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30-423: The language has a very large number of words adopted from neighboring languages, with 60–70% apparently taken from Korku (25% of vocabulary and much of its morphology), from Dravidian languages , and from Marathi , but much of its core vocabulary cannot be related to them or other languages, such as the numerals and words for "blood" and "egg". Scholars state that less than 25% of the language's original vocabulary

60-453: A Munda language , like Korku. Kuiper suggested that Nihali may differ from neighbouring languages, such as Korku, mostly in its function as an argot , such as a thieves' cant . Kuiper's assertions stem, in part, from the fact that many oppressed groups within India have used secret languages to prevent outsiders from understanding them. Linguist Norman Zide describes the recent history of

90-399: A Munda language , like Korku. Kuiper suggested that Nihali may differ from neighbouring languages, such as Korku, mostly in its function as an argot , such as a thieves' cant . Kuiper's assertions stem, in part, from the fact that many oppressed groups within India have used secret languages to prevent outsiders from understanding them. Linguist Norman Zide describes the recent history of

120-538: A Western and an Eastern one. The Western Dialect, which has a handful of subdialects is also called Korku. Among the Western varieties, the one spoken in Lahi is notable for its loss of the dual number. Glottolog lists four dialects for Korku: Korku is spoken in the following regions (Zide 2008:256): Korku has 10 phonemic vowels , which can occur short or long (e.g. /aː/), plus one mid vowel that only occurs as

150-481: A different demonstrative paradigm than that of Korku. Nihali morphosyntax is much simpler than that of Korku and other Munda languages, and is unrelated to that of Munda languages (Nagaraja 2014: 144). Word order is SOV. Korku language Korku (also known as Kurku, or Muwasi ) is an Austroasiatic language spoken by the Korku people of central India , in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. It

180-652: A short segment /ə/. Korku has a large consonant phoneme inventory, in which stops occur in several places of articulation. Like many languages of India , Korku stops distinguish between voiced , plain voiceless, and voiceless aspirated consonants. Word-finally, all stops are unreleased. Korku is a highly agglutinating , suffixing language. It has postpositions, a case system, a two-gender system, and three numbers. The verb phrase can be complex in Korku; functions that in English and other languages may be encoded in by

210-855: Is isolated in the midst of the Gondi people , who are Dravidian , while its closest relatives are in eastern India. It is the westernmost Austroasiatic language. Korkus are also closely associated with the Nihali people, many of whom have traditionally lived in special quarters of Korku villages. Korku is spoken by around 700,000 people, mainly in four districts of southern Madhya Pradesh ( Khandwa , Harda , Betul , Narmadapuram ) and three districts of northern Maharashtra (Rajura and Korpana tahsils of Chandrapur district , Manikgarh pahad area near Gadchandur in Chandrapur district ) ( Amravati , Buldana , Akola ). The name Korku comes from Koro-ku (- ku

240-603: Is phonemic. The vowels [e] and [o] have lower varieties at the end of morphemes. Nasalization is rare and tends to occur in borrowed words. There are 33 consonants. Unaspirated stops are more frequent than aspirated stops. Below are some Nihali basic vocabulary words without clear external parallels (in Korku, Hindi, Marathi, Dravidian, etc.) listed in the appendix of Nagaraja (2014). (In Nihali, many verbs are suffixed with - be .) The personal pronouns in Nihali are (Nagaraja 2014: 34): Nagaraja (2014: 139) notes that Nihali has

270-549: Is phonemic. The vowels [e] and [o] have lower varieties at the end of morphemes. Nasalization is rare and tends to occur in borrowed words. There are 33 consonants. Unaspirated stops are more frequent than aspirated stops. Below are some Nihali basic vocabulary words without clear external parallels (in Korku, Hindi, Marathi, Dravidian, etc.) listed in the appendix of Nagaraja (2014). (In Nihali, many verbs are suffixed with - be .) The personal pronouns in Nihali are (Nagaraja 2014: 34): Nagaraja (2014: 139) notes that Nihali has

300-600: Is the animate plural), Koro 'person, member of the Korku community' (Zide 2008). The Indian national census of 2011 reported 727,133 people claiming to speak Korku, which is an unscheduled language according to the Indian system. However, Korku is classified as “vulnerable” by UNESCO , the least concerning of the levels of language endangerment nonetheless. Most adult men are bilingual in Hindi , or multilingual in Hindi and

330-421: Is used today. There are no longer any surviving monolingual speakers of the language. Those well-versed in modern Nihali are likely to speak varieties of Marathi, Hindi or Korku as well. For centuries, most Nihali have often worked as agricultural labourers, for speakers of languages other than their own. In particular, Nihali labourers have often worked for members of the Korku people , and are often bilingual in

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360-423: The Korku language . Because of this history, Nihali is sometimes used by its speakers only to prevent native Korku speakers and other outsiders from understanding them. Franciscus Kuiper was the first to suggest that Nihali may be unrelated to any other Indian language, with the non-Korku, non-Dravidian core vocabulary being the remnant of an earlier population in India. However, he did not rule out that it may be

390-471: The Korku people , and are often bilingual in the Korku language . Because of this history, Nihali is sometimes used by its speakers only to prevent native Korku speakers and other outsiders from understanding them. Franciscus Kuiper was the first to suggest that Nihali may be unrelated to any other Indian language, with the non-Korku, non-Dravidian core vocabulary being the remnant of an earlier population in India. However, he did not rule out that it may be

420-827: The Nihali language are also present in several villages of the Buldhana district in Maharashtra such as Jamod, Sonbardi, Kuvardev, Chalthana, Ambavara, Wasali, and Cicari. There are dialectal differences between the Kuvardev-Chalthana and the Jamod-Sonbardi varieties. The language has a very large number of words adopted from neighboring languages, with 60–70% apparently taken from Korku (25% of vocabulary and much of its morphology), from Dravidian languages , and from Marathi , but much of its core vocabulary cannot be related to them or other languages, such as

450-599: The animate class. Nouns in the inanimate class are rarely marked for number. Final vowels are sometimes deleted before dual or plural endings (see the example at koɾo ). ‘daughter’ ‘two daughters’ ‘daughters’ ‘man’ ‘two men’ ‘men’ ‘dog’ ‘two dogs’ ‘dogs’ In Korku, the function of participants in a sentence (e.g. agent , patient , etc.) is expressed through grammatical case markings on nouns. Additionally, ideas that are expressed via prepositions in English (e.g. towards, from, with, etc.) are also expressed via case markings in Korku. The table below illustrates

480-482: The communicative context. The second person (“ you, you all” ) only encodes number, whereas the third person (“ s/he, they” ) distinguishes gender, and number for animate nouns. In Korku, demonstratives (e.g. “ this, that, those” ) encode not only distance (e.g. “here and there” ) but also gender and number. Unlike English, which only distinguishes between a single proximal (this) and distal (that) spatial references, Korku demonstratives encode four levels of proximity to

510-460: The different cases and the suffixes used to express them. ‘s/he’ siʈa ‘the dog’ (subj.) ‘her/him’ siʈa kʰeʔ ‘the dog’ (obj.) ‘her/his' ɟikɽa aʔ ‘of a porcupine’ ‘in the house’ Nagpuɾ en ‘in Nagpur’ ‘with a daughter’ ‘by/in pen’ ‘towards Achalpur' ‘from the house’ Additionally, Korku regularly marks direct object on the verb, as in other Munda languages. In

540-498: The extended family and in-laws. There are often separate terms for people depending on their gender and seniority, for instance /bawan/ “wife's older brother” and /kosɾeʈ/ “elder brother's son”. In the tables below, words that include the suffix -/ʈe/ refer to someone else's family member, so that /kon/ means “my son”, whereas /kon ʈe / is used when talking about someone else's son, for instance /ɖukriaʔ konʈe/ “the old woman's son”. Korku has words to refer to pairs or groups of people in

570-609: The family. Nihali Nihali , also known as Nahali or erroneously as Kalto , is an endangered language isolate that is spoken in west-central India (in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra ), with approximately 2,000 people in 1991 out of an ethnic population of 5,000. The Nihali tribal area is just south of the Tapti River , around the village of Tembi in Burhanpur district of Madhya Pradesh. Speakers of

600-473: The language as follows: "Nihali's borrowings are far more massive than in such textbook examples of heavy outside acquisition as Albanian ." In this respect, says Zide, modern Nihali seems comparable to hybridised dialects of Romani spoken in Western Europe . Zide claims that this is a result of a historical process that began with a massacre of Nihalis in the early 19th century, organised by one of

630-410: The language as follows: "Nihali's borrowings are far more massive than in such textbook examples of heavy outside acquisition as Albanian ." In this respect, says Zide, modern Nihali seems comparable to hybridised dialects of Romani spoken in Western Europe . Zide claims that this is a result of a historical process that began with a massacre of Nihalis in the early 19th century, organised by one of

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660-515: The language were, apparently, deliberately rebuffed or misled". Some Korku-speakers refuse to acknowledge the Nihali as a distinct community, and describe the emergence of the Nihalis as resulting from a disruption of Korku civil society. The Nihali live similarly to the Kalto. That and the fact that Kalto has often been called Nahali led to confusion of the two languages. Lengthening of vowels

690-406: The language were, apparently, deliberately rebuffed or misled". Some Korku-speakers refuse to acknowledge the Nihali as a distinct community, and describe the emergence of the Nihalis as resulting from a disruption of Korku civil society. The Nihali live similarly to the Kalto. That and the fact that Kalto has often been called Nahali led to confusion of the two languages. Lengthening of vowels

720-565: The local Dravidian languages (Zide 2008: 156). Literacy in the language is low . Throughout recent history, the use of the Korku language has been heavily influenced by larger hegemonic languages, especially Hindi. A few Korku-speaking groups have had relative success in increasing the viability of their dialect, specifically the Potharia Korku from the Vindhya Mountains . Zide (2008:256) lists two dialects for Korku,

750-494: The numerals and words for "blood" and "egg". Scholars state that less than 25% of the language's original vocabulary is used today. There are no longer any surviving monolingual speakers of the language. Those well-versed in modern Nihali are likely to speak varieties of Marathi, Hindi or Korku as well. For centuries, most Nihali have often worked as agricultural labourers, for speakers of languages other than their own. In particular, Nihali labourers have often worked for members of

780-454: The rulers of the area, supposedly in response to "marauding". Zide alleges that, afterwards, the Nihalis "decimated in size", have "functioned largely as raiders and thieves ... who [have] disposed of ... stolen goods" through "outside associates". Zide adds that Nihali society has "long been multilingual, and uses Nihali as a more or less secret language which is not ordinarily revealed to outsiders" and that early researchers "attempting to learn

810-454: The rulers of the area, supposedly in response to "marauding". Zide alleges that, afterwards, the Nihalis "decimated in size", have "functioned largely as raiders and thieves ... who [have] disposed of ... stolen goods" through "outside associates". Zide adds that Nihali society has "long been multilingual, and uses Nihali as a more or less secret language which is not ordinarily revealed to outsiders" and that early researchers "attempting to learn

840-408: The sentence below, the suffix /eɟ/ on the verb compound /senɖawkʰen/ indicates that it was someone else who was given permission to go. Sources: Personal pronouns in Korku show different number and gender patterns depending on the person. The first person (“ I, we” ) distinguishes not only the three numbers but also whether the hearer is included (“ all of us” ) or excluded (“ us, but not you ”) in

870-455: The speaker (i.e. ‘very close’ vs. ‘close’ vs. ‘far’ vs. ‘very far’), plus a fifth distinction, when one is pinpointing. The table below illustrates the forms used in Korku. The basic cardinal numbers from 1 to 10 (transcribed in IPA) are: Numbers after 11 are mainly of Indo-Aryan origin. As with many Austroasiatic languages, Korku has several words to refer to members of one's family, including

900-623: The use of auxiliary verbs and of prepositions may be expressed in Korku through suffixation. Korku, as all Munda languages , shows a strict Subject-Object-Verb ( SOV ) word order . Adjectives are expressed verbally - as intransitive verbs - with the exception of a few cases in which a separate word occurs before the noun they are modifying. Nouns in Korku are assigned one of two grammatical genders : animate, and inanimate , and inflect for several different grammatical cases . Korku distinguishes three grammatical numbers : singular, dual (two of X), and plural (three or more of X) for nouns in

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