. Maithili Urdu does not have its own script or literature, yet it has maintained an oral history over many centuries. It has contributed in enriching the Maithili, Hindi and Urdu language and literature very profoundly. There are ten vowels in Maithili Urdu. It would be very interesting to know that out of these, there are four front vowels, four back vowels, and two central vowels. Lip rounding is not distinctive, but only the back vowels are rounded. Out of these ten vowels, three are short and seven are long. Length, thus, is a distinctive feature in Maithili Urdu, where short and long vowels show full phonological opposition in all positions. These are all pure vowels, non-nasalized. All vowels in Maithili Urdu can be nasalized. Consonantal phonemes in Maithili Urdu show four-way contrast between voiceless and voiced and unaspirated and aspirated at bilabial, dental, retroflex, palatal, velar, and glottal places of articulation. Phonetically, affricates also behave like stops. Similarly, the taps, laterals, and nasals also show a two-way contrast between unaspirated and aspirated. Aspiration, thus, is an overriding characteristic of the Maithili Urdu sound system. This study has greatly benifited from the similar work done by Dixit, 1963; Halle & Mohannan 1985; Masud Husain Khan, 1986; Hyman, 2003. In this paper, a brief overview of segmental phonology of Maithili Urdu will be presented wherein vowels and consonants and their phonotactic behavior will be described in detail.

Highlights

  • The present work is a grammatical description of Mithilanchal Urdu, a dialect of the Indo-Aryan language family, spoken by around twenty percent speakers mainly in the Mithilanchal region of the state of Bihar in India

  • Very rich in literary style, Mithilanchal Urdu has maintained a literary history over many decades

  • Mithilanchal region lies across the Aravalli mountain range to the northwest; Ajmer lies to the north; Wagar region of Rajasthan and Gujarat lies to the south; Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh state lies to the southeast; and the Harauti region of Rajasthan lies to the east

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

The present work is a grammatical description of Mithilanchal Urdu, a dialect of the Indo-Aryan language family, spoken by around twenty percent speakers mainly in the Mithilanchal region of the state of Bihar in India. It is spoken by a majority of the Mithilanchal diaspora community. Very rich in literary style, Mithilanchal Urdu has maintained a literary history over many decades. It has contributed in enriching the Hindi and Urdu language and literature very profoundly

Geography
Sociolinguistic data
Existing research
Vowels
Central vowels
Vowel length
Consonants
Description of individual consonantal phonemes with allophonic variations
VIII. Contrast of articulation
XIII. Consonantal length
Diphthongs
Stress
Intonation
XVI.Concluding remarks
XVII. REFERENCES
Author Declaration
Full Text
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