Korwa, or Kodaku/Koraku (Korku), 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 India spoken in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Existing Korwa linguistic documentation includes Bahl (1962), which is based on the Korwa dialect of Dumertoli village, Bagicha Block, Tehsil Jashpurnagar,

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 s ...

, Chhattisgarh.

Varieties

Korwa is a

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...

. The two principal varieties are Korwa (Korba) and Koraku (Kodaku), spoken by the Korwa and Kodaku respectively. Out of the Korwa, only the Hill Korwa still speak the language, the others having shifted to regional languages. The Kodaku in

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 . I ...

call their language "Korwa". Both speak Sadri, Kurukh, or Chhattisgarhi as a second language, or in the case of Sadri sometimes as their first language. Gregory Anderson (2008:195) lists the following locations for Korowa and Koraku. *Korowa (Korwa) is spoken in northeastern Chhattisgarh state, including southern Surguja district,

Jashpur district Jashpur District is a district of the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh bordering Jharkhand and Odisha. Jashpur Nagar is the administrative headquarters of the district. The district was formerly a princely state before Indpendence. Highly m ...

, parts of

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 s ...

, and other neighboring areas. Korwa remains poorly documented, and the only documentation is in unpublished manuscripts. *Koraku is spoken in southern Mirzapur district of

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

and northern Surguja district of Chhattisgarh. It remains undocumented except for some kinship terms given in Singh & Danda (1986). According to Singh & Danda (1986:1), "a Kodaku is very clear about the differences between himself and the Korwa and a clear-cut distinction is made when a Korwa asks a Kodaku about his tribe, and vice versa."

References

*Anderson, Gregory D.S (ed). 2008. ''The Munda languages''. Routledge Language Family Series 3.New York: Routledge. . *Bahl, Kali Charan. 1962. ''Korwa Lexicon''. m.s., 148pp. *Singh, Bageshwar and Ajit K. Danda. 1986. ''The Kodaku of Surguja''. Calcutta: Anthropological Survey of India. Munda languages Endangered languages of India {{AustroAsiatic-lang-stub