The Bonda language, also known as Bondo or Remo, is a south
Munda language of the
Austroasiatic
The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are th ...
language family spoken in
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 ...
, formerly known as Southern Odisha, in
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 ...
.
It had 2,568 speakers, all in Odisha, according to the 1951 Census of India,
[N. Gopalakrishnan, ]
Linguistic Survey of India
', p. 271 increasing to approximately 9,000 speakers in 2002 according to
SIL.
Classification
The Bonda language is an indigenous language belonging to the Southern subgroup of the
Munda branch of the
Austroasiatic language family.
Bonda is a
spoken language
A spoken language is a language produced by articulate sounds or (depending on one's definition) manual gestures, as opposed to a written language. An oral language or vocal language is a language produced with the vocal tract in contrast with a si ...
with no traditional written system recorded. Bonda is a part of the Gutob-Remo branch, due to the similarities Bonda shares with another Southern Munda Language named
Gutob
History
The Bonda language derives its name from the tribe of the
Bonda people, an indigenous group located in Odisha known as the Bonda Highlanders. In their native language, the Bonda people regard themselves as "Remo', which translates to human, and derive their language name from that root, calling their language as the human language or 'Remosam' in their native tongue
Geographic distribution
The language differs slightly, classified according to whether it can be categorized as Plains Remo (Bonda) or Hill Remo (Bonda).
Plains Remo
This is a subdivision of Bonda, localized in 35 villages throughout the Khairpat within the
Malkangiri district in Odisha. In 1941, 2,565 people categorized the Plains Remo. That number nearly doubled in 1971, with 4,764 people classifying themselves as Plains Remo. The increase in population was not correlated with language extension.
There are 3,500 speakers as of 2002, but few are monolingual.
Hills Remo
This is a subdivision of Bonda, localized in the Jeypore Hills region of Odisha.
There are 5,570 speakers as of 2002.
Phonology
Stress
In Bonda,
primary stress is placed on the last syllable in a word, syllables with
diphthongs,
glottal stops, or checked consonants.
However, Plains Remo primarily stresses the second syllable in a word.
Bonda words can have a maximum of 5 syllables.
Diphthongs
Diphthongs are placed either in the beginning or middle of a word, usually used in combination of two different vowel types.
Consonants
There are 33 consonants in the Bonda language.
/z/ only occurs in loanwords from
Odia.
Vowels
Bonda has 5 vowel
phoneme
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-wes ...
s: /a, e, i, o, u/.
In Bonda, vowels are
nasalized
In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is .
In the Internationa ...
and
clusters are commonplace.
Grammar
Syntax
Bonda follows the
SOV (Subject + Object + Verb) sequence, but other word orders are possible.
Gender
Age and gender serve as classification denominations for individuals. Female names end in /-i/ and male names end in /-a/. Animals are also distinguished by gender.
Compound verb
The
compound verb
In linguistics, a compound verb or complex predicate is a multi-word compound that functions as a single verb. One component of the compound is a ''light verb'' or ''vector'', which carries any inflections, indicating tense, mood, or aspect, bu ...
is not frequently used in Bonda and can be used as a conjunctive participle.
Vocabulary
Kinship terminology
In Kinship terms, the
velar nasal
The voiced velar nasal, also known as agma, from the Greek word for 'fragment', is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It is the sound of ''ng'' in English ''sing'' as well as ''n'' before velar consonants as in ''Englis ...
, ŋ, is often used. Various kinship terms also represent multiple positions.
References
External links
Patricia Donegan & David Stampe’s Online Remo DictionaryRemo to English Talking Dictionary
*
{{authority control
Languages of India
Munda languages