Eternal India Encyclopedia

EXPRESSIONS OF INDIA

Eternal India encyclopedia

KONKANI : Indo-Aryan family group spoken along the coast of the Arabian sea, namely the coastal area of Maharashtra border- ing Goa, coastal Karnataka and Kerala. Its name is derived from "konkan", meaning 'west coast’. An example of a language which links contiguous states, Konkani is written in several scripts, including Devanagari, Kannada and Malayalam. It is the only language in southern India influenced by Paisachi Prakrit. On August 20, 1992, Konkani, along with Nepali and Manipuri, was recognised as an official language.

MARATHI : Indo-Aryan family. Evolved from local dialect, a mixture of Maharashtri and Apabhrahmsha. In the 12th century, Marathi asserted itself against Sanskrit, which was the lingua franca of the region of present-day Maharashtra; religious writ- ers eschewed Sanskrit in favour of the common people's lan- guage to popularise their ideas. Marathi has produced two major offshoots: Konkani, concentrated on the West Coast, and the Halbi dialect, spoken in the Bastar District of Madhya Pradesh. There is a genuine linguistic boundary between Marathi and other Indo-Aryan languages such as Gujarati, Hindi and Rajasthani. Marathi is also spoken in the bordering area of Karnataka, and in Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Goa. States Speakers Maharashtra Goa D & N Haveli Karnataka Madhya Pradesh Daman & Diu Gujarat 73.6% 26.43 3.4% 4.3% 3.4% 2.3% 1 . 1 % Arunachal Pradesh 0..8% Delhi A & N. Is. Tamil Nadu Kerala 0.2% 0 . 2 % 0 . 1 % 0 . 1 % 0.1% WORLD RANK: 17 NO.OF SPEAKERS : 67 m INDIA RANK: 4 SPEAKERS IN INDIA : 7.5% NEPALI : Indo-Aryan family. Written in the Devanagari script, Nepali finds its origins in Khas-Kura or Khas-Prakrit, the language of the Khasa tribe. The Khasa imported their language from India into Nepal, where Nepali is, of course, the official language. During the 18th century, most Nepali writers were also fluent in Sanskrit, and adopted Sanskritic patterns in their writing. On August 20, 1992, Nepali was unanimously given official recognition by Parliament. Nepali is spoken in Sikkim, northern parts of West Bengal and the Northeastern states. States Speakers Sikkim 61.0% Arunachal Pradesh 7.2% Meghalaya 4.6% WORLD RANK: 43 NO.OF SPEAKERS : 14 m ORIYA : Indo-Aryan language derived from eastern Magadhi namely the "Magadhan Apabhrahmsha" of Prakrit. It is classified under the Eastern group of the Indo-Aryan family which includes Bhojpuri, Bengali and Assamese; like Bengali, Oriya is not gender-specific, but employs only neutral pronouns, verb conju- gations, etc. However, Oriya is closer to Sanskrit than other non- Dravidian languages. During the early phase of its development, Oriya showed a blend of Prakritic and Sanskritic elements, but was later influenced by Perso-Arabic. Standard Oriya is spoken in Orissa and the bordering areas of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. "Southern Oriya", spoken by some in the lower rung of society, is found in the district of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. States Speakers Orissa 82.2% Madhya Pradesh 1.1% Tripura 0.7% Bihar 0.5% Andhra Pradesh 0.4% Arunachal Pradesh 0.3% Nagaland West Bengal 0 . 2 % 0.2% WORLD RANK :33 NO. OF SPEAKERS : 3 1 m INDIA RANK : 10 SPEAKERS IN INDIA: 3.5% Manipur 2.6% Himachal Pradesh 0.9% INDIA RANK : * SPEAKERS IN INDIA : *

WORLD RANK: 53 NO. OF SPEAKERS : 4 m INDIA RANK : * SPEAKERS IN INDIA : *

Speakers 59.5%

States Goa Karnataka Kerala

1.7% 0.4%

MALAYALAM : Dravidian family. Script is believed to have derived from 'Vattezhuttu' which was widely used in Royal edicts. The Nambudiri Brahmins of Kerala mastered Sanskrit, which led to the heavy Sanskrit influence on Malayalam literature. An admix- ture of Malayalam with Tamil strongly influenced Malayalam grammar and vocabulary; in fact, some linguists consider Malay- alam to be a Tamil dialect. Pure Malayalam, known as "Pacha- Malayalam", remains an important literary language. Malayalam is spoken in Kerala; also found in Kodagu district in Karnataka, Nilgiri district in Tamil Nadu, and the Lakshadweep Islands.

States Kerala

Speakers

States Speakers

96.0% 84.5% 10.4% 5.2%.

D & N Haveli

0.3% 0.3% 0 . 1 % 0.1%

Lakshadweep

Nagaland

A & N Is.

Sikkim

Pondicherry Karnataka Tamil Nadu

Mizoram

1 . 6 % 1 . 2 % 0.7% 0.5%

Madhya Pradesh

0 . 1 %

Goa

WORLD RANK: 30 NO.OF SPEAKERS :

Delhi

35 m

Chandigarh 0.4% Arunachal Pradesh 0.4%

INDIA RANK : 9

Maharashtra

0.4%

SPEAKERS IN INDA : 3.9%

MANIPURI: Accorded official language status in 1992 by Lok Sabha. Manipuri belongs to the Tibeto-Burman group of the Kuki- Chin (Sino- Tibetan) group of languages. It is actually an amalgam of seven languages, which were spoken by seven distinct clans, including the Moirangs, the Khumans and the Luwangs. Manipuri has its own script, but this was eventually eclipsed by the Assa- mese-Bengali scripts which arrived with the expansion of Chaitanya Vaishnavism in the 18th century. DRAVIDIAN : Caldwell first used the term Dravidian, as the adjective form of Dravida, to denote a family of languages spoken in Southern India and some aboriginal and hill areas in central India and Orissa. The word 'Dravida' is a Sanskrit word meaning Tamil and had been used by Kumarilabhatta and Manu. According to Grierson the word is probably derived from Dramila, Damila. The Dravidian languages were classi- fied by Caldwell into cultivated dialects (Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Tulu and Kodagu) and uncultivated dialects (all other Dravidian languages).