Misplaced Pages

Northern Indo-Aryan languages

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
(Redirected from Uttarakhandi languages) Group of Indo-Aryan languages "Pahari languages" redirects here. Not to be confused with Pahari language.
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Northern Indo-Aryan languages" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Northern Indo-Aryan
Pahari
Geographic
distribution
Nepal and north-western India
Linguistic classificationIndo-European
Early formsPrakrit
Subdivisions
Language codes
Glottologindo1310
Major Indo-Aryan languages of South Asia; Northern Aryan languages are in shades of brown

The Northern Indo-Aryan languages, also known as Pahāṛi languages, are a proposed group of Indo-Aryan languages spoken in the lower ranges of the Himalayas, from Nepal in the east, through the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab (not to be confused with the various other languages with that name) was coined by G. A. Grierson.

Classification

The Pahari languages fall into three groups.

Eastern Pahari

  • Nepali is spoken by an estimated 29,100,000 people in Nepal, 265,000 people in Bhutan, and 2,500,000 people in India. It is an official language in Nepal and India.
  • Jumli is spoken by an estimated 40,000 people in the Karnali zone of Nepal.
  • Doteli spoken by an estimated 1 million people in far west Nepal.

Central Pahari

  • Kumaoni is spoken by an estimated 2,360,000 people in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand.
  • Garhwali is spoken by an estimated 2,900,000 people in Uttarakhand. Most of these are Garhwali people from the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand.

Western Pahari

Main article: Western Pahari

Comparison

Nepali alphabets, transliteration and pronunciation
Language Comparison
  Khas-kura (Nepali) Kumauni Kashmiri
  Masc Fem Masc Fem Masc Fem
I am chhu chhu chik chu chus ches
You are chhas chhes chai chi chukh chekh
He is chha chhe ch chi chuh cheh

In Eastern and Central Pahari the verb substantive is formed from the root ach, as in both Rajasthani and Kashmiri. In Rajasthani its present tense, being derived from the Sanskrit present rcchami, I go, does not change for gender. But in Pahari and Kashmiri it must be derived from the rare Sanskrit particle *rcchitas, gone, for in these languages it is a participial tense and does change according to the gender of the subject. Thus, in the singular we have: – Here we have a relic of the old Khasa language, which, as has been said, seems to have been related to Kashmiri. Other relics of Khasa, again agreeing with north-western India, are the tendency to shorten long vowels, the practice of epenthesis, or the modification of a vowel by the one which follows in the next syllable, and the frequent occurrence of disaspiration. Thus, Khas siknu, Kumauni sikno, but Hindi sikhna, to learn; Kumauni yeso, plural yasa, of this kind.

Materials regarding Western Pahari are not so complete. The speakers are not brought into contact with Tibeto-Burman languages, and hence we find no trace of these. But the signs of the influence of north-western languages are, as might be expected, still more apparent than farther east. In some dialects epenthesis is in full swing, as in (Churahi) khata, eating, fern, khaiti. Very interesting is the mixed origin of the postpositions defining the various cases. Thus, while that of the genitive is generally the Rajasthani ro, that of the dative continually points to the west. Sometimes it is the Sindhi khë. At other times it is jo, where is here a locative of the base of the Sindhi genitive postposition jo. In all Indo-Aryan languages, the dative postposition is by origin the locative of some genitive one. In vocabulary, Western Pahari often employs, for the more common ideas, words which can most readily be connected with the north-western and Pisaca groups.

About

The Himalayas run along Nepal, India and Pakistan. The word 'Pahad' means a 'mountain' in most local languages such as Nepalese, Hindi (Parbat being a synonym) as well as Urdu (Koh being a synonym). Due to its mass prevalence and usage in the Himalayan Region, the language is also known as Himalayan. Like all other languages of the region, the Pahari languages are also from the Indo-European, and in particular Indo-Iranian branch of languages. As mountains have the tendency of isolating communities from change, dialects in the mountains tend to have their own characteristics with some similarity to others mountain dialects while remaining isolated from one another – there does seem to be a dialect continuum. All of these dialects are commonly referred to as the 'Pahari' languages, and most people from the Himalayan range are known as Paharis.

References

  1. Kaur, Kamaldeep; Dwivedi, Amitabh Vikram (2018). Dogri and Its Dialects: A Comparative Study of Kandi and Pahari Dogri. LINCOM GmbH. ISBN 978-3-86288-867-2.
  2. Commissioner, India Census (1902). Census of India, 1901: Punjab and North West Frontier Province (2 v.). Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India.
  3. Masica, Colin P. (1991). The Indo-Aryan languages. Cambridge language surveys. Cambridge University Press. p. 439. ISBN 978-0-521-23420-7.
  4. "Nepali". Ethnologue: Languages of the World. SIL International. Retrieved 23 December 2012.
  5. "Jumli". Ethnologue: Languages of the World. SIL International. Retrieved 23 December 2012.
  6. "Kumaoni". Ethnologue: Languages of the World. SIL International. Retrieved 23 December 2012.

External links

Indo-Aryan languages
Dardic
Kashmiri
Shina
Pashayi
Kunar
Chitral
Hazara Division
Northern
Eastern
Central
Western
Northwestern
Punjabi
Eastern
Lahnda
Sindhi
Western
Gujarati
Rajasthani
Bhil
Others
Central
Western
Eastern
Others
Eastern
Bihari
Bhojpuric
Magahi
Maithili
Sadanic
Tharuic
Others
Gauda–
Kamarupa
Bengali
Kamarupic
Chittagonian
Odia
Halbic
Southern
Marathi–
Konkani
Marathic
Konkanic
Insular
Old
Middle
Early
Middle (Prakrit)
Late (Apabhraṃśa)
Proto-
languages
Unclassified
Pidgins
and creoles
See also
Indo-Iranian languages
Nuristani languages
Iranian languages
Categories: