The Bagri language is a dialect of

Rajasthani Rajasthani may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Rajasthan, a state of India * Rajasthani languages, a group of Indic languages spoken there * Rajasthani people, the native inhabitants of the state * Rajasthani architecture, Indian ar ...

that takes its name from the Bagar tract region of Northwestern India in the states of

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; Literal translation, lit. 'Land of Kings') is a States and union territories of India, state in northwestern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the List of states and union territories of ...

Punjab Punjab (; ; also romanised as Panjāb or Panj-Āb) is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia. It is located in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising areas of modern-day eastern Pakistan and no ...

and

Haryana Haryana () is a States and union territories of India, state located in the northern part of India. It was carved out after the linguistic reorganisation of Punjab, India, Punjab on 1 November 1966. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with les ...

. Bagri is a typical Indo-Aryan language akin to Rajasthani and Haryanvi with SOV

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how languages employ different orders. Correlatio ...

. The most striking

phonological Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often prefer ...

feature of Bagri is the presence of three lexical tones: high, mid, and low, akin to Rajasthani, Haryanvi, Punjabi. Bagri is a language of earlier

Bikaner state Bikaner State was the princely state, Princely State in the north-western most part of the History of Bikaner, Rajputana province of imperial British India from 1818 to 1947. The founder of the state Rao Bika was a younger son of Rao ...

which included district Sri Ganganagar, Hanumangarh, Churu,

Bikaner Bikaner () is a city in the northwest of the States and territories of India, state of Rajasthan, India. It is located northwest of the state capital, Jaipur. It is the administrative headquarters of Bikaner District and Bikaner division. Fo ...

of Rajasthan and Sirsa(Haryana), Hisar (Haryana), Fazilka (punjab) at a point in time. The speakers are mostly in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, with a minority of them in

Bahawalpur Bahawalpur (Urdu: ; ) is a city in Punjab, Pakistan. It is the 13th largest city of Pakistan and List of cities in Punjab, Pakistan by population, 8th most populous city of Punjab. Bahawalpur is the capital of Bahawalpur Division. Founded in ...

and Bahawalnagar areas in modern day

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

. According to the 2011 census of India, there are 234,227 speakers of Bagri in Rajasthan and 1,656,588 speakers of Bagri in Punjab and Haryana.Census of India 2011
/ref>

Geographical distribution

Features

Phonology

Bagri distinguishes 31 consonants including a

retroflex A retroflex () or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consona ...

series, 10 vowels, 2 diphthongs, and 3 tones. /ɳ/, /ɭ/ and /ɽ/ do not occur word initially. All vowels have their nasalised counterpart, marked with ◌̃ (

ँ Chandrabindu (IAST: , in Sanskrit) is a diacritic sign with the form of a dot inside the lower half of a circle. It is used in the Devanagari (ँ), Bengali-Assamese (), Gujarati (ઁ), Odia (ଁ), Tamil (◌𑌁 Extension used from Grant ...

in Devanagari). Bagri has 3 tones in a similar way to the Punjabi language. A rising-falling tone ◌́, a rising tone ◌̀, and an unmarked mid tone.

Declension

*There are two numbers: singular and plural. *Two genders: masculine and feminine. *Three cases: simple, oblique, and vocative. Case marking is partly inflectional and partly postpositional. *Nouns are declined according to their final segments. *All pronouns are inflected for number and case but gender is distinguished only in the third person singular pronouns. *The third person pronouns are distinguished on the proximity/remoteness dimension in each gender. *Adjectives are of two types: either ending in /-o/ or not. *Cardinal numbers up to ten are infected. *Both present and past participles function as adjectives.

Verbs

*There are three tenses and four moods.

Syntax

*Sentence types are of traditional nature. *Coordination and subordination are very important in complex sentences. *Parallel lexicon are existing and are very important from sociolinguistic point of view.

Samples

Official status

Bagari is language of Bagar region of Rajasthan extended to some parts of Punjab and Haryana and Pakistan also. Bagri is spoken by Kumawats, Jats, Rajputs, Bagri Kumhars, Suthar, Meghwal, Chamars and others casts residing there. Bagri derives its roots from Marwari when bhati dynasty ruled over the region from Bhatner, modern day Hanumangarh which is epicentre of Bagri language. Bagri culture is also same in this region .

Work on Bagri

* Grierson, G. A. 1908. (Reprint 1968). Linguistic Survey of India. Volume IX, Part II. New Delhi: Motilal Banarasidass *Gusain, Lakhan. 1994. Reflexives in Bagri. M.Phil. dissertation. New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University *Gusain, Lakhan. 1999. A Descriptive Grammar of Bagri. Ph.D. dissertation. New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University *Gusain, Lakhan. 2000a. Limitations of Literacy in Bagri. Nicholas Ostler &

Blair Rudes Blair Arnold Rudes (May 18, 1951 – March 16, 2008) was an American linguist and professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte best known for his expertise in Native American languages. He was hired in 2004 to reconstruct the long ...

(eds.). Endangered Languages and Literacy. Proceedings of the Fourth FEL Conference. University of North Carolina, Charlotte, 21–24 September 2000 *Gusain, Lakhan. 2000b. Bagri Grammar. Munich: Lincom Europa (Languages of the World/Materials, 384) *Gusain, Lakhan. 2008. Bagri Learners' Reference Grammar. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Northside Publishers *Wilson, J. 1883. Sirsa Settlement Report. Chandigarh: Government Press

Gallery

Regions where Bagri is spoken: File:Map rajasthan dist 7 div.png, Bagri is the First language of

Sri Ganganagar district Sri Ganganagar district is the northernmost district of Rajasthan state of India. History Named after Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner State, Bikaner, Sri Ganganagar district was part of Bikaner state. This was a mostly uninhabited region. T ...

, Hanumangarh district, Churu district, Bikaner district and a major language in north-western part of Jhunjhunu district in

. File:India - Haryana - Sirsa.svg, Bagri is the First language in Sirsa district. File:India - Haryana - Fatehabad.svg, Bagri is the First language in western Fatehabad district Hisar,

Bhiwani Bhiwani is a city and a municipal council in Bhiwani district in the state of Haryana. Besides being a seat of spiritual learning, the city is at the centre of regional politics and hometown of three former Haryana chief ministers: Bansi Lal ...

, Charkhi dadri. File:Punjab district map.png, Bagri is the major language in Fazilka district and as a minor language in southern villages of Muktsar district of Southern

Punjab (India) Punjab () is a States and union territories of India, state in northwestern India. Forming part of the larger Punjab, Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, the state is bordered by the States and union territories of India, Indian states ...

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

* {{Languages of India Haryanvi Haryanavi culture Rajasthani languages Languages of Rajasthan Languages of Punjab, India Languages of Punjab, Pakistan Tonal languages in non-tonal families Languages written in Devanagari Languages listed as Hindi dialects in latest census