Bhojpuri language
Bhojpuri ) is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Bhojpur-Purvanchal region of India and the Terai region of Nepal. It is chiefly spoken in eastern Uttar Pradesh, western Bihar, and northwestern Jharkhand in India, as well as western Madhesh, eastern Lumbini. According to the 2011 Census of India, it is spoken by approximately 50.5 million people.
It is also a minority language in Fiji, Mauritius, Suriname and historically primarily in the Natal province of South Africa. Fiji Hindi, an official language of Fiji, is a dialect of Bhojpuri spoken by the Indo-Fijians. Caribbean Hindustani is spoken by the Indo-Caribbean people in Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. In Mauritius, it is recognised by the government and taught in university as well.
Bhojpuri language is listed as potentially vulnerable in the UNESCO World Atlas of Languages.
Name
The oldest presence of the word "Bhojpuri" is found as Bodjpooria in 1789 in the translator's preface of a book titled A Translation of the Sëir Mutaqherin, which is a translation of a Persian book written in 1780 by Ghulam Hussain Khan. The paragraph in which reads:The word Bhojpuri is derived from Bhojpur. After the conquest of Chero and Ujjainiya Rajputs in 12th century, who were the descendants of Raja Bhoj from Ujjain, Malwa, Madhya Pradesh captured Shahabad and named their capital Bhojpur. The seat of their government was Bhojpur village which was near Dumraon in Buxar. Two villages named Chhotka Bhojpur and Barka Bhojpur still exist in Buxar, where the ruins of their Navratna Fortress can still be seen. Slowly the word Bhojpur became the synonyms of the Shahabad or Arrah region and the adjective Bhojpuri or Bhojpuriya extended to mean the language or people of Bhojpur and even beyond it. Apart from Bhojpuri in the Eastern UP and Western Bihar, there were other names also for the language and people, at different places, the Bhojpuriya in Mughal armies were used to called Buxariya. In Bengal, they called Paschhimas and Bhojpuri people also called them Deshwali or Khoṭṭa, in upper provinces like Oudh they called Purabiya. Besides these, Banarasi, Chhaprahiya, and Bangarahi has also used for the language and People. Rahul Sankrityayan has suggested two names for it i.e. Mallika or Malli and Kashiki. The Girmityas who were taken to British colonies called it simply Hindustani or Hindi and it became Fiji Hindi in Fiji and Caribbean Hindustani in the Caribbean region. Similarly, in South Africa, while often locally referred to by speakers as 'Hindustani', the variety brought by indentured labourers who embarked at Calcutta was also known as 'Kalkatia
History
Bhojpuri is a descendant of Magadhi Prakrit which started taking shape during the reign of the Vardhana dynasty. Bāṇabhaṭṭa, in his Harshacharita has mentioned two poets named Isānchandra and Benibhārata who used to write in local language instead of Prakrit and Sanskrit.Initial period (700–1100 A.D.)
Some scholar enthusiasts like to trace the literary history of Bhojpuri from Siddha Sahitya, as early as the 8th century A.D.. But it's not widely accepted.1100–1400 A.D.
Between the 11th and 14th centuries A.D., much Bhojpuri folklore such as Lorikayan, Sorathi Birjabh, Vijaymal, Gopichand, Raja Bharthariar came into existence. Alongside these, the Nath Saint composed literature in Bhojpuri. In this period, the Bhojpuri language altered and its regional boundaries were established.Period of saints (1400–1700 A.D.)
In this era, saints from different sects such as Kabir, Dharni Das, Kina Ram and Dariya Saheb used Bhojpuri as their language of discourse. In the same period Arabic and Persian words came into Bhojpuri. Folk songs are also said to have been composed in this era.Early research period (1700–1900 A.D.)
In this period the British established themselves as the colonial power in India, and scholars from Britain conducted the first academic study of Bhojpuri. Bhojpuri folk literature was researched, and the Bhojpuri region was mapped for the first time. In this period Bhojpuri became an international language. Between 1838 and 1917 labourers from the Bhojpuri region were taken to British Colonies like Fiji, Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and South Africa, as well as the Dutch colony of Suriname as plantation workers. Linguistic analysis of the South African context indicates that while the majority of migrants arriving via Calcutta originated from Bhojpuri-speaking areas of Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh, there was also a substantial presence of speakers from Awadhi-speaking regions. This resulted in a process of language coalescence and the formation of a distinct koiné variety of Bhojpuri in South Africa, influenced by contact between these related dialects. Music genres based on Bhojpuri folk music such as Chutney music, Baithak Gana, Geet Gawanai and Lok Geet arose in those countries. In the Caribbean, particularly Trinidad, the evolution from Bhojpuri folk traditions performed at weddings led to the development of Chutney music as a distinct genre, often incorporating English lyrics and Soca rhythms alongside Bhojpuri elements.British scholars like Buchanan, Beames and George Abraham Grierson studied the language in details. Beames published the grammar of Bhojpuri for the first time in 1868. Grierson compiled and published the folksongs of Bhojpuri in 1884. He published the folklore of Bhojpuri and also made the dictionaries in Bhojpuri. He also conducted the Linguistic Survey of India. In his work, Grierson characterised Bhojpuri as "a practical language of an energetic race"
Present period (1900–present)
In the 19th century, notable works like Devakshara Charita, Badmash Darpan were published. In the 20th century, Bhikhari Thakur contributed significantly to Bhojpuri literature and theatre with his notable plays like Bidesiya, Beti Bechwa, Gabarghichor and novels like Bindia and Phulsunghi were published. In 1962, the first Bhojpuri film, Ganga Maiyya Tohe Piyari Chadhaibo was released and became the founding stone of the Bhojpuri film industry.Bhojpuri is listed as a potentially vulnerable language in the UNESCO world atlas of languages due to the influence of Hindi. Words like Bujhã are being replaced by Hindi words like Samjhã.
Geographic distribution
The Bhojpuri-speaking region covers the area of 73,000 square kilometres approximately in India and Nepal and borders the Awadhi-speaking region to the west, the Nepali-speaking region to the north, the Magahi and Bajjika-speaking regions to the east and the Chhattisgarhi and Bagheli-speaking regions to the south. In Nepal, Bhojpuri is a major language in south-western districts bordering Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. There are a number of Bhojpuri-speaking Muslims that are part of the Muhajir community in Pakistan, as well as in Bangladesh, where they are referred to as Stranded Pakistanis due to them speaking Bhojpuri and Urdu as their native tongue and not Bengali as most Bangladeshis do. They migrated to Bangladesh there during the Partition of India when the area was part of East Pakistan, before gaining independence as Bangladesh.Bhojpuri is spoken by descendants of indentured labourers brought in the 19th and early 20th centuries for work in plantations in British colonies. These Bhojpuri speakers live in Mauritius, Fiji, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica, and other parts of the Caribbean. In South Africa, speakers were historically concentrated in the Natal province. However, the language experienced significant decline throughout the 20th century, undergoing language shift towards English, with intergenerational transmission largely ceasing by the late 1900s. This South African variety also experienced language contact effects from English, Zulu, and Fanagalo. In Mauritius, music is considered a primary vehicle for maintaining the language, with songs often reflecting adaptation to new environments and mixing Bhojpuri with Mauritian Creole. In Trinidad and Tobago, while Caribbean Hindustani remains, popular music forms like Chutney often feature significant English admixture, reflecting linguistic creolisation, as exemplified by artists like Sundar Popo.
Classification
Bhojpuri is an Indo-European language and belongs to the Eastern Indo-Aryan group of the Indo-Aryan languages. The Magahi and Maithili languages of Eastern Indo-Aryan group are closest living relatives of Bhojpuri. Odia, Bengali and Assamese are also closely related. Bhojpuri along with Magahi and Maithili, are grouped together as the Bihari languages. Together with the other branches of Eastern Indo-Aryan, the Bihari languages are considered to be direct descendants of the Magadhi Prakrit.Bhojpuri is classified as an Eastern Indo-Aryan Language because it has similar inflexion system to the other languages of the same family such as Bengali, Maithili and Odia. For example, the pronunciation of the vowel a is broad in Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, and sounds like o in Bengali, on moving westwards it becomes less broad but still can be differentiated from the sharp cut a in Middle Indo-Aryan. In Bhojpuri, the clear cut a and the drawled a, which sounds like aw in the word awl are present and the contrast between the two gives a different tone to the language. This drawled a is represented by Avagraha, for instance, the word dekh'la, you see, is written as देेखऽलऽ. Other property of Eastern Indo Aryan languages is that the adjectives does not change with the noun. For instance, moṭā is the feminine form of moṭī in Hindi. However, as with Bengali, in Bhojpuri, only moṭ is used. The past and future tense in Bhojpuri is formed in same way as other Eastern Indo-Aryan Languages, by adding a suffix stating from -la and -ba respectively to the verb. Form example, I shall See, in Bengali is dekh-bo and in Bhojpuri is dekh-ab.
Some scholars has also divided the East Indo Aryan or Magadhan languages in to three sub-groups viz. Western, Central and Eastern. Bengali, Assamese, Odia belongs to Eastern Magadhan, Maithili and Magahi to Central and Bhojpuri to western. Bhojpuri is classified as Western Magadhan because it has some properties which are peculiar to itself and are not present in other Magadhan Languages. Some striking differences are:
- raürā or raüwā as an honorfic pronoun for second person along with the apne form is used Bhojpuri. apne form is their in other Magadhan Languages but raüwā is totally absent.
- Verb substantive in other Magadhan language is of -acch for but Bhojpuri has -baṭe and hawe.
- The simple present is made by Bhojpuri by adding a suffix starting from -la with the verb, but this is totally absent in the other languages of Magadhan group. Hence, he sees, is dēkhe-lā in Bhojpuri but in but dekhait-chhi in Maithili and dekhechhi in Bengali.