THE PEOPLE

LANGUAGES.

The sociological implications of the study of languages are of immense value. The study of languages gives an insight into the cultural aspects of the community of people. Language determines the degree of social intercourse between various groups of population. By and large, the rural as well as urban society has still not transcended the language barrier. Individuals have their social intercourse within their own linguistic group. In fact the rural society has still preserved its unilingual pattern.

For purposes of this study mother-tongue is defined [This is also the definition accepted by the Census authorities of 1961.] as a language spoken by the person's mother to him in his childhood or mainly spoken in the house. The census returns include the various dialects in the statistics of the main languages on the basis of Grierson's Classification. The Census statistics of the speakers of various mother-tongues in the district in 1961 are given in the following table:

TABLE No. 11

STATISTICS OF MOTHER-TONGUE IN CHANDRAPUR DISTRICT, IN 1961

TABLE No. 11-contd.

STATISTICS OF MOTHER-TONGUE IN CHANDRAPUR DISTRICT, IN 1961

The following table gives the percentage distribution of languages in rural and urban areas of the district. It also fur- rushes the percentage of population speaking the various languages as between rural and urban areas.

TABLE No. 12

From the point of view of numerical superiority, Marathi is the principal language and is the mother-tongue of 75.97 per cent, of the population. Gondi which ranks second is spoken by 11.81 per cent. of the total population. This is the mother-tongue of the Gonds who are inhabited mainly in the rural countryside and forest lands in the Sironca, Gadhciroli, Brahmapuri and Rajura tahsils. Telugu ranks third, and is spoken by 7.68 per cent. of the population. It is prevalent mainly in Sironca, Candrapur and Gadhciroli tahsils. Of the total of 95,047 Telugu speakers. 39,331 are in Sironca tahsil, 29.147 in Candrapur tahsil, and 12,329 in Gadhciroli tahsil. Hindi speakers who form about 2.29 per cent are mainly found in urban areas. Urdu speakers are also mainly urbanites.

The percentage of speakers of various languages during the Censuses of 1901. 1951 and 1961 is given below: -

The District Census Handbook of the District (1961) gives the following comments regarding the above percentages:

"It should be remembered that the 1901 proportions are for the district as it existed in 1901. Its boundaries have changed since then and some predominantly Telugu and Gondi speaking areas have been transferred to Madras and some predominantly Hindi speaking areas were transferred to Durg district when it was first constituted in 1907. The addition of the predominantly Marathi speaking talukas of Rajura has also changed the proportions significantly. The 1901 proportions are now therefore comparable with those of 1951 or 1961. Between 1951 and 1961 the proportions of Gondi, Hindi, Marathi and Urdu have slightly increased. The proportion of Telugu alone has slightly gone down from 9.90 per cent in 1951 to 7.68 per cent in 1961. It may be due to the addition of Rajura taluka in 1959."

Marathi.

Three distinct languages, Marathi, Telugu and Gondi meet in Candrapur and around and between each has accumulated a weltering mass of dialects which almost defies enumeration. Roughly it may be said that Marathi is the language that dominates all other languages, and dialects and is spoken by 75.97 per cent of the population and understood by all, Telugu still having prominence m Sironca and Gondi in the former Zamindaris and among the Gonds and Madias. It does not appear, however, that Marathi possessed this prominence always. Sir Robert Jenkins has written in 1826 that Marathi and Telugu were spoken in nearly equal proportion. Hindi and Urdu are little employed. Marathi is also the language of the Courts. The variety spoken is that known as Nagpuri Marathi which is identical with that of Berar and is the typical Marathi of Vidarbha. The local dialect is sometimes called Jhari, i.e., language spoken in the forest areas. Various dialects can be distinguished but they are no more than jargons of the standard type. The most important of these is Kunbari, the dialect of the Kunbis stated in the Linguistic Survey to be used by over three lakhs of people. Others are Govari, Kumbari, Kosti, Mahari, Kosri and Netakani. Most of these are as the names indicate caste dialects and these are all rejected by Dr. Grierson as essentially identical with the ordinary Marathi of the locality.

Gondi.

Gondi belongs to the Dravidian family of languages and forms a link between Telugu on the one hand and Tamil and Kannada on the other, on the whole approximating more closely to Tamil and Kannada. The language spoken in Candrapur, however, forms an exception to this generalisation in that Telugu influence is strong, increasing in power as one goes further southwards. At the Census of 1881, Gondi was ascertained to be the native tongue of 132,348 residents of the district, in 1891, the figure was 132,598 and 1901, 98,428. The figures have gone on decreasing during the last 50 years, Marathi getting more and more into vogue. The Gonds speak Gondi among themselves but employ Marathi, Telugu and even Hindi when speaking with strangers, The language has no literature and in fact no written characters.  There are, however, several popular folk songs of which some were collected and transcribed by the Reverend Hislop. Many  variations of Gondi were once recognised including Koi, Gattu  and Maria but Dr. Grierson considers that they only represent the same Gondi which might be described as links between the forms of Gondi spoken in the north-east of Candrapur and the adjoining districts in former Bastar State on one side and the Gondi dialects of Hyderabad and Madras. An interesting point about Gondi is that with one or two exceptions all its numerals above seven are borrowed from Aryan languages. The Gond has for years freely taken to the use of other languages than his own and Grierson's remark that " It is probably a question of time when Gondi shall have ceased to exist as an independent form of speech " has proved prophetic by now.

Telugu.

Telugu is mostly spoken in Sironca tahsil and a little south of Candrapur tahsil and follows the course of Vainganga as far north as Camursi and Gadhciroli. Telugu is supposed to be a mellifluous tongue, the Italian of the east, but according to the Census Report of 1901 the euphonious nature of Telugu is not appreciated by the people of Nagpur among whom it is said to sound like stones rattled in a tin. It has voluminous literature, mostly poetical written in a dialect that widely differs from the colloquial form of language. The bulk of the Telugu speaking population of this district use the standard form of language but its purity and quality of pronunciation markedly improves from north to south: when spoken in the direction of Mul and Camursi, it is to a great extent mixed with Marathi. There is wide divergence in form and pronunciation from place to place. Several minor dialects have been distinguished such as Salevari, the weaver's dialect, Komtan's dialect i.e., the shopkeeper's speech and Golari spoken by the nomadic Golars or Golkars but Dr. Grierson does not think that these departures from standard Telugu which these forms exhibit are striking enough to warrant their separate classification. Russel in his Census Report lumps all these dialects together and states that they are one dialect spoken by a number of castes whose Native Telugu has undergone some modification by being brought into contact with Marathi.

Bilingualism.

A considerable number of people speak subsidiary languages besides their mother-tongue. Such population, known as bilingual population, has increased to a considerable extent during the last few decades. Such population is found more concentrated in urban areas than in villages.

Marathi being the mother-tongue of the majority of the people, there is a fairly large proportion among them who know Hindi, Telugu and Gondi. English is confined to employees in Government offices, high schools and colleges. People speaking Telugu and Gondi also speak workable Marathi.

The Census statistics of bilingual population in the district are given in the following table:

TABLE No. 13

BILINGUALISM IN CHANDRAPUR DISTRICT, 1961

Of the total population of the district, 2,01,837 persons are  enumerated as speaking a language subsidiary to the mothertongue in Candrapur district in 196l. In the nature of things, the proportion of bilingual males (1,22,429) is very much higher than that of females (79,4O8).

The 1961 Census statistics of bilingual population speaking the various subsidiary languages are given below:

Marathi (M. 57,334-F. 50,601): Hindi (M. 40,197-F. 8.476): Telugu (M. 13.153-F. 12,702): Gondi (M. 5,329-F. 4.408): English (M. 2,780-F. 468): Maria (M. 1,548-F. 1.323); Chattisgarhi (M. 996-F. 922); Urdu (M. 654- F. 146): Gujarati (M. 95-F. 61); Kosti-Marathi (M. 67-F. 70): Kewati (M. 35-F. 32): Kolami (M. 25-F. 30): Arabic/Arbi (M. 12-F. 39); Marvari (M. 20-F. 25); Govari (M. 23-F. 21): Halabi (M. 15-F. 22): Kannada (M. 25-F. 12): Mali (M. 36); Kosari (M. 12-F. 16): Sanskrt (M. 23-F. 4): Punjabi (M. 10 -F. 8); Kaikadi (M. 15): Paradhi (M. 2- F. 9;: Bengali (M. 6 - F. 2); Tamil (M. 7 -F. 1); Kuruba/ Kuruniba (M. 4-F. 2); Pardesi (M. 1-F. 3); Parsi (M. 1-F. 2): Hatakari (M, 2): Oriya (M. 1 - F. 1); Dhamdi (M. 1): Koya (F. 1: Nepali (F. 1).

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