THE PEOPLE

LANGUAGES

At the Census of 1961 as many as 89 languages and dialects are returned as mother-tongues spoken in the district. For the purpose of census enumeration mother-tongue is language spoken in childhood by the person's mother to the person of mainly spoken in household. A number of these mother- tongues returned at the census are arranged in the order of total speakers who number more than 100 each to claim a mother-tongue of their own. The information speaks as follows: -

(1) Marathi 933,268 (m. 481,273; f. 451,995); (2) Urdu 113,183 (m. 59,315; f. 53,868); (3) Hindi 68,601 (m. 36,746; f. 31,855); (4) Korku 55,077 (m. 27,857; f. 27,150); (5) Marvadi 14,973 (m. 7,955; f. 7,018); (6) Gondi 14,755 (m. 7,455; f. 7,300); (7) Sindhi 9,636 (m. 5,033; f. 4,603); (8) Gujarati 7,313 (m. 3,892; f. 3,421); (9) Telugu 2,632 (m. 1,365; f. 1,247); (10) Pardhi 2,013 (m. 1,061; f. 952); (11) Rajasthani 1,089 (m. 497; f. 592); (12) Nimadi 885 (m. 440; f. 445); (13) Panjabi 688 (m. 414; f. 274); (14) Mankari 475 (m. 244; f. 231); Pardesi 426 (m. 245; f. 181); (16) Kacchi 334 (m. 210; f. 124); (17) Lazodi 312 (m. 152; f. 160); (18) Tamil 307 (m. 167; f. 140); (19) Ladhado 303 (m. 157; f. 146); (20) Beldari 300; (m. 136; f. 164); (21) Bagheli 265 (m. 152; f. 113); (22) Lamani (m. 124; f. 116); (23) Kolami 233 (m. 126; f. 107); (24) Rajputi 220 (m. 127; f. 93); (25) Malayalam 159 (m. 60; f. 99); (26) Konkani 124 (m. 22; f. 102); (27) Ojhi 121 (m. 56; f. 65); (28) Kannada 108 (m. 73; f. 35); and (29) Mevari 101 (m. 62; f. 39).

As could be seen from the above account the main languages and dialects current in the district are Marathi, Urdu, Hindi. Korku, Marvadi, Gondi and Sindhi. They all together cover more than 98 per cent of the total population of the district, the individual percentage for each being: -Marathi 75.70; Urdu 9.10; Hindi 5.56; Korku 4.46; Marvadi 1.21; Gondi 1.19 and Sindhi 0.78.

Marathi.

The principal language of the district is Marathi, which is spoken by 933,268 persons, or 75.70 per cent of the population. The form of the language locally used is that known as the Varhadi (Berar) dialect and is closely related with Marathi spoken in the Deccan. Some consider it as the primary form of Marathi. The difference between the two forms of speech is slight and they gradually merge into each other in Buldhana. Long vowels, and especially final ones, arc very frequently shortened and there is a strong tendency among the lower classes to substitute o for ava; thus jol for javal, near; udola for udavila squandered. An a is very commonly used where the Deccan form of the language has an e, especially in the termination of neuter bases in the suffix ne of the instrumental and in the future. Thus asd sangatla, it was said; dukra, swine; asal, I shall be. I is very often interchanged with e and va; thus dila, della, given; initial e, is commonly pronounced as ve; thus ek and vek, one. The anunasika is very commonly dropped, or, occasionally replaced by an n; karn, to do; tyamula, therefore, tun thou. This is, however, the case in the Deccan also. The cerebral n is always changed to dental n; thus kon, who; pani, water; I and n are continually inter-changed in the future tenses; thus mi marin and maril, I shall strike. V is very indistinctively sounded before i and e and is often dropped altogether. Thus isto, fire; is, twenty; vel; time.  This fact accounts for occasional spellings such as Visvar, God. The neuter gender is thoroughly preserved only in Marathi and Gujarati, but the distinction between it and the masculine is weakened in the Berari dialect. Mansa, men, is a neuter plural, but it is frequently combined with an adjective in the masculine gender; cangle mansa, good men. In verbs the second person singular has usually the form of the third person; tu ahe, thou art, for tu ahes; in the present tense a is substituted for e in the terminations of the second persons singular, and the third person plural; thus tu marta, thou strikest; te mortal, they strike. The habitual past is often used as ordinary past; thus to mhane, he said. In the Acalpur tahsil two small dialects Jhadpi and Kosti are spoken but they do not materially differ from the prevailing language of the district. A peculiarity of Jhadpi is the substitution of the cerebral I for a cerebral d when preceded by a vowel; thus ghola, a horse. The genuine cerebral l is commonly pronounced as r; thus kar, famine. A further characteristic of Varhadi (Berari) Marathi as distinguished from the pure tongue spoken further west is the large vocabulary which, in the course of Muhammedan dominion in Berar, it has borrowed from Urdu.

Other Languages.

Among other languages largely spoken in the district, Urdu and Hindi are the chief. It is impossible to draw any distinction between the two languages as locally spoken. Except among a few Persian scholars in Acalpur the language is the same whichever alphabet is used; and this fact is recognised locally by the term Musalmani bat which covers both tongues. Marvadi which is spoken by 14,973 persons or 1.21 per cent of the population is the dialect of the trader immigrants from Rajputana, and similar is the case of Gujarati which is the mother-tongue of immigrants from Gujarat. The increase of Sindhi speakers in the district who now number 9,636 is obviously due to the influx of the community displaced after partition.

Korku and Gondi.

Almost the whole of the Korku population of Berar is concentrated in this district or more specifically in the Melghat  tahsil. The speakers of Korku in the district number 55,007 or 4.46 per cent of the population. Gondi which is spoken by 14,755 persons constitutes 1.19 per cent. Korku and Gondi belong to different families of aboriginal languages, the former to Munda and the latter to Dravidian stock, but both are now spoken with so large a mixture of Marathi words that it has become difficult to obtain any definite knowledge about their affinities. The phonetical system in Korku is broadly the same as in Santaji. There are two genders to distinguish animate beings and inanimate objects; however, they are often confounded. There are three numbers, the singular, the dual and the plural. Number is only marked in the case of animate nouns. The suffix of the dual is king and that of the plural ku. It is interesting to see that the dual is used to denote a married wife as in Santali, e.g., Tumla-king, that is, Tumta's wife. Adjectives do not change for gender, number or case. Compa-rison is effected by putting the compared noun in the ablative. It is a well-known fact that the Munda verb is not a verb in the strictest sense of the word. Every form can he used as a noun, an adjective and a verb. The principal dialects have a separate particle, the so-called categorical a, by simple adding which any word may be turned into a verb dal, strike. It can also be used as a noun or an adjective; thus dal-ket-ko, those who struck; dal-ket-har.

A mother-tongue pattern comparing the censuses of 1951 and 1961 in terms of the most widely spoken languages in the district is indicated in the following table: -

TABLE No. 10

A COMPARATIVE MOTHER-TONGUE PATTERN IN AMRAVATI

DISTRICT

As the table reveals except for Marathi, Condi and Gujarati mother-tongue speakers who have decreased by 2.8, 26.5 and 9.2, respectively, all the other mother-tongue speakers, namely, Urdu, Hindi, Korku, Marvadi and Sindhi have increased by 18.5, 6.7, 22.5, 49.4 and 9.8, respectively.

Bilingualism.

In Amravati district 171,518 (m. 117,258; f. 54,260) persons or 13.1 per cent of the total population were returned as speaking a language subsidiary to the mother-tongue at 1961 Census. Of these, the males consisted 18.3 per cent and the females 9.1 per cent of their respective population.

TABLE No. 11

BILINGUAI.ISM, DISTRICT AMRAVATI, 1961

It will be seen from the table that the total Marathi mothertongue speakers 68,655 or about 7.3 per cent were conversant with a subsidiary language. Out of them about 81 per cent knew Hindi, and of these Hindi bilinguists about 78 per cent were males. Of the Urdu mother-tongue speakers 20,243 or about 18 per cent claimed that they knew a subsidiary language of whom about 77 per cent were males. Of these Urdu bilinguists. 51.5 per cent knew Marathi and 40.8 per cent Hindi. Of the Hindi mother-tongue speakers about 34 per cent were bilinguists of whom 82 per cent knew Marathi and about 10 per cent Korku. Of the Korku mother-tongue speakers 43.2 per cent were bilinguists; 95.2 per cent of these knew Hindi, only 3.4 per cent knowing Marathi. The Marvadi mother-tongue speakers had among them 57.4 per cent bilinguists of whom about 52 per cent knew Marathi and the remaining knew Hindi. 62.4 per cent of the Gondi mother-tongue speakers knew a subsidiary language of whom 73.2 per cent knew Marathi, 23 per cent Hindi and 3.6 per cent Korku. The Sindhi mother-tongue speakers had 37 per cent as bilinguists who mainly knew Hindi.

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