Bagri language
Encyclopedia
Bagri is a dialect
of Rajasthani language
of the Indo-Aryan family
. It is spoken by about five million speakers in Hanumangarh
and Sriganganagar districts of Rajasthan
, Sirsa and Hissar
districts of Haryana
, Firozepur and Muktsar
districts of Punjab
of India
and Bahawalpur
and Bahawalnagar
areas of Punjab
of Pakistan
. Bagri is a typical Indo-Aryan language having SOV
word order
. The most prominent phonological feature of Bagri is the presence of three lexical tone
s: high, level, and low. The Bagri language has a very high 65% lexical similarity with Haryanvi.
Language samples
* तेरो नाम के है| (What is your name?)
* किन जाव है| (where are you going?)
* इन्नै आ (Come here)
* क्यूकर है ? (how are you?)
* टींगर टीटणं नां मार. (hey dude! dont waste time.)
* तन्नै कुचरणीं ही लेणीं है के ? (Do you only want to disturb things?)
* नास में आन्गळी ना ले (Don't penetrate finger into nose?)
* बातां गा पीसा लागै. (Talking costs money)
* सलिमों देखण चालसी के ? (Will you go to Cinema?)
* मुह कर जिया बताऊ जिसों (Your face looks like eggplant.)
* क्यामी राफ चोड़ी करै है रे? (Why are you making your mouth as that of a moron?)
* के करे ह (what are u doing )
* पंगो ह क कोई तेर (you have any problem )
* कीने मर गयो हो (where was u gone )
* कठू आन लाग रह्यो ह (where are you coming from )
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
of Rajasthani language
Rajasthani language
Rajasthani Rajasthani Rajasthani (Devanagari: , Perso-Arabic: is a language of the Indo-Aryan languages family. It is spoken by 50 million people in Rajasthan and other states of India and in some areas of Pakistan. The number of speakers may be up to 80 million worldwide...
of the Indo-Aryan family
Indo-Aryan languages
The Indo-Aryan languages constitutes a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family...
. It is spoken by about five million speakers in Hanumangarh
Hanumangarh
Hanumangarh is a city in northern Rajasthan state in western India, situated on the banks of the river Ghaggar, located about 400 km from Delhi. It is the administrative seat of Hanumangarh District...
and Sriganganagar districts of Rajasthan
Rajasthan
Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...
, Sirsa and Hissar
Hisar, India
Hisar city, previously spelled Hissar, is the administrative headquarters of Hisar district, in the state of Haryana, in northwestern India. Hisar was founded in 1354 CE, as Hissar-e-Firoza by Firoz Shah Tughlaq, who reigned over the Sultanate of Delhi from 1351 to 1388. on the demolished ruins...
districts of Haryana
Haryana
Haryana is a state in India. Historically, it has been a part of the Kuru region in North India. The name Haryana is found mentioned in the 12th century AD by the apabhramsha writer Vibudh Shridhar . It is bordered by Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to the north, and by Rajasthan to the west and south...
, Firozepur and Muktsar
Muktsar
Sri Muktsar Sahib is a city and a municipal council in Sri Muktsar Sahib district in the Indian state of Punjab. Sri Muktsar Sahib's historical name was Khidrane dee dhab .-Demographics: India census, Sri Muktsar Sahib has a population of 3,96,030...
districts of Punjab
Punjab (India)
Punjab ) is a state in the northwest of the Republic of India, forming part of the larger Punjab region. The state is bordered by the Indian states of Himachal Pradesh to the east, Haryana to the south and southeast and Rajasthan to the southwest as well as the Pakistani province of Punjab to the...
of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and Bahawalpur
Bahawalpur
Bahawalpur , located in the province of Punjab, is the twelfth largest city in Pakistan. The city was once the capital of the former princely state of Bahawalpur. The city was home to various Nawabs and counted as part of the Rajputana states...
and Bahawalnagar
Bahawalnagar
Bahawalnagar is the capital city of Bahawalnagar District in the Punjab province of Pakistan. As well as being district capital it also the administrative headquarters of the tehsil.-Administration:...
areas of Punjab
Punjab (Pakistan)
Punjab is the most populous province of Pakistan, with approximately 45% of the country's total population. Forming most of the Punjab region, the province is bordered by Kashmir to the north-east, the Indian states of Punjab and Rajasthan to the east, the Pakistani province of Sindh to the...
of Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. Bagri is a typical Indo-Aryan language having SOV
SOV
SOV is an acronym for several terms:in organizations*Same Old Vanderbilt, usually refers to Vanderbilt Commodores football by their fans due to lack of success over the years*Stade Olympique Voironnais, a French rugby union club...
word order
Word order
In linguistics, word order typology refers to the study of the order of the syntactic constituents of a language, and how different languages can employ different orders. Correlations between orders found in different syntactic subdomains are also of interest...
. The most prominent phonological feature of Bagri is the presence of three lexical tone
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
s: high, level, and low. The Bagri language has a very high 65% lexical similarity with Haryanvi.
Linguistic Features
- There are 31 consonants, 10 vowels, 2 diphthongs, and 3 tones.
- Retroflexion is an important feature.
- There are two numbers—singular and plural.
- Two genders—masculine and feminine.
- Three cases—simple, oblique, and vocative.Case marking is partly inflectional and partly postpositional.
- Nouns are declined according to their final segments.
- All pronouns are inflected for number and case but gender is distinguished only in the third person singular pronouns.
- The third person pronouns are distinguished on the proximity/remoteness dimension in each gender.
- Adjectives are of two types—either ending in /-o/ or not.
- Cardinal numbers up to ten are inflected.
- Both present and past participles function as adjectives.
- There are three tenses and four moods in Bagri.
- Sentence types are of traditional nature.
- Coordination and subordination are very important in complex sentences.
- Parallel lexicon are existing and are very important from sociolinguistic point of view.
Language samples
* तेरो नाम के है| (What is your name?)
* किन जाव है| (where are you going?)
* इन्नै आ (Come here)
* क्यूकर है ? (how are you?)
* टींगर टीटणं नां मार. (hey dude! dont waste time.)
* तन्नै कुचरणीं ही लेणीं है के ? (Do you only want to disturb things?)
* नास में आन्गळी ना ले (Don't penetrate finger into nose?)
* बातां गा पीसा लागै. (Talking costs money)
* सलिमों देखण चालसी के ? (Will you go to Cinema?)
* मुह कर जिया बताऊ जिसों (Your face looks like eggplant.)
* क्यामी राफ चोड़ी करै है रे? (Why are you making your mouth as that of a moron?)
* के करे ह (what are u doing )
* पंगो ह क कोई तेर (you have any problem )
* कीने मर गयो हो (where was u gone )
* कठू आन लाग रह्यो ह (where are you coming from )
Work on Bagri
- Grierson, G. A.George Abraham GriersonSir George Abraham Grierson OM KCIE was born to a prominent Dublin family in 1851. His father and grandfather, both also named George, were well-known printers and publishers.-Biography:Educated at St...
1908. (Reprint 1968). Linguistic Survey of India. Volume IX, Part II. New Delhi: Motilal Banarasidass - Gusain, Lakhan. 1994. Reflexives in Bagri. M.Phil. dissertation. New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University
- Gusain, Lakhan. 1999. A Descriptive Grammar of Bagri. Ph.D. dissertation. New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University
- Gusain, Lakhan. 2000a. Limitations of Literacy in Bagri. Nicholas Ostler & Blair Rudes (eds.). Endangered Languages and Literacy. Proceedings of the Fourth FEL Conference. University of North Carolina, Charlotte, 21–24 September 2000
- Gusain, Lakhan. 2000b. Bagri Grammar. Munich: Lincom Europa (Languages of the World/Materials, 384)
- Gusain, Lakhan. 2008. Bagri Learners' Reference Grammar. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Northside Publishers
- Wilson, J. 1883. Sirsa Settlement Report. Chandigarh: Government Press
See also
- Rajasthani languageRajasthani languageRajasthani Rajasthani Rajasthani (Devanagari: , Perso-Arabic: is a language of the Indo-Aryan languages family. It is spoken by 50 million people in Rajasthan and other states of India and in some areas of Pakistan. The number of speakers may be up to 80 million worldwide...
- List of winners of Sahitya Akademi Awards for writing in Rajasthani language
- List of Rajasthani poets
- List of Indian poets#Rajasthani