According to linguist Paul Sidwell (2018), Munda languages probably arrived on coast of Odisha from Indochina about 4000–3500 years ago and spread after Indo-Aryan migration to Odisha.[8]
Geographical distribution
Historical Speaker of Mundari Veriety: Munda, Mundari, and Bhumij
Note: In the 2011 census, for the first time, 34,651 respondents (primarily in Odisha) recorded Bhumijali as their mother tongue, likely as an alternative name for the Bhumij language. However, for census purposes, it was categorized under the Odia language, which resulted in a 42 percent decline in the number of Bhumij speakers.[1]
Toshiki Osada (2008:99), citing the Encyclopaedia Mundarica (vol. 1, p. 6), lists the following dialects of Mundari, which are spoken mostly in Jharkhand state.
Hasada ([hasa-daʔ]): east of the Ranchi-Chaibasa Road
Naguri ([naɡuri]): west of the Ranchi-Chaibasa Road
Tamaria ([tamaɽ-ia]) or Latar: Panchpargana area (Tamar, Bundu, Rahe, Sonahatu, Silli)
Kera ([keraʔ]): ethnic Oraon who live in the Ranchi city area
Bhumij, listed in many sources as a separate language, may in fact be a variety of the Latar (Tamaria) dialect of Mundari. It is spoken across Jharkhand state and in Mayurbhanj district, Odisha (Anderson 2008, pp. 196–197). There may be around 50,000 Bhumij speakers, although the census records around 27,000.[11]
Phonology
The phonology of Mundari is similar to the surrounding closely related Austroasiatic languages but considerably different from either Indo-Aryan or Dravidian. Perhaps the most foreign phonological influence has been on the vowels. Whereas the branches of Austroasiatic in Southeast Asia are rich in vowel phonemes, Mundari has only five. The consonant inventory of Mundari is similar to other Austroasiatic languages with the exception of retroflex consonants, which seem to appear only in loanwords. (Osada 2008)
Vowels
Mundari has five vowel phonemes. All vowels have long and short as well as nasalized allophones, but neither length nor nasality are contrastive. All vowels in open monosyllables are quantitatively longer than those in closed syllables, and those following nasal consonants or /ɟ/ are nasalized. Vowels preceding or following /ɳ/ are also nasalized.
Mundari's consonant inventory consists of 23 basic phonemes. The Naguri and Kera dialects include aspirated stops as additional phonemes, here enclosed in parentheses.
It has been claimed the Mundari has no word classes, so that nouns, verbs, and adjectives are distinguished only by context. However, this has been disputed, notably by Evans and Osada in 2005.[12]
Notes
^According to the 2011 Census, 1,128,228 people in India reported Mundari, 505,922 reported Munda, 27,506 reported Bhumij, and 34,651 reported Bhumijali as their mother tongue, totaling 1,696,307 individuals, or approximately 1.7 million.[1]
Anderson, Gregory D.S, ed. (2008). The Munda languages. Routledge Language Family Series 3. New York: Routledge. ISBN0-415-32890-X.
Further reading
Evans, Nicholas & Toshki Osada. 2005a. Mundari: the myth of a language without word classes. In Linguistic Typology 9.3, pp. 351–390.
Evans, Nicholas & Toshki Osada. 2005b. Mundari and argumentation in word-class analysis. In Linguistic Typology 9.3, pp. 442–457
Hengeveld, Kees & Jan Rijkhoff. 2005. Mundari as a flexible language. In Linguistic Typology 9.3, pp. 406–431.
Newberry, J. (2000). North Munda dialects: Mundari, Santali, Bhumia. Victoria, B.C.: J. Newberry. ISBN0-921599-68-4
Osada Toshiki. 2008. "Mundari". In Anderson, Gregory D.S (ed). The Munda languages, 99–164. Routledge Language Family Series 3.New York: Routledge. ISBN0-415-32890-X.
Texts
Johann Hoffmann (1903). Mundari grammar. Bengal Secretariat Press. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
J. C. Whitley (1873). A Mundári Primer. Bengal Secretariat Press. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
Carl Gustav Rudolph Eduard Alfred Nottrott (1882). Grammatik der Kolh-Sprache. Gütersloh: Druck von C. Bertelsmann. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
