Mundari (Munɖari) is a

Munda language The Munda languages are a group of closely related languages spoken by about nine million people in India and Bangladesh. Historically, they have been called the Kolarian languages. They constitute a branch of the Austroasiatic language family ...

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 spoken by the Munda tribes in eastern Indian states of

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 ...

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 ...

and

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...

. It is closely related to Santali.

Mundari Bani Mundari Bani (Mundari: 𞓗𞓕𞓨𞓚 ''Bani'' 'alphabet', also known as Mundari Bani Hisir ''Hisir'' 'writing', Nag Mundari, or the Mundari alphabet) is the writing system created for the Mundari language, spoken in eastern India. Mundari is ...

, a script specifically to write Mundari, was invented by Rohidas Singh Nag. It has also been written in the

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental syste ...

, Odia,

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

, and

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

writing systems.

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 ...

(2018), Munda languages probably arrived on coast of

from

Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...

about 4000–3500 years ago and spread after Indo-Aryan migration to Odisha.

Geographical distribution

Mundari is spoken in the

Ranchi Ranchi (, ) is the capital of the Indian state of Jharkhand. Ranchi was the centre of the Jharkhand movement, which called for a separate state for the tribal regions of South Bihar, northern Odisha, western West Bengal and the eastern area ...

Khunti Khunti is the headquarter of Khunti district in the Indian state of Jharkhand. It is in South Chotanagpur division and one of the 24 districts in the Indian state of Jharkhand. The district of Khunti was carved out of Ranchi district on 12 Sept ...

, Seraikela Kharsawan and

West Singhbhum West Singhbhum or Pashchimi Singhbhum is one of the 24 districts of Jharkhand state, India. It came into existence on 16 January 1990, when the old Singhbhum district (then in Bihar) was bifurcated. Chaibasa is the district headquarters. The di ...

East Singhbhum district East Singhbhum is one of the 24 districts of Jharkhand, India. It was created on 16 January 1990. More than 50% of the district is covered by dense forests and mountains, where wild animals once roamed freely. It is known for being a centre of ind ...

, and in the

Mayurbhanj Mayurbhanj district is one of the 30 districts in Odisha state in eastern India. It is the largest district of Odisha by area. Its headquarters are at Baripada. Other major towns are Rairangpur, Karanjia and Udala. , it is the third-most-popu ...

Kendujhar Kendujhar is a town with municipality in Kendujhar District in the Indian state of Odisha. It is the administrative headquarters of the Kendujhar district, and it is one of the fifth scheduled areas of Odisha. Climate Politics Mohan char ...

, Baleshwar,

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 ...

by at least 1.1 million people. Another 500,000, mainly in Odisha and Assam, are recorded in the census as speaking "Munda," potentially another name for Mundari.

Dialects

Toshiki Osada (2008:99), citing the ''Encyclopaedia Mundarica'' (vol. 1, p. 6), lists the following dialects of Mundari, which are spoken mostly in

state. *Hasada ( asa-daʔ: east of the Ranchi- Chaibasa Road *Naguri ( aguri: west of the Ranchi- Chaibasa Road *Tamaria ( amaɽ-ia or Latar: Panchpargana area (Tamar, Bundu, Rahe, Sonahatu, Silli) *Kera ( eraʔ: ethnic Oraon who live in the

city area Bhumij, listed in many sources as a separate language, may in fact be a variety of the Latar (Tamaria) dialect of Mundari. It is spoken across

state and in

Mayurbhanj district Mayurbhanj district is one of the 30 districts in Odisha state in eastern India. It is the largest district of Odisha by area. Its headquarters are at Baripada. Other major towns are Rairangpur, Karanjia and Udala. , it is the third-most-popu ...

(Anderson 2008:196). There may be around 50,000 Bhumij speakers, although the census records around 27,000.

Phonology

The phonology of Mundari is similar to the surrounding closely related Austroasiatic languages but considerably different from either Indo-Aryan or Dravidian. Perhaps the most foreign phonological influence has been on the vowels. Whereas the branches of Austroasiatic in Southeast Asia are rich in vowel

phonemes In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...

, Mundari has only five. The consonant inventory of Mundari is similar to other Austroasiatic languages with the exception of retroflex consonants, which seem to appear only in loanwords. (Osada 2008)

Vowels

Mundari has five vowel phonemes. All vowels have long and short as well as nasalized

allophones In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...

, but neither length nor nasality are contrastive. All vowels in open monosyllables are quantitatively longer than those in closed syllables, and those following nasal consonants or /ɟ/ are nasalized. Vowels preceding or following /ɳ/ are also nasalized.

Consonants

Mundari's consonant inventory consists of 23 basic phonemes. The Naguri and Kera dialects include aspirated stops as additional phonemes, here enclosed in parentheses.

Counting

Relations

Verb

Writing system

Mandari is also written in native

, invented in the 1980s by Rohidas Singh Nag.

Notes

References

*Anderson, Gregory D.S (ed). 2008. ''The Munda languages''. Routledge Language Family Series 3.New York: Routledge. . *Osada Toshiki. 2008. "Mundari". In Anderson, Gregory D.S (ed). ''The Munda languages'', 99–164. Routledge Language Family Series 3.New York: Routledge. . 8.https://omniglot.com/writing/mundaribani.htm 9.https://omniglot.com/writing/mundari.htm

External links

Mundari Bibliography at Department of Linguistics, University of Osnabrueck, Germany

Detailed language map of eastern Nepal, see language #68 in green along eastern border
* http://projekt.ht.lu.se/rwaai RWAAI (Repository and Workspace for Austroasiatic Intangible Heritage) * http://hdl.handle.net/10050/00-0000-0000-0003-A6AA-C@view Mundari language in RWAAI Digital Archive * https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2021/21031r-mundari.pdf {{Austro-Asiatic languages Munda languages Languages of Bangladesh Languages of India Languages of Jharkhand Languages of Odisha Languages of Nepal Endangered languages of India ca:Llengües kolàries