Social:Surjapuri language

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Short description: Indo-Aryan language spoken in India
Surjapuri
Sura, Deshi Bhasa
सुरजापुरी, সুরজাপুরী
Surjapuri language.svg
'Surjapuri' in Bengali & Devanagari scripts
Native toIndia , Nepal, Bangladesh
RegionBihar, West Bengal
Native speakers
2,256,228 (2011 census)[1]
Devanagari, Bengali
Language codes
ISO 639-3sjp
Glottologsurj1235[2]

Surjapuri is an eastern Indo-Aryan language of the Bihari branch,[3] spoken in Eastern India including North Bengal, West Bengal, and some eastern parts of Purnia division of Bihar, as well as Jhapa District in Nepal, Goalpara Division of Assam in India and Rangpur Division in Bangladesh. Among speakers in some regions, it is known as 'Deshi Bhasa'. It is considered a mix of Hindi, Maithili and Bengali.[4]

Geographical distribution

Surjapuri is mainly spoken of Surjapuri Bengali in the parts of Purnia division (Kishanganj, Katihar, Purnia, and Araria districts) of Bihar.[5] It is also spoken in West Bengal (Uttar Dinajpur and Dakshin Dinajpur districts, and in North Malda of Malda district, specially in Harishchandrapur and Chanchal area and Siliguri city of Darjeeling district – part of the North Bengal region within the Jalpaiguri division), Bangladesh (Thakurgaon District) as well as in parts of eastern Nepal of Jhapa District and Morang District. As of 2011, it had 18,57,930 speakers in Bihar.[4]

Related languages

Surjapuri is associated with the Kamtapuri language (and its dialects Goalpariya, Rajbanshi and Koch Rajbangshi) spoken in North Bengal and Western Assam,[6] as well as with Hindi, Bengali, and Maithili.[4]

Pronouns[7][8][9]

Singular Plural
nominative oblique nominative oblique
1st person mũi mo- hāmrā hāmsā-, hāmcā-
2nd person tũi to- tumrā, tomrā tumsā-, tomsā-
3rd person proximal yāhāy yahā- emrā, erā ismā-, isā-
distal wahā̃y wahā- amrā, worā usmā-, usā-

Surjapuri has the oblique plural suffixes: sā (hamsā-, tomsā-) and smā (ismā-, usmā-). They are also seen in Early Assamese as: sā (āmāsā-, tomāsā-) and sambā (esambā-, tesambā-) and their occurrences are similar.[10]

Phonology

Consonants

Labial Dental/
Alveolar
Retroflex Post-alv./
Palatal
Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Stop/
Affricate
voiceless p t ʈ k
aspirated ʈʰ tʃʰ
voiced b d ɖ ɡ
breathy ɖʱ dʒʱ ɡʱ
Fricative s h
Tap ɾ
Lateral l
Approximant w j

Vowels

Front Central Back
High i u
Mid e ə o
ɔ
Low æ ɑ
  • Nasalization is also phonemic.
  • /i, e/ in medial and initial form are heard as [ɪ, ɛ].[11]

Notes

References

  • Bez, Gitanjali (2012). Grammatical Categories in Madhav Kandali's Ramayana (Ph.D.). Gauhati University. hdl:10603/116370.
  • Kakati, Banikanta (1941). Assamese: Its Formation and Development. Gauhati, Assam: Government of Assam. https://archive.org/details/AssameseitsFormationAndDevelopment. 
  • Srivastava, S P; Perumalsamy, P (2021), Surjapuri, http://lsi.gov.in/MTSI_app/DraftReport/Bihar/12.%20SURJAPURI.pdf, retrieved 15 May 2023 
  • Toulmin, Mathew W. S. (2006). Reconstructing linguistic history in a dialect continuum: The Kamta, Rajbanshi, and Northern Deshi Bangla subgroup of Indo-Aryan (Ph.D. thesis). The Australian National University. hdl:1885/45743.

External links