Munda languages

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"Munda language" redirects here. For the Munda a.k.a. Killi language, see Killi language.
Munda
Geographic
distribution:		 India, Bangladesh
Linguistic classification: Austroasiatic
  • Munda
Subdivisions:
  • Kherwari (North)
  • Korku (North)
  • Kharia–Juang
  • Koraput (Remo, Savara)
ISO 639-2 / 5: mun
Glottolog: mund1335[1]
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Distribution of Munda language speakers in India

The Munda languages are a language family spoken by about nine million people in central and eastern India and Bangladesh. They constitute a branch of the Austroasiatic language family, which means they are distantly related to Khmer (Cambodian) and, to a lesser extent, Vietnamese, and also the minority languages in Thailand, Laos and Southern China. The origins of the Munda languages are not known, though they predate the other languages of eastern India. Ho, Mundari, and Santali are notable languages of this group.[2][3]

The family is generally divided into two branches: North Munda, spoken in the Chota Nagpur Plateau of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, and Odisha, and South Munda, spoken in central Odisha and along the border between Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.[4][5]

North Munda, of which Santali is the most widely spoken, is the larger of the two groups; its languages are spoken by about ninety percent of Munda speakers. After Santali, the Mundari and Ho languages rank next in number of speakers, followed by Korku and Sora. The remaining Munda languages are spoken by small, isolated groups of people and are little known.

Characteristics of the Munda languages include three grammatical numbers (singular, dual, and plural), two genders (animate and inanimate), a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first person plural pronouns, and the use of either suffixes or auxiliaries to indicate tense. In Munda sound systems, consonant sequences are infrequent except in the middle of a word. Other than in Korku, where syllables show a distinction between high and low tone, accent is predictable in the Munda languages.

Classification

Munda consists of five uncontroversial branches. However, their interrelationship is debated.

Diffloth (1974)

The bipartite Diffloth (1974) classification is widely cited:

Diffloth (2005)

Diffloth (2005) retains Koraput (rejected by Anderson, below) but abandons South Munda and places Kharia–Juang with the northern languages:

Munda 
 Koraput 

Remo


Savara


 Core   Munda 

Kharia–Juang

 North   Munda 

Korku


Kherwarian




Anderson (1999)

Gregory Anderson's 1999 proposal is as follows.[6] Individual languages are highlighted in italics.

However, in 2001, Anderson split Juang and Kharia apart from the Juang-Kharia branch and also excluded Gtaʔ from his former Gutob–Remo–Gtaʔ branch. Thus, his 2001 proposal includes 5 branches for South Munda.

Anderson (2001)

Anderson (2001) follows Diffloth (1974) apart from rejecting the validity of Koraput. He proposes instead, on the basis of morphological comparisons, that Proto-South Munda split directly into Diffloth's three daughter groups, Kharia–Juang, Sora–Gorum (Savara), and Gutob–Remo–Gtaʼ (Remo).[7]

His South Munda branch contains the following five branches, while the North Munda branch is the same as those of Diffloth (1974) and Anderson (1999).

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Sora–Gorum   Juang ↔ Kharia ↔ Gutob–Remo ↔ Gtaʔ

  • Note: "↔" = shares certain innovative isoglosses (structural, lexical). In Austronesian and Papuan linguistics, this has been called a "linkage" by Malcolm Ross.

Distribution

Language Name Classification Number of Speakers Location
Korku North Munda: Korku 478,000 Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra
Agariya North Munda: Kherwarian: Kherwari 72,000 Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh
Bijori North Munda: Kherwarian: Kherwari 25,000 Jharkhand, West Bengal
Koraku/Kodaku North Munda: Kherwarian: Kherwari 15,000 Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh
Korwa North Munda: Kherwarian: Kherwari 66,000 Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh
Mundari (inc. Bhumij dialect) North Munda: Kherwarian: Mundari 1,550,000 Jharkhand, West Bengal
Asuri North Munda: Kherwarian: Mundari 16,600 Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha
Koda North Munda: Kherwarian: Mundari 1,300 Bangladesh
Ho North Munda: Kherwarian: Mundari 3,800,000 Jharkhand, Odisha
Birhor North Munda: Kherwarian: Mundari 10,000 Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal
Santali North Munda: Kherwarian: Santali 6,200,000 West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar
Mahali North Munda: Kherwarian: Santali 33,000 Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal
Turi North Munda: Kherwarian: Santali 2,000 Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal
Kharia South Munda: Kharia-Juang 294,000 Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand
Juang South Munda: Kharia-Juang 50,000 Odisha
Gataq/Gta South Munda: Koraput: Remo 3,000 Odisha
Bondo/Remo South Munda: Koraput: Remo 9,000 Odisha
Bodo Gadaba/Gutob South Munda: Koraput: Remo 8,000 Odisha, Andhra Pradesh
Parengi/Gorum South Munda: Koraput: Savara/Sora-Juray-Gorum 6,700 Odisha, Andhra Pradesh
Sora/Savara South Munda: Koraput: Savara/Sora-Juray-Gorum 310,000 Odisha, Andhra Pradesh
Juray South Munda: Koraput: Savara/Sora-Juray-Gorum 801,000 Odisha
Lodhi South Munda: Koraput: Savara/Sora-Juray-Gorum 25,000 Odisha, West Bengal

See also

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Anderson, Gregory D.S. (1999). "A new classification of the Munda languages: Evidence from comparative verb morphology." Paper presented at 209th meeting of the American Oriental Society, Baltimore, MD.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

General references

  • Diffloth, Gérard. 1974. "Austro-Asiatic Languages". Encyclopædia Britannica. pp 480–484.
  • Diffloth, Gérard. 2005. "The contribution of linguistic palaeontology to the homeland of Austro-Asiatic". In: Sagart, Laurent, Roger Blench and Alicia Sanchez-Mazas (eds.). The Peopling of East Asia: Putting Together Archaeology, Linguistics and Genetics. RoutledgeCurzon. pp 79–82.

Further reading

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External links

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