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A MAHARASHTRIAN VARIETY OF
MARWARI
-ROHAN SARAF
A MAHARASHTRIAN VARIETY OF
MARWARI
-ROHAN SARAF
2
LUCKNOW CAMPUS
To my late father...
3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I am extremely grateful to Prof. R N Bakshi, who not only sanctioned my
topic but provided me all necessary guidance and help. Without his
invaluable guidance, I would not have been able to complete this project.
Krishna Mohan who always had discussed with me about my project work.
It was a matter of prestige for me to spend time with such persons for the
I would like to express special thanks to my senior friend from Vijay Wada,
Mr. Sriniwasa Kumar, who always guided me through net chatting. He has
Marwadi language.
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My acknowledgements can not be completed without mention of a person,
my cousin Karan Sharma, who took great efforts for the data collection.
INDEX
I. INTRODUCTION……………………………………...6-14
5
V. CONCLUSION………………………………………..38
VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………..39
INTRODUCTION
language changes every fifty miles.” It somehow derives a limit for the
language domain roughly. The same language can have some changes out of
the range of fifty miles as stated in this saying. But careful observation says
that language does not vary by place to place but person to person.
different linguistic background mix with each other and form a unique
this topic when I noticed some changes in the original variety of Marwari,
6
because of Marathi. My interest about the history of this community was
also found its place. Being a fluent speaker both languages, I could contrast
both of them in a well manner. So, I decided to dig out the fact about the
migrates from its homeland to some stranger places for its survival. Marwari
gave a new variety of Marwari. Like this they have migrated to all parts of
thing is not possible with a language like Marathi. Yet Marathi has its own
reach to people’s minds through their languages.” This study tries to follow
7
About AURAD SHAHAJANI
than 450 years which officially is not available. Aurad is located in the
different religions and communities live in Aurad. The four communities are
religion. Apart from Hindu and Muslim, some minor number of people of
Jain and Buddhist communities lives there. So this is the multicultural social
background of Aurad.
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Linguistic case of Aurad
variety of Hindi and Urdu. Marathi is the official language of the town. It is
is the dominant language there. Because Marathi has the largest number of
many Kannada speakers are based in Aurad. The third language is the
migrated to Aurad around 200 years ago. The fourth language is variety of
1
A linguistic domain with four different languages.
9
variety of Hindi has a Hyderabadi accent. It occurred because of the business
different languages exist. These four languages influence each other without
any doubt. Being the most dominant language, Marathi has a greater
more languages. Kannada and Hindi have taken place a change in them
Marwadi has taken such a form that no Marwari speaker could easily
has taken such expressions which could take place in the context of
Maharashtra only.
Aurad has four languages in its domain but the language for writing and
10
schools are being run in the town, but they are very minor in number.
Marathi and Hindi speaker know how to write and read in their mother
tongues, but in case of Kannada very few people know their own script.
Marwadis do not know at all how to read or write in their language. In fact
they do not have any script. I hope this will give a general idea of the
11
Marwadi community in Aurad
community, aged 92+yrs; they told me that they belong to third or fourth
search of food and water. Most of the Marwadi families are rooted to
geographical conditions of their home region, they were forced to leave their
places. George Ludi discusses the types of migration, i.e. Internal migration
other language regions and vice versa in order to study, to find a better
3
names of the districts in Rajasthan, India
12
language. When referring to these people who have crossed a
linguistic border in the country or who are born from parents having
done so, we will use the term Internal Migration. (1996: 105)
Even after accepting the Maharashtrian culture, Marwadis never forgot their
rituals and customs which their ancestors used to follow in Rajasthan. They
are very proud of their origins and still worship their family gods.
Now Marwadis are inseparable part of Aurad. They started changing their
career option. Their language keeps on changing as time passed. They are
businessman basically. So they have to interact with almost every class and
13
languages, Marathi, Hindi and of course, Marwadi. This proves beneficial
found who is not doing business. Education is of least important for them.
woman can work outside. Although the scenario is changing a bit, but
percentage of girls learning is very less than boys. That is the reason why
Marwadi women are not efficient speakers of Marathi. The reason is less
exposure to the language, which does not happen in case of Marwadi men.
Marwadi community and their language are at their peak level. The more
changes come in them; more are the chances that they will forget about their
roots.
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DATA COLLECTION
As I have mentioned before that my purpose behind the study was to note
topic deals with only the speakers of Marwadi, data collection was centered
on them only. I met about one hundred and six people personally for the said
The questionnaire starts with the queries about personal information of the
interviewee. It contains information like Name, Age, sex, Education and the
Medium of Education, Mother tongue and Languages known. Age and Sex
were important in order to make an analytical study about the language use
male and Forty-five were female. There were people from all age group.
4
Habits of using language at different places and for different purposes.
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People from the age of five to eighty-five years were taken the interview.
The point of their education was not that important because most of them
Occupation. This thing I have not mentioned because almost all of them are
either shop owners or businessmen. The lower age group is learning which
The second half of the questionnaire deals with the language habits of the
interviewees. It has two sections: one which discusses about the language
with the language choices for different purposes. They noted down their
language choice with a preference. That means they have chosen language
for a particular context with the preference. E.g. a speaker finds himself
Although the questionnaire has all four languages5 in options but no one has
selected Kannada as their choice for any question. It shows that any speaker
5
i.e. Marathi, Marwadi, Hindi, Kannada.
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of Marwadi can speak maximum three languages, i.e. Marwadi, Marathi and
Hindi.
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The Modus Operandi
The Modus Operandi i.e. the method of the data collection was very clear. I
hand. I have a good access to the Marwadi people and most of them are
familiar with me, so I did not face much difficulty in collecting the data.
Although the questionnaire has spaces to fill, I had to fill them myself
manually because they were written in English and nobody in Aurad has a
good command over English. So I had to ask them questions and to get the
did not face any problems with adults and that also with men, but with
women and kids it was a bit difficult. Because women, being from very
Some interviewee said that they have never looked at their language in this
way. It was all new for them. Then some people started thinking about their
language use consciously. I think partially my purpose behind the study was
language. E.g. if one has to show his/her disliking towards something, two
different expressions are used in two different situations. avad and bhav are
the two expressions. avad is used when one has to show his/her disliking
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towards anything but the food and edible things, and bhav is used when one
The method which was used for the said process was based on a pure
Marwadi.
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Statistics
In the survey held for the purpose of data collection, around One Hundred
are male and Forty-five are female. For the convenience, the feedbacks are
sorted out on the basis of their age and sex. I have used following
A = below 18 yrs
B = 18 yrs – 25 yrs
C = 26 yrs – 40 yrs
M = Male; F = female.
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So, studying these abbreviations one could easily understand meanings of
other abbreviations like AM, DF, etc. AM is a group of males who belong to
Male Female
A = Below 18 yrs 20 10
B = 18 – 25 yrs 16 12
C = 26 – 40 yrs 13 14
D = 41 – above 9 13
TOTAL 55 45
After the analysis of the data, few facts came in the notice. In the age group,
A in which the members are below 18 yrs, few could speak only two
languages. They are actually child language learner. They are exposed to
only two languages, i.e. Marwadi and Hindi. The age group B is of average
language capacity. But the age groups C and D are the most efficient users of
all three languages that are Marwadi, Marathi and Hindi. The statistics
regarding some uses of language do not vary, like use of language at home
and at work, language for reading, listening and writing. But for the further
21
DERIVED FACTS
daily routine. They can not figure out which language is used by them at
what time. The other interesting thing about Marwadi users is that they can
which me and my mother are having a piece of conversation with each other.
My mother but obviously speaks in Marathi with me. She asks me,
‘jevayalaa kay karu’, which means what do you want to have in the lunch?
Suddenly she happens to see our sweeper and asks him, ‘ kahaan jaa rahe
ho’, which means ‘where are you going’ in Hindi. Before anybody could
answer her question, her cell phone rings and she gets a call from her mother
and says, ‘kai karan laagi’, ‘which means how do u do’ in Marwadi. So
different persons in three different contexts. Many examples like these can
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in Aurad can speak at least two languages, i.e. Marathi and Hindi. Hindi has
fellow to other will always speak in Marwadi only. With people from other
communities he will use either Marathi or Hindi. This is the way language is
to a speaker other than Marwadi, only Hindi will be used, because at that
time the child language user may not be competent enough to speak in
proportional to his/her age. The order of exposure to the language since his
Marwadi user will learn Marwadi, because it is his mother tongue. Then he
the education criteria. In this way a child language learner in Aurad leads
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In the previous chapter, I have given an example of switch over of a
are going to observe their language habits7. In the second part of the
questionnaire, questions regarding their language habits are given. The first
part of the section deals with the use of language at different places. The
options given are At home, At work place, with friends and In a social
gathering.
For the first question, everybody has given the same answer which is, of
course, Marwadi. Marwadi people are very particular about the use of
language at their home with their family members. Wherever they will go,
The second question deals with the work place. For the age group C and D
(see previous section, Statistics for the details) the work place is indeed their
shop. But for the age group A and B the work place is their schools or
colleges. Child language learners did not fill this section as they do not have
to go anywhere to work. The data says that most of the Marwadi users use
Marathi and at some extent Hindi at their work place. But no doubt they
7
Tendency to use different languages at different places and for different purposes.
24
prefer Marathi over Hindi. The switch over from one language to another
happens very rapidly and unconsciously at this situation. This is the situation
The third question enquires about the language used in a situation where
Marwadi users are with their friends. Unlike the previous one, this is a very
situation, some possibilities are there. One possibility is that a user must be
With friends from other language community, he will use Hindi not Marathi.
He/she uses Marathi in a formal situation because of its reach. But there is
one observation about Marwadi people that they are likely to be attached to
their community at most of the time. That is the reason why most of the
The fourth and the last observation about language choice of Marwadi
people is about a situation where they are in a social gathering. Again the
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similar kind of observation has been recollected here. Most of the
gathering and then comes Marathi and finally Hindi. Social gatherings could
be only among Marwadi people. So in this situation they will use only
Marwadi. But in the situation where they have to socialize with the speakers
of other languages, they will use Marathi or Hindi as the situation demands.
Again this depends on the particular event they are attending. In a formal
event like National Flag Holding on the Independence Day, they will
certainly use Marathi. But in a casual social event like marriages they will be
follows,
gatherings
Marwadi Marathi Marwadi Marwadi
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Marwadi Hindi Hindi Hindi
Marwadi Marathi Marathi
Marwadi
Here first row shoes the situations and other shows the languages used in
follows, Marathi > Hindi > Marwadi. The reason which I tried to figure out
while process of thinking and talking goes on. But in case of Marathi, they
have to think first and then translate it into the said language. Of course, they
think in their Mother tongue, which is Marwadi. This section can be called
as the core of this study. It helps the study to draw a conclusion which makes
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Languages used for different purposes
The second part of the section deals with the Language-use for the different
purposes. Purposes means for the utilization of different language skills like
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LSRW8. Here Marwadi speakers can have choices between Marathi and
Hindi only, except in the case of speaking. The hypothesis of the data
the given table, the languages are mentioned in the decreasing order of their
preferences. Firstly for listening purpose, only two languages are available
in Aurad, i.e. Hindi and Marathi. Among which Hindi is more popular. So
their language choices. The third skill which is about reading leaves only
two choices for marwadis, i.e. Marathi and Hindi. In the print medium,
Marathi is dominant. Also the status of Marathi in Aurad does matter in this
8
Skills of languages, listening, speaking, reading and writing.
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case. Hindi has secondary status in this matter. What is applicable to
Reading is also applicable to Writing, too. For writing purpose, like for
writing a letter I both formal and informal cases, marwadis prefer Marathi
only. As Marathi is the official language, all the formal affairs like
fulfillment of official forms, etc happen in Marathi only. Hindi again has a
secondary status like it does have in the case of reading. But unfortunately
there are no means for marwadis to read or write in their language. Even
they do not know how to read or write in Marwadi. So this is the situation of
a community which speaks in its language but can nit read or write in it.
factor. E.g. a Marwadi user who is five years old can not say which language
he/she prefers for the writing or reading purposes. Also a language choice
30
It is observed that marwadis give preference to Marwadi as much as
possible. That is how they have maintained to keep their roots safe to a
culture and place where they belong. They give almost equal preference to
state while giving answers for some questions, like ‘which language do u
use with your friends?’ some said that they use all three of them. Some could
not decide to which language they should give preference among Marathi
and Hindi. This shows how the linguistic situation gets complicated in
Aurad.
TRANSFORMATION
OF
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Code-switching and Code-borrowing
After being exposed to other languages for a huge time span of more than
200 years, it was but obvious for a language like Marwari to have changes in
itself. When marwadis came to Aurad in order to search food and water, they
to speak different variety of the same language, i.e. Marwari. So, even their
languages had variations but the soul structure of the all languages was
same. So all these varieties were influenced by the most dominant language,
i.e. Marathi. Gradually the interaction between them and the other language
users increased. More the interaction, more the influence on Marwari. This
This variety of Marwari has some features of Marathi, too. A constant Code-
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E.g. I am feeling cold. English
In Marathi, to express that one is felling cold, he/she uses the expression
thandi vajane (to feel cold). But if we look at the literal meaning of the
Thandi cold
Whatever the words mean literally, the expression conveys the message that
Of course, the derived expression will not be a proper one. But my point is
which are not relevant in the original context of their language. But such
as follows,
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E.g. man thandi baajan lagi ha. Marwadi
Here Marwadi not only borrowed the code of using the expression feeling
cold but also it has switched the code of the word Cold. It is as follows,
Cold English
Thandi Marathi
Thand Marwari
Thandi Marwadi
Syntactical changes
34
There are so many examples of syntactical changes in Marwari because of
Marathi. But interesting thing is that they borrow some word, but with
similarity between them, so it has been very easy for Marwadi to borrow
words from Marathi. The modifications in the original words are in the form
laamb Marathi
lambaa Hindi
lambo Marwadi
I am giving a list of some words which are taken in Marwadi from Marathi.
It is as follows,
Marathi Marwadi
Kala (black) Kalo
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(phonemic change in the last sound)
Aamba (mango) Aambo
Phonemic change
changes but also some phonemic changes. One can easily observe the
pronouncing some sounds like na, kha and da. These sounds are totally
36
omitted from the Maharashtrian variety of Marwari. Plus, there is an
accepted this sound in the use. There are not so much phonemic changes
CONCLUSION
After completing the study, I felt that, Marwadi is at the peak level of its
37
in this process is added that is affecting all the other languages that is
BIBLIOGRAPHY
38
Gupta, R.S. ‘Interrogating ‘Indian’ bilingualism’, Studies in Indian
1998)
33)
39