Mundari (Munɖari) is a Munda language of the Austroasiatic 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 . ...

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 Sc ...

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 four ...

. 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 system), based on the a ...

, 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 ...

, 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 ...

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 nota ...

(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, Seraikela Kharsawan and West Singhbhum, East Singhbhum district of

, and in the Mayurbhanj, Kendujhar,

Baleshwar Balasore or Baleswara is a city in the state of Odisha, about north of the state capital Bhubaneswar and from Kolkata, in eastern India. It is the largest town of northern Odisha and the administrative headquarters of Balasore district. It i ...

, Sundargarh district of

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 Chaibasa is a town and a municipality in West Singhbhum district in the state of Jharkhand, India. Chaibasa is the district headquarters of West Singhbhum district. It is also the headquarter of Singhbhum Kolhan division headed by the Divisiona ...

Road *Naguri (

aguri Aguri may refer to: *Aguri (caste), Bengali Hindu agricultural caste in India *Aguri Igarashi (born 1975), female manga artist from Japan *Aguri Suzuki (born 1960), former racing driver from Japan **Aguri Suzuki F-1 Super Driving, Formula One sim ...

: west of the Ranchi-

Road *Tamaria ( amaɽ-ia or Latar: Panchpargana area (Tamar, Bundu, Rahe, Sonahatu, Silli) *Kera ( eraʔ: ethnic

Oraon Oraon may refer to: * Oraon people, an ethnic group of India * Oraon language, a Dravidian language Persons with the surname * Dinesh Oraon, politician * Kartik Oraon, politician * Lalit Oraon, politician * Laloo Oraon, politician * Manoj Kum ...

who live in the

city area

Bhumij Bhumij may refer to: *Bhumij people, tribal ethnic group of India * Bhumij language, the language of Bhumij people *Bhumija Bhumija is a variety of north Indian temple architecture marked by how the rotating square-circle principle is applied to ...

, 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,

(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-wes ...

, 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