Bhojpuri language

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{{Infobox Language |name=Bhojpuri |nativename=भोजपुरी bhōjapurī |states=India, Mauritius, Nepal, Fiji, Surinam, Guyana, Trinidad, Singapore, United States |region=Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Assam, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal |speakers=27 million |rank=37 |familycolor=Indo-European |fam2=Indo-Iranian |fam3=Indo-Aryan |fam4=Eastern Zone |fam5=Bihari |script=Devanagari, Kaithi |iso1=bh|iso2=bho|iso3=bho |notice=Indic}}

Bhojpuri is a popular regional language spoken in northeastern India in the western part of state of Bihar, the northwestern part of Jharkhand, and the Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh, as well as an adjoining area of southern plains of Nepal. Bhojpuri is also spoken in Guyana, Suriname, Fiji, Trinidad and Tobago and Mauritius and is often said to be the only Indian language to be spoken on all continents.

People's attitudes towards the Bhojpuri language have evolved over time, and most linguists agree it is not a dialect of Hindi, which is a widespread belief among speakers. The government of India is preparing to grant it statutory status of as national scheduled language.

Bhojpuri shares vocabulary with Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu and other Indo-Aryan languages of northern India. Bhojpuri and several closely related languages, including Maithili and Magahi, are together known as the Bihari languages. They are part of the Eastern Zone group of Indo-Aryan languages which includes Bengali and Oriya.

There are numerous dialects of Bhojpuri, including three or four in eastern Uttar Pradesh alone.

Some notable Bhojpuri personalities are the first president of India, Rajendra Prasad, Bollywood actors Amitabh Bachchan, Manoj Bajpai, and former Indian prime minister Chandra Shekhar.

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Number of speakers

According to an article published in Times of India, an estimated 7 crore population of eastern Uttar Pradesh and 5 crore of western Bihar speaks Bhojpuri. Besides this about 6 crore Bhojpuri speaking people are living in foreign countries including Nepal, Mauritius, Fiji, Surinam, Guyana, Uganda, Singapore, Trinidad & Tobago and United States. This makes the total bhojpuri speaking population in the world close to 18 crores or 180 million.

Bhojpuri dialects, varieties, and creoles are also spoken in various parts of the world, including Guyana, Suriname, Brazil, South Africa, Fiji, and Trinidad and Tobago. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, many colonizers had faced labor shortages and were unable to obtain slaves from Africa due to the abolition of slavery; thus, they imported many Indians as indentured servants to labor on plantations. Today, many Indians in the West Indies, Oceania, and South America still speak Bhojpuri as a native or second language, although the forms of Bhojpuri spoken by them often vary considerably from their Indian counterpart due to years of geographic and cultural separation.