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Home , Andamanese languages, Austroasiatic languages, Dravidian languages, Hindi Belt, Khamti language, Languages of South Asia

Development Team

Principal Investigator: Prof. Pramod Pandey Centre for Linguistics / SLL&CS Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Email: [email protected]

Paper Coordinator: Prof. K. S. Nagaraja Department of Linguistics, Deccan College Post-Graduate Research Institute, Pune- 411006, [email protected] Content Writer: Prof. K. S. Nagaraja

Prof H. S. Ananthanarayana Content Reviewer: Retd Prof, Department of Linguistics Osmania University, Hyderabad 500007

Paper : Historical and Linguistics Module : Of South

Description of Module

Subject Name Linguistics

Paper Name Historical and Comparative Linguistics

Module Title Languages Of

Module ID Lings_P7_M20

Quadrant 1 E-Text

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module :

Languages Of South Asia

It is amazing how this Indian sub- got populated as it is. This must have been a continuing process stretched over couple of millennia. This has resulted in a very complex multitude of people, belonging to various groups, and speak different diverse languages and dialects. Even then, one can see some resemblances across them both from point of view and from social point of view. Only when a society/community exists then only a language/speech form can exist; otherwise not. How many communities existed and how many have been lost in the journey of time no one can say for sure. But at least we can take a stock of the present situation. This course makes such an attempt.

A starting point to appreciate the diversity of languages, is to look at the vocabulary of the languages. Take a sample list, as given below from different Indian languages, representing all the four major families. How many languages can you identify? Do you find any similarities between any two or more languages? You can provide some more data known to you.

Gloss Lg. 1 Lg. 2 Lg. 3 Lg. 4 Lg. 5 Lg. 6 hand kay hāth ti kti ti yák foot kālu payr nanga kjat khuri yá eye kaɳɳu aaŋkh meɖ khmat jiki(t)’ mük ear kivi kān lutur ʃkor cigam ná nose mūgu nākh mu khmut con face mōre cehra, mūg mw:ar mwa:r seta child mogu baccaa/ii kon khun palʃo naha tiger huli bāgh kula kula tembrya sa?ɲù dog nāyi kuttaa sita ksew nāy kùy tongue nālge jībh la:ŋ thɨlliej la:n, la:ɲ blood nettaru khūn majum snem co:rto ì water nīru pānii ɖa’ um joppo yèŋ

The first two languages in the above table, one will be able to identify easily. The first one is , a Dravidian language and the second one is , an Indo-Aryan language. It is possible to provide a list of cognate languages of these families quite easily. However the rest of the languages are

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : Languages Of South Asia

mostly unknown and so difficult to identify them. In the above list, two languages are supposed to show genetic (though somewhat remote) relationship. Will it be possible to identify them?

The languages of belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 74% of Indians and the spoken by 24% of Indians. Other languages spoken in India account for the remaining around 1% of the population, belong to the Austroasiatic, Tibeto-Burman, Andamanese language families and a few language isolates. More than three millennia of has led to significant mutual influence among the four predominant language families in mainland India and South Asia.

Migration theory (a) The Indo-Aryan migration theory proposes that the Indo-Aryans migrated from the Central Asian steppes into South Asia during the early part of the 2nd millennium BCE, bringing with them the Indo-Aryan languages. The theory proposes migrations originating from the Sintashta culture, which moved through the Bactria-Margiana area, into the northern part of the (modern India, and ). Migration by an Indo-European people was first hypothesized in the late 18th century, following the discovery of the Indo-European , when similarities between western and Indian languages had been noted. Given these similarities, a single source or origin was proposed, which was diffused by migrations from some original homeland. This linguistic argument is supported by archaeological and anthropological research. Genetic research reveals that those migrations form part of a complex genetical puzzle on the origin and spread of the various components of the Indian population. Literary research reveals similarities between various, geographically distinct, Indo-Aryan historical cultures. (It was the Florentine merchant Filippo Sassetti who, after five year’s stay in Goa (1583-1588) declared for the first time that there existed a definite relation between and some of the principle languages of . But that this relation is due to origin from a common source was suggested only in 1786 by Sir William Jones in his famous address to the Asiatic Society of .) The Indo-Aryan migrations started in approximately 1800 BCE, after the invention of the war chariot, and also brought Indo-Aryan languages into the Levant and possibly Inner Asia. It was part of the diffusion of Indo-European languages from the proto-Indo-European homeland at the Pontic steppe, a large area of grasslands in far Eastern Europe, which started in the 5th to 4th millennia BCE, and the Indo-European migrations out of the Eurasian steppes, which started approximately in 2000 BCE. The theory posits that these Indo-Aryan speaking people may have been a genetically diverse group of people who were united by shared cultural norms and language, referred to as aarya, "noble." Diffusion of this culture and language took place by patron-client systems, which

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : Languages Of South Asia

allowed for the absorption and acculturalisation of other groups into this culture, and explains the strong influence on other cultures with which it interacted. The Proto-Indo-Iranians, from which the Indo-Aryans developed, are identified with the Sintashta culture (2100–1800 BCE), and the Andronovo culture, which flourished ca. 1800– 1400 BCE in the steppes around the Aral sea, present-day Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The proto-Indo-Iranians were influenced by the Bactria-Margiana Culture, south of the Andronovo culture, from which they borrowed their distinctive religious beliefs and practices. The Indo-Aryans split off around 1800-1600 BCE from the Iranians, where after the Indo-Aryans migrated into the Levant and north-. (b) The southern Indian languages are from the Dravidian family. The Dravidian languages are supposed to be indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. Proto-Dravidian language(s) were spoken in India in the 4th millennium BCE and started disintegrating into various branches around 3rd millennium BCE. The Dravidian languages are classified in four groups: North, Central (Kolami–Parji), South-Central (Telugu–Kui) and South Dravidian (Tamil-Kannada). However, many Dravidian linguists consider otherwise. Dravidian scholar Thomas Burrow, in his extensive research, (1958) has discussed the evidence for Dravidian and Munda influence on , and strongly feels that the Dravidian speech which exerted this influence (presumably at the time when the Aryans were still located mainly in the ) must have been a northern Dravidian language. Also Burrow opines that Dravidian speakers were an important segment of the population in the cities of the Indus Valley (Harappan) civilization. Linguistic evidence gathered so far strongly suggests that the present locations of Dravidian languages result from a number of distinct movements, involving a number of groups of speakers. We cannot assume that all of the Dravidian speakers came from the West by the same route or at the same time. Some might have come through via the mountain passes and river alleys; others may have come along the coast, possibly by sea. The present distribution of Brahui, Kudux and Malto suggests two main possibilities for their earlier, prehistoric distribution. One is that proposed by Burrow: the present day Brahui, Kudux and Malto represent surviving islands of a speech once extant over all of northern India and Pakistan. Another is suggested by the tradition that the speakers of Kudux and Malto came up the Narmada valley from the West Coast in fairly recent times. A third possibility could be that the Dravidian languages were torn into two groups while the Aryans made intrusion in the middle. In 1972, Zvelebil proposed a hypothesis, that the Dravidians marched from the mountains of eastern to and , ‘dropping off’ groups along the way rather like a bus depositing passengers. According to him ‘The Dravidians were a highlander folk, sitting, sometimes around 4000 BC., in the rugged mountainous areas of North-Eastern Iran... whence , round about 3500 BC., they began a South-Eastern movement into the Indian sub-continent which went on for about two and a half millennia. Along the route, various Dravidian speaking tribes ‘peeled off’ the main stock, the first to come off being the peoples speaking some form of North-Western Dravidian, who might have played an important, even a leading role in the

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : Languages Of South Asia

ethnolinguistic composition of the Indus valley peoples. The movement went on, and with it the ‘losses along the route’, until the Southernmost part of the peninsula was reached by the Proto- , who established, between ca. 600-400 B.C., the first historically recognizable literate and highly cultured Dravidian-speaking civilization.’ Also, he has added Andronov’s schematic chart, showing the possible descent of the Dravidians which is given below:

(c) The Austroasiatic language family (austro meaning South) is (supposed to be) the autochthonous language in South Asia and , other language families having arrived by migration.

(d) Regarding Tibeto-Burman languages, it is assumed that they have been moving from the north and east for over centuries and have occupied the present locations (Himalayan belt from the West to east, in and the eastern states through Brahmaputra Delta and ) only much recently. Most of the Tibeto-Burman languages are spoken in inaccessible mountain areas and many are unwritten, which has greatly hampered their study. It is generally much easier to identify a language as Tibeto-Burman than to determine its precise relationship with other languages of the group.

The Constitution of India does not give any language the status of . The Constitution of India designates the official language of the Government of India as Standard Hindi written in the script, as well as English in Roman script. The Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution lists 22 languages, which have been referred to as scheduled languages and given recognition, status and official encouragement. In addition, the Government of India has awarded the distinction of being classical language to Tamil, Sanskrit, Kannada, Telugu, and Odia. According to Census of India of 2001, India has 122 major languages and 1599 minor languages. However, figures from other sources vary, primarily due to differences in definition of the terms "language" and "dialect". The 2001 Census recorded 30 languages which were spoken by more than a million native speakers and 122 which were spoken by more than 10,000 people. Two contact languages have played an important role in the history of India: Persian and English. Persian was the court language during the Mughal period in India. It reigned as an administrative language for several centuries until the era of British colonisation. Up until now, English was an important language in India. It is used in higher education and in some areas of the Indian government. Hindi, the most widely spoken language in India today, serves as the lingua franca across much of North and . However, there have been anti-Hindi agitations in South India, most notably in the state of Tamil

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : Languages Of South Asia

Nadu. There is also opposition in non-Hindi belt states towards any perceived imposition of Hindi in these areas. The northern Indian languages from the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family evolved from Old Indic by way of the Middle Indic Prakrit languages and Apabhraṃśa of the Middle Ages. The Indo-Aryan languages developed and emerged in three stages — Old Indo-Aryan (1500 BCE to 600 BCE), Middle Indo-Aryan stage (600 BCE and 1000 CE) and New Indo-Aryan (between 1000 CE and 1300 CE). Modern north Indian languages, such as Hindi (or more correctly, Hindustani), Assamese (Asamiya), Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Rajasthani and Odia, evolved into distinct, recognisable languages in the New Indo-Aryan Age. Persian or Pharsi was brought into India by the Ghaznavi and other Turko-Afghan dynasties as the court language. Persians influenced the art, history and literature of the region for more than 500 years, resulting in the Persianisation of many Indian tongues, mainly lexically. In 1837, the British replaced Persian with English for administrative purposes, and the Hindi movement of the 19th Century replaced the Persianised vocabulary for one derived from Sanskrit also replacing the use of the Perso- for Hindi/Hindustani with Devanaagari. Each of the northern Indian languages had different influences. For example, Hindustani was strongly influenced by Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic, leading to the emergence of Modern Standard Hindi and Modern Standard as two registers of the . Modern Standard Hindi is recognised as the official language of India while Urdu is a scheduled language.

Inventories

The first official survey of language diversity in the Indian subcontinent was carried out by Sir George Abraham Grierson from 1898 to 1928. Titled the Linguistic Survey of India, it reported a total of 179 languages and 544 dialects. However, the results were skewed due to ambiguities in distinguishing between "dialect" and "language", use of untrained personnel and under-reporting of data from South India, as the former provinces of Burma and Madras, as well as the princely states of Cochin, Hyderabad, and Travancore were not included in the survey. Different sources give widely differing figures, primarily based on how the terms "language" and "dialect" are defined and grouped. , produced by the Christian evangelist organisation SIL International, lists 461 tongues for India (out of 6,912 worldwide), 447 of which are living, while 14 are extinct. The 447 living languages are further subclassified in Ethnologue as follows:-

 Institutional – 63  Developing – 130  Vigorous – 187

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : Languages Of South Asia

 In trouble – 54  Dying – 13 The People’s Linguistic Survey of India, a privately owned research institution in India, has recorded over 66 different scripts and more than 780 languages in India during its nationwide survey, which the organisation claims to be the biggest linguistic survey in India. The People of India (POI) project of Anthropological Survey of India reported 325 languages which are used for in-group communication by 5,633 Indian communities. One can get authentic information about the Indian languages primarily from Grierson’s Linguistic Survey of India and Government of India’s decennial Census Operations.

Census of India figures The Census of India records and publishes data with respect to the number of speakers for languages and dialects, but uses its own unique terminology, distinguishing between language and . The mother tongues are grouped within each language. Many of the mother tongues so defined could be considered a language rather than a dialect by linguistic standards. This is especially so for many mother tongues with tens of millions of speakers that are officially grouped under the language Hindi. 1961 Census The 1961 census recognised 1,652 mother tongues spoken by 438,936,918 people, counting all declarations made by any individual at the time when the census was conducted. However, the declaring individuals often mixed names of languages with those of dialects, sub-dialects and dialect clusters or even castes, professions, , localities, regions, countries and nationalities. The list therefore includes languages with barely a few individual speakers as well as 601 unclassified mother tongues and more than 100 idioms that are non-native to India, including linguistically unspecific demonyms such as "African", "Canadian" or "Belgian". It has been shown (CIIL, 1973) that out of the so-called 1652 mother-tongues, 601 are unclassifieds, 532 belong to Indo-Aryan, 148 to Dravidian, 227 to Tibeto-Chinese, and 53 to Austric group. What is interesting is that out of these, those mother-tongues having more than ten thousand speakers are: 98 Indo-Aryan, 26 Dravidian, 52 Tibeto-Chinese, 21 Austric, and only 7 in the unclassifieds. This total comes to hardly to 204! The study also reveals that there were 471 mother-tongues having five or less than five speakers; 695 mother-tongues having 6 to 999 speakers; 136 mother-tongues having 1000 to 4999 speakers; and 55 mother-tongues having speaker strength of above five thousand but below ten thousand. At the face value of it, the report is highly startling, as most of the mother-tongues are susceptible to be lost. Unfortunately the later Census reports do not throw any light on this majority; losing much of the significance of such a major operation. 1991 Census

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : Languages Of South Asia

The 1991 census recognises 1,576 classified mother tongues. According to the 1991 census, 22 languages had more than a million native speakers, 50 had more than 100,000 and 114 had more than 10,000 native speakers. The remaining accounted for a total of 566,000 native speakers (out of a total of 838 million Indians in 1991). 2001 Census According to the most recent census of 2001, there are 1365 rationalised mother tongues, 234 identifiable mother tongues and 22 major languages. Of these, 29 languages have more than a million native speakers, 60 have more than 100,000 and 122 have more than 10,000 native speakers. There are a few languages like Kodava that do not have a script but have a group of native speakers in Coorg (Kodagu). Indo-Aryan language family The largest of the language families represented in India, in terms of speakers, is the Indo-Aryan language family, a branch of the Indo-Iranian family, itself the easternmost, extant subfamily of the Indo-European language family. This language family predominates, accounting for some 790 million speakers, or over 75% of the population, as per data collated during the Census of 2001. The most widely spoken languages of this group are Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Urdu, Gujarati, Punjabi, Assamese, Sinhalese in Sri Lanka and Odia. Aside from the Indo-Aryan languages, other Indo-European languages are also spoken in India, the most prominent of which is English, as a lingua franca. Dravidian language family The second largest language family is the Dravidian language family, accounting for some 215 million speakers, or approximately 20%, as per data collected during the Census of 2001. The Dravidian languages are spoken mainly in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in parts of north-eastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and . The Dravidian languages with the most speakers are Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. Besides the mainstream population, Dravidian languages are also spoken by small scheduled tribe communities, such as the Oraon and Gond tribes. Only two Dravidian languages are exclusively spoken outside India, Brahui in Pakistan and Dhangar, a dialect of Kurukh, in Nepal. Austroasiatic language family The Austroasiatic language family (austro meaning South) is the autochthonous language in South Asia and Southeast Asia, other language families having arrived by migration. of mainland India are the Khasi and , including Santhali. The languages of the also form part of this language family. In India one branch of the Austroasiatic languages, namely the Munda sub-group occupies hilly forested pockets of central and eastern India; the Nicobarese branch is spoken in Nicobar group of Islands; and one member, Khasian, of the rest, Mon-Khmer sub-branch is spoken in eastern

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : Languages Of South Asia

India, while the rest of the languages are spoken in Far . With the exceptions of Khasi and Santali, all Austroasiatic languages on are endangered.

Tibeto-Burman language family The Tibeto-Burman languages are well represented in India. However, their interrelationships are not discernible, and the family has been described as "a patch of leaves on the forest floor" rather than with the conventional metaphor of a "family tree". The Tibeto-Burman family, some times considered as a branch of Sino-Tibetan family, occupies mainly the mighty Himalayan ranges from the North to the east. Tibeto-Burman languages are spoken across the in the regions of Ladakh, , Nepal, , Bhutan, Arunachal Pradesh, and also in the Indian states of , , , , , and . Tibeto-Burman languages spoken in India number more than 100, but speakers number less than one percent of the population, include Karbi, Meitei, Lepcha, as well as many varieties of several related Tibetic, West Himalayish, Tani, Brahmaputran, Angami–Pochuri, Tangkhul, Zeme, Kukish language groups, amongst many others. Tai-Kadai language family belonging to South-western Tai language had been once the dominant language of Ahom Kingdom in modern-day Assam but had been replaced later by Kamarupi language, the ancient form of . Nowadays, small Tai communities and their languages remain in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh together with Tibeto-Burmans, e.g. Tai Phake, Tai Aiton and Tai , which are similar to of of Myanmar, Dai language in of Andamanese language family The extinct and endangered languages of the form a fifth family- the language family, comprising two families, namely:

(a) the Great Andamanese, comprising a number of extinct languages apart from one highly endangered language with a dwindling number of speakers. (b) the Ongan family of the southern Andaman Islands, comprising two extant languages, Önge and Jarawa, and one extinct tongue, Jangil. In addition, , an unattested language of the Andaman Islands, is generally considered to be related and part of the language family. Language isolates The only language found in the Indian mainland that is considered a is Nihali/Nahali. The status of Nihali is now definite , that it has nothing to do with Munda or AA family. It is an Isolate as of now.

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : Languages Of South Asia

The other language isolates found in the rest of South Asia include , a language spoken in Gilgit–Baltistan (northern Pakistan), Kusunda (in western Nepal) and (in Sri Lanka). The validity of the Great Andamanese language group as a language family has been questioned and it has been considered a language isolate by some authorities. In addition, a Bantu language, Siddi, was spoken until the mid-20th century in Gujarat. India is home to several hundred (415 according to a report) languages. Most Indians speak a language belonging to the families of the Indo-Aryan branch of Indo-European (ca. 74%), the Dravidian (ca. 24%), the Austroasiatic (Munda) (ca. 1.2%), or the Sino-Tibetan (ca. 0.6%), with some languages of the Himalayas still unclassified.

So, the geographical space of these languages is very vast and the languages are very much varied and complex. While discussing these languages, generalizations can be made/possible leaving aside two-three languages, as either the language is very different, for instance Khasi, spoken in Meghalaya; or the knowledge of these languages is not enough, like Nicobarese and .

So, the majority of languages, though belonging to four families, have same ! That is, SOV. While IA is mainly inflectional, Dravidian is agglutinative, Munda languages are agglutinative and incorporating to some extent; while T-B is agglutinative and isolative, to some extent. However, it should be noted that strict compartmentalization is not possible. The above categorization is more of indicative than absolute. As a corollary to the word order, is the presence of case suffixes and postpositions in most of these languages. While Aryan group has prefixes and suffixes, Dravidian has exclusively suffixes; while Munda has all the three, with and TB languages have basically prefixes and suffixes. It is interesting to note that regarding numerals, while Aryan and Dravidian have systems of counting, Munda and Tibeto-Burman have systems (taking 20 as the unit for higher counting). But, many tribal languages of both Dravidian and Munda of central India have lost most of the counting systems and have switched over to the Aryan system.

Also, while most of Aryan branch does not make a distinction between inclusive vs. exclusive distinction in personal pronouns (except Marathi); Dravidian languages like Tamil and Telugu make a distinction (while modern Kannada has lost it); but Munda and Tibeto-Burman languages (many if not all) make such a distinction, at least in the plural. In addition, Munda languages have such a distinction even in dual number. That means, while singular and plural are most common in Aryan and Dravidian languages, Munda languages have dual distinction. (but not all!)

Detailed study of these languages will be provided in while discussing each families separately.

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : Languages Of South Asia

Exercises:

1. Identify to which group your language belongs. Try to identify the differences between your language and English. List at least five major differences. 2. Do you know any language which does not show any similarity with any other language?

[The answers to the question posed above regarding the identity of the languages, is the following: Kannada (Dravidian), Hindi (I-A), Korku (Munda, AA), Khasi (Mon-Khmer, AA), Nihali (language Isolate), and Konyak (T-B).]

Paper : Historical and Comparative Linguistics Linguistics Module : Languages Of South Asia