Sociolinguistic ISSN: 1750-8649 (print) Studies ISSN: 1750-8657 (online) Review

Dogri and its Dialects: A Comparative Study of Kandi and Pahari Dogri Kamaldeep Kaur and Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi (2019)

Munich: Lincom Europa. Pp. 216 ISBN: 9783862888672

Reviewed by Ayushi Ayushi

1. Introduction

The volume under review, Dogri and its Dialects: A Comparative Study of Kandi and Pahari Dogri, is a comparative study of two Dogri dialects: Kandi and Pahari.1 Dogri is an Indo-Aryan language (p. 1) spoken in the of and Kashmir2 in the Republic of . Unlike the sketchy description of Grierson (1967) where he compares Dogri as a dialect of Punjabi, and the philological study of Dogri by Varma (1978), this work falls under the descriptive linguistic tradition and provides an extensive analysis of two Dogri dialects. While Gupta (2004) traces the origin and development of the along with a brief description of its grammatical structures, her work is not informed by modern linguistics, and rather follows the model of the grammar written by Kamta Prasad Guru (2014). Though the previous works throw some light on different aspects of Dogri, no substantial work has been published that highlights the area of linguistic and sociolinguistic study with respect to Dogri and its dialects. Kaur and Dwivedi provide a detailed analysis of linguistic and sociolinguistic variations of Dogri dialects. While ostensibly the text focuses upon dialects, significantly the study provides a linguistic description of the Dogri language, covering areas such as phonology, morphology and syntax of Kandi and Pahari Dogri, along with their sociolinguistic variations and

Affiliation

Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, India email: [email protected]

SOLS VOL 13.2-4 2019 417–425 https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.38775 © 2020, EQUINOX PUBLISHING 418 SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES implications. The reference book consists of seven chapters of varied lengths written in the linguistic grammar tradition, aided by plenty of fitting examples along with their proper gloss. Chapter 1, ‘Introduction’ (pp. 1–21), provides a brief introduction of the Dogri language, its status and speakers, and outlines the organization of the work at hand. Dogri language, identified as [dgo] (p. 2), is placed under the Western Pahari3 language group (p. 1) and is written in the script. The authors aim to trace the development of the two Dogri dialects (p. 8) and study the lexical simi- larity between them. The chapter explores research questions that the study aims to answer and also formulates the research hypothesis for the study, along with its scope and limitations. Following that is a comprehensive literature survey which discusses the research work previously conducted, demarcating it from the study at hand in terms of scope and objectives and thus making this study an original research. The study describes the grammatical framework of the Dogri language which can also form the basis for the lexicographical study of the two dialects. Chapter 2, ‘Research Methodology’ (pp. 22–36), presents the methodology the researchers employ in conducting the study. The researchers generate an index of the general linguistic similarity and study their lexical use synchronically (p. 22) to ascertain dialect intelligibility patterns. The research is backed up with ample data collected from the native speakers of varying age groups in the form of wordlists comprising of over 2000 words, which have also been accurately transcribed in IPA script. The Recorded Text Test methodology is employed to probe the degree of comprehension amongst the speakers of the two dialectal varieties (p. 33). Further, sociolinguistic questionnaires4 encircling concepts such as language vitality, language attitudes and language use patterns have been incorporated to determine the need for language development (p. 30) among the native speakers.

2. Phonology

Chapter 3, ‘, the Dogri Language and its Dialects’ (pp. 37–93), provides pertinent background information on the Dogri language and its history and gives an overview of its speakers. The two linguists argue that Dogri is a structurally independent language, despite Grierson and many Punjabi writers classifying it as a dialect of Punjabi (p. 37). Further, the etymology of the word ‘Duggar’ (p. 38) and its derivation is discussed in detail. An entire section is devoted to the analysis of the linguistic features of the Dogri language. The phonemic inventory consists of 31 consonants, whose phonemic status is established by identifying the minimal pairs in Dogri, and 10 vowels, whose articulatory description has been

REVIEW: AYUSHI 419 given along with the distribution of these vowels. The authors claims that [h] does not occur very frequently in the Dogri language except in word initial positions when depicting time, such as /hɑ/ ‘was.M’ and /hi/ ‘was.F’. Gemination,5 aspiration6 and nasalization7 are the characteristic features of the language, and all vowels have their corresponding nasalized counterparts, for example /tʃәnɑ/ ‘gram’ also occurs as /tʃәnɑ̃:/ ‘a river’, and /sɔ/ ‘hundred’ occurs as /sɔ:/̃ ‘oath’ (p. 44). Vowel distribution and vowel sequence have been examined in detail, demonstrating the functional load on the vowels at the word initial, medial and final positions. The vowel sequence is usually of two or three vowels such as /kiɑ/ ‘pumpkin’ and /tʊɑi/ ‘washing charges’ (p. 51) respectively. Chapter 4, ‘Comparative Dogri Phonology’, analyzes the basic phonemes of the Dogri language with reference to salient variations between the Kandi and Pahari dialects respectively by doing extensive analysis of Dogri for comparison. The researchers draw a comparison between the phonological aspects of the two dialects based on the lexical similarities in the wordlists that contain data from the informants of these dialects. The phonetic distribution of consonant and vowel sounds and consonant clusters in the two dialects are comprehensively discussed. The chapter also claims Dogri is a tonal language,8 and highlights the three basic systems: low-rising, high-falling and mid-tone, as shown in Table 1. Kaur and Dwivedi assert that the low-rising and high-falling tones are prominent in the Pahari Dogri, while the mid-tone is commonly registered in the Kandi Dogri. The study employs the software Praat9 to analyze various speech sounds.

Table 1. Tones in Dogri (Kandi and Pahari)

S.No. Word Tone Gloss 1. /ɑ̀r/ Low-Rising ‘garland’ 2. /ɑ́r/ High-Falling ‘busy-ness’ 3. /ɑ̄ r/ Mid-Tone ‘cobbler’s instrument’

3. Morphosyntax

Chapter 3 thoroughly investigates the morphological structure of the word classes in the Dogri language and the grammatical inflection that they show. Dogri exhibits masculine and feminine gender, and this gender assignment is arbitrary and partially grammatical. The masculine noun stems ending with consonants in Kandi Dogri are used in complementary distribution10 to form feminine forms with /әni/, /ɑni/, /i/ or /ɛni/ suffixes, while /eɑni/ appears in free variation with /ɛni/ only in Pahari Dogri (p. 53), for example /mɑsʈәr/‘he teacher’ has the feminine form /mɑsʈәreɑni/‘she teacher’ in Kandi Dogri and /mɑsʈәrɛni/ in Pahari Dogri, as shown in Table 2.

420 SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES

Table 2. Masculine to Feminine Nouns

S.No. Masculine Feminine Kandi and Pahari Dogri Kandi Dogri Pahari Dogri 1. /dʒeʈh/ /dʒәʈhɑni/ ‘wife of /dʒәʈhɛni/ ‘husband’s elder brother’ husband’s elder brother 2. /mɑsʈәr/ /mɑsʈәreɑni/ /mɑsʈәrɛni/ ‘he teacher’ ‘she teacher’

The gender and the final sound of the noun determine the plural form of the Dogri nouns. There is no inflection in Dogri masculine noun plurals, apart from the ones that end with /ɑ/ as in /mʊɽɑ/‘boy’ wherein the final /ɑ/ changes to /e/ and becomes /mʊɽe/ upon pluralization (p. 54). Similarly, in the case of feminine nouns, the singular feminine stems take the /ɑ̃/ morpheme ending (p. 55) to pro- duce their plural forms, e.g. /kʊɽi/ ‘girl’ changes to /kʊɽiɑ̃/. Further, declension in Dogri nouns takes place by the addition of a bound case marker at the word final position in certain cases, while in others the case markers occur as postpositions11 in order to express the oblique forms. In case of masculine nouns ending with /ɑ/, the /ɑ/ ending changes to /e/, e.g. /mɑmɑ/ ‘maternal uncle’ changes to /mɑmẽ/ in the oblique case, and in the vocative case, it changes to /eɑ/ ending as in /mɑmeɑ/. While in oblique case, the final ending of plural masculine nouns get an additional /ẽ/ ending, e.g. /mɑme/‘maternal uncles’ modifies into /mɑmẽ/, and into /eo/ as in /mɑmeo/ in vocative case. Table 3 shows declension of the masculine noun /mɑmɑ/‘maternal uncle’. In case of masculine nouns that do not end with /ɑ/, /ɛ/ is added to the noun stem, e.g. /dʒɑɡәt/ ‘boy’ becomes /dʒɑɡәtɛ/ in oblique case, while the plural masculine noun modifies into /dʒɑɡәtẽ/ ‘boys’ (p. 56).

Table 3. Declension in Dogri Masculine Noun

Case Singular Plural Direct /mɑmɑ/‘maternal uncle’ /mɑme/‘maternal uncles’ Oblique /mɑme/‘maternal uncle’ /mɑmẽ/‘maternal uncles’ Vocative /mɑmeɑ/‘maternal uncle’ /mɑmeo/‘maternal uncles’

Various postpositions are employed in Dogri which work as case markers, and these postpositions are /ne/ for agentive case, /ɡe/ or /ki/ or /i/ ‘to’ for accusative case, /kәnnɛ/ /nɛ/, /kәʃɑ/, /ʃɑ/ or /kɒlɑ/ or /thәmɑ/ ‘with, from’ for , /ɑstɛ/, /ɡitɛ/ /tɛ/ or /lei/ or /tɑĩ/ or /dʒɒɡɑ/ ‘for’ for , /ʊppәrɑ/, /pәrɑ/, /rɑ/ or /bɪtʃtʃɑ/, /tʃɑ/ or /kәʃɑ/, /ʃɑ/ or /kɒlɑ/ ‘from’ for ablative case, /dɑ, di, de, diɑ̃/, /rɑ, ri, re, riɑ̃/, /ɖɑ, ɖi, ɖe, ɖiɑ̃/, /nɑ, ni, ne, niɑ̃/ ‘…’s’ for , /ʊppәr/pәr/rә/, /bitʃtʃɑ/itʃtʃɑ/tʃɑ/ ‘from within’ for locative case and /ɒ/, /e/ for vocative case (p.59).

REVIEW: AYUSHI 421

Table 4. Postpositions in Dogri

S.No. Postpositions Case Usage 1. /ne/ Agentive kʊtte ne rɑm-ɡi bәɖɖi ʊɽejɑ ‘The dog bit Ram’. 2. /ɡi/ or /ki/ or /i/ ‘to’ Accusative ʃilɑ-i ɑdʒdʒ dɪlli dʒɑnɑ ponɑ ‘Sheela will have to go to Delhi today’. 3. /kәnnɛ/ /nɛ/, /kәʃɑ/, /ʃɑ/ Instrumental mɛ ̃ tʃɑji kәnne bɪskʊʈ khɑde or /kɒlɑ/ or /thәmɑ/ ‘I ate biscuits with tea’. ‘with, from’ 4. /ɑstɛ/, /ɡitɛ/ /tɛ/ or /lei/ Dative ʃɑm de prɑ ne ode lei fon ɑndɑ or /tɑĩ/ or /dʒɒɡɑ/ ‘for’ ‘Ram’s brother brought a phone for him’. 5. /ʊppәrɑ/, /pәrɑ/, /rɑ/ or Ablative o koɽe ʊppәrɑ̃ ɖɪɡɡi-jɑ /bɪtʃtʃɑ/, /tʃɑ/ or /kәʃɑ/, ‘He fell off the horse’ /ʃɑ/ or /kɒlɑ/ ‘from/off’ 6. /dɑ, di, de, diɑ̃/, /rɑ, ri, Genitive kʊɽi dɑ kɑr ɪtthe ɛ re, riɑ̃/, /ɖɑ, ɖi, ɖe, ɖiɑ̃/, ‘The girl’s house is here’. /nɑ, ni, ne, niɑ̃/ ‘…’s’ 7. /ʊppәr/pәr/rә/, Locative pɛhɛ lәmɑri-ʃ rәkkh /bitʃtʃɑ/itʃtʃɑ/tʃɑ/ ‘Keep the money in the ‘from within’ almirah’.

8. /ɒ/, /e/ ‘hey’ Vocative e kʊɽije, sʊnjɑ̃ ‘Hey girl, listen!’

Dogri has six types of pronouns such as personal pronouns /mẽ/ or /eũ/ ‘I’, /tũ/, /tʊndɑ/ and /tõ/ ‘you’, /o/ ‘he/she’; demonstrative pronouns /e/ ‘this, he, she, it’, /o/ ‘that’; indefinite pronouns /koi/ ‘someone’, /kiʃ/ ‘something’; relative pronoun /dʒo/ ‘who, which, what, whose’ and /so/; interrogative pronouns /kʊn/ ‘who’, /ke/ ‘what’; and reflexive pronoun /ɑpũ/ ‘self’ (p. 60). The authors classify the Dogri verb roots under numerous categories, such as transitive and intransitive, close ending and open ending, original and derivative, while based on their secondary stems they are classified as causative, denominative and onomatopoeic verbs. The last section, titled ‘Syntax’, gives an adequate overview of the types of simple, compound and complex sentences. Chapter 5 (pp. 127–167) ‘Comparative Morphosyntax’ offers a detailed comparative study of Dogri morphosyntax, backed by a wide range of data and its analysis. The data from the two dialects is in the form of wordlists and recorded texts, appended to the study. Various classes of words are discussed based on the morphological and syntactic criteria, such as nouns, case, pronouns, adjectives, verbs and so on. The Kandi Dogri noun stems usually have consonant endings or

422 SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES

/ɑ/ or /ɪ/ such as /sur/‘pig’, /bәdәl/‘cloud’ etc. while Pahari Dogri has very few nouns that have stems ending in /u, ʊ, o, ɔ, e/, and semi-vowel endings are somewhat rare. As far as the verb morphology is concerned, the root /tʃәl/‘walk’ shows the following inflections:

Infinitive /tʃәl-nɑ/ Imperfective Participle /tʃәl-ɒ/ Perfective Participle /tʃәl-ɑ/

root infixation suffixation

First Causative /tʃәl-ɑ-nɑ/ root infixation suffixation

Second Causative /tʃәl-ɒ-nɑ/

The finite verbs in Dogri have synthetic forms which get inflected for gender, number, person etc. such as /tʃәlɑ̃/‘I may walk’ and analytic forms such as /tʃәldɑ/ ‘He walks’. Dogri is a Subject-Object-Verb (SOV)12 type language, like many other Indo Aryan languages with the subject at the initial position, the object in the middle and the final position in the sentence occupied by the verb. It is a polysynthetic13 language in morphological intricacy (p. 127) and contains sentence words. The Kandi dialect employs the idiom /kɒl/ and the Pahari dialect uses /kәʃ/ to refer to moveable impersonal objects such as keys, books, flowers etc. and not for human beings (p. 153). The study also takes up the usage of negative particles /nәji/, /mәt/ and /nɑ̃/ (p. 153) and emphatic particles /vi/, /ke/ and the particle /te/ which is a common conjunction used in conditional sentences (p. 161). The agreement patterns too are described at the sentence level.

4. Linguistic variations in Dogri dialects

Chapter 6, ‘Sociolinguistic Variations in Dogri’ (pp. 168–187) provides a description of the linguistic variations in Dogri speakers at the level of Dogri phonology and lexicon in conformity with marked social variables such as religion, education, socioeconomic status, age and occupation. The chapter also reflects upon the significant development in the field and the research previously done to study the use of language in relation to its social context. The research is

REVIEW: AYUSHI 423 data oriented and this data is gathered by observing the linguistic behavior of the true representatives of the entire Dogri speech community belonging to diverse social strata and sections of the society. The researchers surveyed the more accessible parts of the Dogri-speaking areas such as the districts of Jammu, , and select parts of .

5. Conclusion

Chapter 7, ‘Conclusion and Implications’ presents results of the study; summarizes the conclusions and offers recommendations for research work (p. 188). The first section of the chapter offers an overview of the findings from the linguistic study, including the differences in phonemic distribution (p. 192), etymological, phonetic (p. 193), morphological (p. 195) and syntactic differences (p. 196). The subsequent section deliberates upon the sociolinguistic variables (p. 197) that affect the language attitude and vitality. The research proves how synchronic study (rather than historical comparison) of the two Dogri dialects, Kandi and Pahari, shows that the two are lexically related to each other. The dialect documentation done using oral interviews and word lists gives an assessment of the extent of lexical similarity and provides a comparison amongst the dialects, whereas the sociolinguistic questionnaire offers an indication of participants’ perceptions about language boundaries as well as language and literacy attitudes, language vitality and language use patterns (p. 189). The research underscores a descriptive study of the phonology, morphology and syntax of the two primary dialects of Dogri used by the people of Jammu and Kashmir. The study also presents an extensive account of the linguistic and sociolinguistic variations observed in Dogri. The book is a must read for researchers working on Indo-Aryan languages, and will also be of value to students in the field of linguistics as a reference book in order to gain an understanding of the standard Dogri structure in a descriptive linguistic tradition. It may also be used as a preliminary source of word lists and dictionaries of the Kandi and Pahari Dogri dialects.

Notes

1. According to the 2011 census, the Dogri-speaking population is 2.6 million and it is mostly spoken in Jammu, Kathua, , Reasi, Samba and Udhampur districts of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, in the Chamba and Kangra districts of the State and Gurdaspur district of the State.

424 SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES

2. The word ‘Kandi’ literally means ‘plain region’. In Jammu and Kashmir, Kandi Dogri refers to the dialect spoken in regions such as Jammu, Kathua and . On the other hand ‘Pahari’ literally means ‘belonging to the mountains’. In the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, Pahari Dogri refers to the dialect spoken in the elevated regions such as Reasi, Udhampur and Ramnagar districts. 3. refers to a group of languages spoken in the Western parts of the Himalayan range in the Himachal Pradesh state. These languages are Dogri, Kangri, , Sirmauri, Jaunsari, Pahari-Kullu, Hinduri, , , Pahari Kinnauri, , , Churhahi, Pahari Potwari, Pahari-Mahasu, Pahari Kullu and Gaddi. 4. Sociolinguistic questionnaires are utilized to elicit extensive data in order to understand the actual usage of the language. These questionnaires are administered in person by the researcher in order to assess the language behavior in terms of proficiency and usage. 5. Gemination, also known as consonant lengthening, refers to a longer articulation of a consonant rather than a single occurrence of the same consonant. Gemination in Dogri takes place in the word medial (WM) /sәddi/ ‘called’ and the word final (WF) /ɖɪɡɡ/ ‘fall’ positions. 6. Aspiration is the sharp burst of breath that occurs during the release or closure of obstruents. The voiceless stops in Dogri get aspirated as in /pʊl/ ‘bridge and /phʊl/ ‘flower’. 7. When air passes through the nose due to the lowering of the velum, during the production of sound by the mouth, it is known as nasalization. It occurs in a number of Indo Aryan languages such as Hindi, Dogri and Punjabi. In Dogri, nasalization is phonemic. 8. Other than Dogri, other Indo Aryan languages spoken in the North West belt are also tonal in nature such as Punjabi, which is spoken in the Punjab State, and Punchi, which is spoken in the Poonch and districts in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. 9. Praat is computer software used to scientifically analyze speech sounds in phonetics, and it also supports speech synthesis. 10. Complementary distribution is the distribution of phones in their respective phonetic environments in such a way that no two phones occur in similar phonetic contexts. 11. Indo-Aryan languages such as Hindi, Dogri and Gujarati have postpositions, unlike English which uses prepositions. 12. All Indo-Aryan languages have SOV word order except Kashmiri, which is spoken in the Kashmir region of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir. 13. Polysynthetic languages such as Dogri and Hindi are highly inflected languages, with a high morpheme-to-word ratio.

REVIEW: AYUSHI 425

References

Bahri, U.S. (2001) Dogri Phonology &Grammatical Sketch. New Delhi: Bahri Publications. Dwivedi, A.V. (2013) A Grammar of Bhadarwahi. Munich: Lincom Europa. Grierson, G.A. (1967) Linguistic Survey of India. (Vol 9). New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas. Gupta, Veena. (2004) Dogri Vyakaran. Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture and Language. Guru, K.P. (2014) Hindi Vyakaran. Vani Prakashan. Masica, C.P. (1991) The Indo-Aryan Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Payne, T.E. (1997) Describing Morphosyntax: A Guide for Field Linguists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511805066. Varma, S. (1978) Dr. Siddheshwar Varma Felicitation Volume. Jammu: Dogri Research Institute.

(Received April 16th 2019; accepted May 22nd 2019)