The Kharia language (IPA: [kʰaɽija] or IPA: [kʰeɽija][2]) is a Munda language of the Austroasiatic language family, that is primarily spoken by the Kharia people of eastern India.
| Kharia | |
|---|---|
| खड़िया, ଖଡ଼ିଆ | |
| Region | India (Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha). |
| Ethnicity | Kharia |
Native speakers | 297,614, 69% of ethnic population (2011 census)[1] |
Austroasiatic
| |
| Devanagari, Odia, Latin | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  India
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | khr |
| Glottolog | khar1287 |
| ELP | Kharia |
History
editAccording to linguist Paul Sidwell, Austroasiatic languages arrived on the coast of Odisha from Southeast Asia about 4000-3500 years ago.[3]
Classification
editKharia belongs to the Kharia–Juang branch of the Munda language family. Its closest extant relative is the Juang language, but the relationship between Kharia and Juang is remote.
The most widely cited classification places Kharia and Juang together as a subgroup of the South Munda branch of the Munda family. However, some earlier classification schemes placed Kharia and Juang together, as an independent branch deriving from the root of the Munda languages, which they named Central Munda.
Kharia is in contact with Sadri (the local lingua franca), Mundari, Kurukh, Hindi, and Odia (in Odisha).[2]
Distribution
editKharia speakers are located in the following districts of India.[2]
Phonology
edit| Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Retroflex | Post-alv./ Palatal |
Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | (ɳ) | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Stop/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t̪ | ʈ | c | k | (ʔ) |
| aspirated | t̪ʰ | ʈʰ | cʰ | kʰ | |||
| voiced | b | d̪ | ɖ | ɟ | ɡ | ||
| breathy | bʱ | d̪ʱ | ɖʱ | ɟʱ | ɡʱ | ||
| glottalised | ˀb | ˀɖ | ˀɟ | ||||
| Fricative | f | s | ɦ | ||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | ||||
| Tap | unaspirated | ɾ | (ɽ) | ||||
| aspirated | (ɽʱ) | ||||||
- [ɽ, ɽʱ] are only marginally phonemic and are normally intervocalic allophones of /ɖ, ɖʱ/.
- /f/ can also be pronounced among some speakers as an affricate [p͡f].
- /c, cʰ, ɟ, ɟʱ/ are often realized as affricate sounds [t͡ʃ, t͡ʃʰ, d͡ʒ, d͡ʒʱ], especially in loanwords.
- [ʔ] is an allophone of /ɡ/ when in coda position.[4]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | (ə) | o |
| Open | a | ||
| Diphthong | /ae̯, ao̯, ou̯, oe̯, ui̯/ | ||
- /i, e, o, u/ have lax allophones of [ɪ, ɛ, ɔ, ʊ].
- /a/ can have allophones of [ɑ, ä, ə, ʌ].[4]
References
edit- ^ "Statement 1: Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues – 2011". www.censusindia.gov.in. Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Retrieved 2018-07-07.
- ^ a b c Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2008). The Munda languages. London: Routledge. p. 434. ISBN 9780415328906. OCLC 225385744.
- ^ Sidwell, Paul (2018). "Austroasiatic Studies: state of the art in 2018". Archived from the original on 2019-05-03 – via academia.edu.. Presentation at the Graduate Institute of Linguistics, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, 22 May 2018.
- ^ a b c d Peterson 2008.
- Gagan Chandra Banerjee (1894). Introduction to the Khariā Language. Bengal Secretariat Press. ISBN 9788120617728. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
- Peterson, John (2008). "Kharia". In Anderson, Gregory D. S' (ed.). The Munda languages. Routledge Language Family Series. Vol. 3. New York: Routledge. pp. 434–507. ISBN 0-415-32890-X.
External links
edit