Languages of Bihar
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Hindi is the official languages of the State.[2] Maithili and Urdu[3] are other recognised languages of the state. Unrecognised languages of the state are Bhojpuri, Angika and Magahi.[4] Bhojpuri and Magahi are sociolinguistically a part of the Hindi Belt languages fold, thus they were not granted official status in the state. Urdu is the second official language in 15 districts of the state.[5] However, the majority of the people of Bihar speak one of the Bihari languages, most of which as classified as dialects of Hindi during the census. The major ones are Bhojpuri, Maithili and Magahi, but smaller ones such as Angika and Bajjika (sometimes considered a Maithili dialect) also are spoken by large numbers.[6][7] Maithili is a recognised regional language of India under the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India.[8] Proponents have called for Bhojpuri and Magahi to receive the same status.[9] However speaker numbers for these languages are limited because the more educated and urban prefer to speak in Hindi (in formal contexts) and so return this answer on the census, and in rural and uneducated areas they simply return their language as "Hindi" on the census. The number of speakers of the Bihari languages is difficult to count because of unreliable sources. In the urban region, most educated speakers of the language name Hindi as their language because this is what they use in formal contexts and believe it to be the appropriate response because of unawareness. The uneducated and the rural population of the region regards Hindi as the generic name for their language.[10] Smaller communities of Bengali and Santali speakers are found in the eastern districts of the state.
History[]
Despite of the large number of speakers of Bihari languages, they have not been constitutionally recognised in India, except Maithili which is recognised under the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India. Hindi is the language used for educational and official matters in Bihar. These languages was legally absorbed under the subordinate label of Hindi in the 1961 Census. Such state and national politics are creating conditions for language endangerment. The first success for spreading Hindi occurred in Bihar in 1881, when Hindi displaced Urdu as the sole official language of the province. In this struggle between competing Hindi and Urdu, the potential claims of the three large mother tongues in the region – Bhojpuri, Maithili and Magahi were ignored. After independence Hindi was again given the sole official status through the Bihar Official Language Act, 1950. Urdu became the second official language in the undivided State of Bihar on 16 August 1989.
Inventories[]
Multilingualism[]
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2011 Census Bihar[]
Language families[]
Official languages[]
Hindi is the official languages of the State.[11] Maithili and Urdu[12] are other recognised languages of the state.
Hindi[]
Recognised languages[]
Maithili[]
Maithili (/ˈmaɪtɪli/;[13] Maithilī) is an Indo-Aryan language native to India and Nepal. In India, it is widely spoken in the Bihar and Jharkhand states.[14][15] Native speakers are also found in other states and union territories of India, most notably in Uttar Pradesh and the National Capital Territory of Delhi.[16] According to Ethnologue, there are about 34 million Maithili speakers in India as of 2000 A.D.[17] However, in the 2011 census of India, It was reported by only 1,35,83,464 people as their mother tongue comprising about 1.12% of the total population of India,[18] as many Maithili speakers view it as a dialect of Hindi and report their mother tongue as Hindi. In Nepal, it is spoken in the eastern Terai, and is the second most prevalent language of Nepal.[19] Tirhuta was formerly the primary script for written Maithili. Less commonly, it was also written in the local variant of Kaithi.[20] Today it is written in the Devanagari script.[21]
In 2003, Maithili was included in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution as a recognised regional language of India, which allows it to be used in education, government, and other official contexts.[22]
Urdu[]
Other languages and dialects of Bihar[]
Angika[]
Angika is mainly spoken in Anga area which includes Munger, Bhagalpur and Banka districts of Bihar and the Santhal Pargana division of Jharkhand.[23] Its speakers are estimated to be around 15 million.[24] In addition to the Anga area, it is also spoken in some parts of Purnia district of Bihar. However, in Purnia, it is a minority language as Purnia has a Maithil majority.[25] Angika was classified as a dialect of Maithili by George A. Grierson in the Linguistic Survey of India (1903).[26]
Bajjika[]
Bajjika is spoken in eastern India and Nepal. It is considered by some, including the Ethnologue, to be a dialect of the Maithili language.[27] Bajjika is spoken in the north-western part of Bihar, in a region popularly known as Bajjikanchal. In Bihar, it is mainly spoken in the Samastipur, Sitamarhi, Muzaffarpur, Vaishali, some eastern parts of East Champaran and Saran district, Sheohar districts. It is also spoken in a part of the Darbhanga district adjoining Muzaffarpur and Samastipur districts.[28] Bajjika is spoken in the area between east bank of Narayani river to west bank of Bagmati river.[citation needed] The Bajjika speaking areas roughly coincide with Tirhut division.
Researcher Abhishek Kashyap (2013), based on the 2001 census data, estimated that there were 20 million Bajjika speakers in Bihar (including around 11.46 illiterate adults).[29]
Bhojpuri[]
Southern Standard Bhojpuri is prevalent in the Shahabad district (Buxar, Bhojpur, Rohtas, and Kaimur districts) and the Saran region (Saran, Siwan and Gopalganj districts) in Bihar. The dialect is also known as Kharwari. It can be further divided into Shahabadi, Chhaprahiya and Pachhimahi.[30] Northern Bhojpuri is common in the western Tirhut division (east and west Champaran districts) in Bihar.[31]
Magahi[]
It is spoken in the area which formed the core of the ancient kingdom of Magadha. Magahi is bounded on the north by the various forms of Maithili spoken in Mithila across the Ganga. On the west it is bounded by the Bhojpuri, On the northeast it is bounded by Maithili and Angika.
Khortha[]
Santali[]
Surjapuri[]
Tharu[]
Classical languages of Bihar[]
Pali[]
Sanskrit[]
Writing systems[]
See also[]
References[]
- ^ "C-16 Population By Mother Tongue – Bihar". Census of India 2011. Office of the Registrar General. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
- ^ "The Bihar Official Language Act, 1950" (PDF). Cabinet Secretariat Department, Government of Bihar. 1950. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 April 2015. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
- ^ Benedikter, Thomas (2009). Language Policy and Linguistic Minorities in India: An Appraisal of the Linguistic Rights of Minorities in India. Münster: LIT Verlag. p. 89. ISBN 978-3-643-10231-7. Retrieved 10 April 2015.
- ^ Cardona, George; Jain, Dhanesh, eds. (11 September 2003). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Routledge Language Family Series. Routledge. p. 500. ISBN 978-0-415-77294-5.
...the number of speakers of Bihari languages are difficult to indicate because of unreliable sources. In the urban region most educated speakers of the language name Hindi as their language because this is what they use in formal context. Bhojpuri and Magahi are the easternmost dialects of Hindi
- ^ Benedikter, Thomas (2009). Language Policy and Linguistic Minorities in India: An Appraisal of the Linguistic Rights of Minorities in India. Münster: LIT Verlag. p. 89. ISBN 978-3-643-10231-7. Archived from the original on 19 October 2015. Retrieved 10 April 2015.
- ^ Chitransh, Anugya (1 September 2012). "Bhojpuri is not the only language in Bihar". Hill Post. Archived from the original on 28 December 2014. Retrieved 10 April 2015.
- ^ Cardona, George; Jain, Dhanesh, eds. (11 September 2003). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Routledge Language Family Series. Routledge. p. 500. ISBN 978-0-415-77294-5.
...the number of speakers of Bihari languages are difficult to indicate because of unreliable sources. In the urban region most educated speakers of the language name Hindi as their language because this is what they use in formal contexts and believe it to be the appropriate response because of lack of awareness. The uneducated and the urban population of the region return Hindi as the generic name for their language.
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 28 May 2016.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
- ^ "लोकसभा में उठी मगही, भोजपुरी को आठवीं अनुसूची में शामिल करने की मां" [Demand for including Bhojpuri in the Eighth Schedule]. Firstpost (in Hindi). 22 March 2017. Archived from the original on 28 March 2019. Retrieved 24 February 2019.
- ^ Jain, Dhanesh; Cardona, George (2003). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Routledge. p. 500.
The number of speakers of Bihari languages are difficult to indicate because of unreliable sources. In the urban region, most educated speakers of the language name either Hindi or Urdu as their language because this is what they use in formal contexts and believe it to be the appropriate response because of unawareness. The uneducated and the rural population of the region regards Hindi or Urdu as the generic name for their language.
- ^ "The Bihar Official Language Act, 1950" (PDF). Cabinet Secretariat Department, Government of Bihar. 1950. Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 April 2015. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
- ^ Benedikter, Thomas (2009). Language Policy and Linguistic Minorities in India: An Appraisal of the Linguistic Rights of Minorities in India. Münster: LIT Verlag. p. 89. ISBN 978-3-643-10231-7. Retrieved 10 April 2015.
- ^ "Maithili". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
- ^ "मैथिली लिपि को बढ़ावा देने के लिए विशेषज्ञों की जल्द ही बैठक बुला सकते हैं प्रकाश जावड़ेकर". NDTVIndia.
- ^ "मैथिली को भी मिलेगा दूसरी राजभाषा का दर्जा". Hindustan.
- ^ "BJP trying to influence Maithil voters in delhi | मैथिल मतदाताओं को मोहने की कोशिश में है बीजेपी, दिल्ली में हैं कुल 40 लाख वोटर्स| Hindi News, बिहार एवं झारखंड". zeenews.india.com.
- ^ "Maithili". Archived from the original on 30 July 2017. Retrieved 1 June 2017.
- ^ Rise in Hindi language speakers, Statement-4 Retrieved on 22 February 2020
- ^ Sah, K. K. (2013). "Some perspectives on Maithili". Nepalese Linguistics (28): 179–188.
- ^ Brass, P. R. (2005). Language, Religion and Politics in North India. Lincoln: iUniverse. ISBN 0-595-34394-5. Retrieved 1 April 2017.
- ^ Yadava, Y. P. (2013). Linguistic context and language endangerment in Nepal. Nepalese Linguistics 28: 262–274.
- ^ Singh, P., & Singh, A. N. (2011). Finding Mithila between India's Centre and Periphery. Journal of Indian Law & Society 2: 147–181.
- ^ Colin P. Masica 1993, p. 12.
- ^ Sevanti Ninan (2007). Headlines From the Heartland: Reinventing the Hindi Public Sphere. SAGE Publications. p. 61. ISBN 978-0-7619-3580-3. Archived from the original on 11 May 2018.
- ^ https://m.aajtak.in/elections/lok-sabha-election-2019/story/purnia-lok-sabha-election-result-2019-live-updates-will-santosh-kumar-win-again-from-this-seat-1085204-2019-05-23
- ^ "The Record News". dsal.uchicago.edu. Archived from the original on 3 September 2014.
- ^ Ethnologue: Maithili
- ^ Abhishek Kashyap 2014, p. 1.
- ^ Abhishek Kashyap 2014, pp. 1–2.
- ^ Map of Southern Standard Bhojpuri Archived 1 March 2014 at archive.today Digital Library of Language Relationships (2012)
- ^ Shaligram Shukla (1981), Bhojpuri Grammar, Georgetown University School of Language, ISBN 978-0878401895
External links[]
- Languages of Bihar