Marwari language
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The Marwari language (also variously Marvari, Marwadi, Marvadi) is spoken in the Indian state of Rajasthan, but is also found in the neighboring state of Gujarat and in Eastern Pakistan. With some 13.2 million speakers (as of 1997, ca. 13 million in India and 200,000 in Pakistan) it is the largest of the Marwari subgroup of the "Rajasthani cluster" of western dialects of Hindi. It is written with the Devanagari script, as is Hindi. Marwari currently has no official status as a language of education and government. There has been a push in the recent past for the national government to recognize this language and give it a scheduled status. The state of Rajasthan recognizes Rajasthani as a language. Some consider Rajasthani and Marwari to be the same language.
Marwari has a very similar grammar to that of Hindi. Its primary sentence structure is SOV (Subject, Object, Verb). It shares a 50%-65% lexical similarity with Hindi (this is based on a Swadesh 210 word list comparison). Marwari has many cognate words with Hindi. Notable phonetic correspondences include /s/ in Hindi with /h/ in Marwari. For example /sona/ 'gold' (Hindi) and /hono/ 'gold' (Marwari). /h/ sometimes elides. There are also a variety of vowel changes. Most of the pronouns and interrogatives are, however, distinct from those of Hindi.
In Pakistan, there are two varieties of Marwari. They may or may not be close enough to Indian Marwari to be considered the same language.
The Marwari language was used in the recent Indian movie, Paheli, where it was mixed with Hindi so it is understandable to the main stream audience. Marwari is still spoken widely in and around Jodhpur. Closely related languages to Marwari in the Rajasthani cluster are: Shekhawati, Hadoti, Dundhari, Mewari, Brij, Bagri, Wagri, Mewati, and others. There are ongoing efforts to identify and classify this language cluster and the language differences.
See also
- Marwaris
- Marwar
- Shekhawati
- Languages of India
- List of national languages of India
- List of Indian languages by total speakers