Bhojpuri is spoken by around 50 million people.[6] It is native to Bhojpuri region of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Bhojpuri is sociolinguistically considered one of the "Hindi dialects" although it linguistically belongs to the geographic Bihari branch of Eastern Indo-Aryan languages. The first Bhojpuri novel Bindiã was written by Ram Nath Pandey in 1955. It was published by Bhojpuri Sansad, Jagatganj, Varanasi. Bhikhari Thakur's was famous writer of Bhojpuri language. His famous book is Bidesiya.[7][8]
According to G.A. Grierson, Bhojpuriya people have influenced all over India and called them people from energetic race and has called them the Civilizer of Hindostan. In order to compare Bhojpuriyas with Maithils and Magahiya he writes:[9]
Maithili and Magahi are the dialects of nationalities which have carried conservatism to excess of uncouthness, while Bhojpuri is the practical language of an energetic race, which is ever ready to accommodate itself to circumstances, and has made it influence felt all over the Indian. Bengali and Bhojpuri are the two civilizer of Hindostan, the former with his pen and latter with his cudgel.
George Abraham Grierson Linguistic Survey of India Vol V. Part II
He further writes that Bhojpuri people form the fighting nation of Hindostan, and has praised for grab any opportunity. He writes:[9]
The Bhojpuri-speaking country is inhabited by a people curiously different from people who speak Bihari dilects. They form the fighting nation of Hindostan. An alert and active nationality, with few scruples, and considerable abilities, dearly loving a fight for fighting's sake, they have spread all over Aryan India, each men ready to carve his fortune out of any opportunity which may present itself to him. They furnish a rich mine of recruitments to the Hindostani Army, and on the other hand they took a prominent part in the mutiny of 1857. As fond as an Irishman, is of a stick, the long-boned, stalwart, Bhojpuri, with a staff in hand, is a familiar object striding over fields far from his home. Thousands of them emigrated to british colonies and have returned rich-men, every year still larger numbers wander over Northern Bengal and seek employment, either honestly, as palki bearers, or otherwise as dacoits. Every Bengali Zamindar keeps a pose of these men, eumphistically termed 'darwans', to keep his tenants in order.
George Abraham Grierson Linguistic Survey of India Vol V. Part II
