THE PEOPLE

LANGUAGES

The old Gazetteer of Wardha district gives the following information about languages in the district:-

Marathi.

" The prevailing language of the District is Marathi which was

returned at last Census by 79 per cent of the population, Wardha having a higher proportion of Marathi speakers than any other District in the Central Provinces. The Berari dialect of the language was returned by nearly all the speakers of Marathi at the Census, though Dr. Grierson considers that the river Wardha may be taken as the boundary between the Berari and Nagpuri dialects. Nagpuri is, however, practically the same as Berari, presenting only slight local variations which intensify east from the Wardha. ' Berari should ' historically represent the purest Marathi for Berar corresponds to the ancient Vidarbha or Maharashtra. The ' political centre of gravity, however, in after centuries moved' to the west and with it the linguistic standard. Marathi' hat a copious literature of great popularity. The poets wrote in the true local vernacular. The country was not 'invaded by the Musalmans till a comparatively late period, ' and was more or less successful in repelling the invasion, so ' that the number of words borrowed from or through Persian is small. As Mr. Beames says, Marathi is one of those languages which may be called playful, it delights in all sorts of jingling formations, and has struck out a larger quantity of secondary and tertiary words, dimunitives and the like, than any of the cognate tongues. The most celebrated Marathi writer was Tukaram or Tukoba, a contemporary of Shivaji who wrote in the first half of the seventeenth century. His " Abhangas " or loosely constructed hymns in honour of the god Vithoba are household words in the Maratha country.' [ The above description is from Dr. Gricrson's Chapter on Languages, India Census Report. 1901, pp. 315-316,]

Table No. 10 shows the population by nine major languages for the district, each tahsil and town separately in 1961.

TABLE No. 10

DISTRIBUTION OF POPULATION BY MAJOR LANGUAGES IN WARDHA DISTRICT IN 1961

TABLE No. 10-contd.

TABLE No. 10-contd.

TABLE No. 10-contd.

" The distribution of languages by rural and urban areas of the district is as follows:-

Marathi is the principal language and is the mothertongue of 86.66 per cent of the population. In rural areas Marathi speakers account for 90.93 per cent of the population. They form only 72.88 per cent in urban areas. Hindi has the second largest number of speakers. Its speakers account for 5.46 per cent of the district total population. It is spoken more, in urban areas where its speakers constitute as much as 13.84 per cent as against 2.87 per cent for rural areas. Gondi has the third largest number of speakers. Its speakers form 2.69 per cent of the total population of the district. It is spoken more in rural areas where its speakers form as much as 3.32 per cent against only 0.65 per cent for urban areas of the district. Urdu speakers are 2.57 per cent of the district total population. It is spoken more in urban areas where its speakers account for 6.09 per cent of the urban population against only 1.48 per cent of the rural population. Banjari is spoken mostly in rural areas of the district. Kolami language is reported only in rural areas of the district. Gujarati has been reported by 0.47 per cent of the population. It is spoken more in urban areas of the district. Telugu speakers are concentrated more in urban areas of the district than in rural areas. Sindhi is similarly spoken in the urban areas of the district.

The comparative position of the languages in 1901, 1951 and 1961 is as follows:-

The proportion of Marathi speakers has increased from 76.33 in 1901 to 83.39 per cent in 1951 and has further increased to 86.66 per cent in 1961. Urdu has not been reported as a language in 1901. It might have been included in Hindi in 1901. The proportion of Urdu speakers has increased from 2.44 in 1951 to 2.57 per cent in 1961. The percentage of Hindi speakers has decreased from 12.34 in 1901 to 7.19 in 1951 and further to 5.46 in 1961. The proportion of Gujarati speakers has remained almost constant over the decade 1951.61. Gujarati was not reported in 1901. The percentage of Banjari speakers has decreased from 0.34 in 1901 to 0.32 in 1951 and has remained constant over a decade. The proportion of Gondi speakers has decreased from 9.93 in 1901 to 4.11 per cent in 1951 and further to only 2.69 per cent in 1961. Kolami was reported as a language in the district in 1951 and the proportion of Kolami speakers has remained almost constant over a decade. The percentage of Telugu speakers has decreased from 0.53 in 1901 to 0.38 in 1951 and further to 0.28 in 1961. Sindhi was reported first in 1951. The proportion of Sindhi speakers has decreased from 0.61 in 1951 to 0.54 per cent in 1961. The 1901 percentages are pertaining to the then Wardha district."

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