The Kharia language ( or ) is a Munda language of the

Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The te ...

language family, that is primarily spoken by the

Kharia people The Kharia are an Austroasiatic tribal ethnic group from east-central India. They originally speak the Kharia language, which belong to Austroasiatic languages. They are sub-divided into three groups known as the Hill Kharia, Delki Kharia and ...

of eastern

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

History

According to linguist

Paul Sidwell Paul James Sidwell is an Australian linguist based in Canberra, Australia who has held research and lecturing positions at the Australian National University. Sidwell, who is also an expert and consultant in forensic linguistics, is most notable ...

, Austroasiatic languages arrived on the coast of

Odisha Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of ...

from

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

about 4000-3500 years ago.Sidwell, Paul. 2018
Austroasiatic Studies: state of the art in 2018
Presentation at the Graduate Institute of Linguistics, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, 22 May 2018.

Classification

Kharia belongs to the Kharia–Juang branch of the Munda language family. Its closest extant relative is the

Juang language The Juang language is a Munda language of the Austroasiatic language family spoken primarily by the Juang people of Odisha state, eastern India. Classification The Juang language belongs to the Munda language family, the whole of which is cla ...

, but the relationship between Kharia and Juang is remote. The most widely cited classification places Kharia and Juang together as a subgroup of the South Munda branch of the Munda family. However, some earlier classification schemes placed Kharia and Juang together, as an independent branch deriving from the root of the Munda languages, which they named Central Munda. Kharia is in contact with

Sadri Sadri is a municipality in the Pali district of Rajasthan, India. It is considered the gateway to Marwar from Mewar. Sadri is one of the main places of worship for the Jain community. Ranakpur Temple and Shri Parshuram Mahadev Mandir are locate ...

(the local lingua franca), Mundari, Kurukh,

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

, and

Odia Odia, also spelled Oriya or Odiya, may refer to: * Odia people in Odisha, India * Odia language, an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family * Odia alphabet, a writing system used for the Odia languag ...

(in

Distribution

Kharia speakers are located in the following

districts of India A district ('' zila'') is an administrative division of an Indian state or territory. In some cases, districts are further subdivided into sub-divisions, and in others directly into ''tehsils'' or ''talukas''. , there are a total of 766 dist ...

. *

Jharkhand Jharkhand (; ; ) is a state in eastern India. The state shares its border with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north and Odisha to the south. It has an area of . It ...

Simdega district Simdega district is one of the twenty-four districts of Jharkhand state, India, and Simdega town is the administrative headquarters of this district. This district is the least population density district of jharkhand(2011).This district was carv ...

Gumla district Gumla district is one of the twenty-four districts of Jharkhand state, India, and Gumla town is the administrative headquarters of this district. Etymology For centuries, the place was a meeting center for people from the hinterland who flocked ...

Chhattisgarh Chhattisgarh (, ) is a landlocked state in Central India. It is the ninth largest state by area, and with a population of roughly 30 million, the seventeenth most populous. It borders seven states – Uttar Pradesh to the north, Madhya Prade ...

Surguja district Surguja district is a district of the Indian state of Chhattisgarh. The district is one of the oldest districts of Chhattisgarh. The headquarters of the district is Ambikapur. The district lies in its eponymous Surguja dialectal region (where ...

Raigarh district Raigarh district is a district of the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. Raigarh is the district headquarters. The district was formed by merging the princely states of Raigarh, Sakti, Sarangarh, Udaipur and Jashpur. Jashpur is now a sepa ...

Sundargarh district Sundargarh District is a district in the northwestern part of Odisha state in eastern India. Sundargarh district is bounded by Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh in the west, Jashpur district of Chhattisgarh in the North-West, Simdega district o ...

Jharsuguda district Jharsuguda is a district in Odisha, India with Jharsuguda town as its headquarters. This region is rich in coal and other mineral reserves. Of late, many small and medium scale iron and steel units have been set up in the vicinity of Jharsugud ...

Phonology

References

* *Peterson, John. 2008. "Kharia". In Anderson, Gregory D.S (ed). ''The Munda languages'', 434–507. Routledge Language Family Series 3.New York: Routledge. .

External links

Online Kharia Dictionary
Munda languages Languages of India Endangered languages of India {{AustroAsiatic-lang-stub