Rajasthani

Earlier, Rajasthani (including for political reasons) was often attributed to the dialects of Western Hindi , although Rajasthani was deliberately later divided with Gujarati than their common ancestor with the ancestor of modern Hindi. Its isolation is also confirmed by the cultural characteristics characteristic of native speakers.

Now the status of Rajasthani as a separate language is recognized in India, it is taught at universities and schools.

In 1971, Rajasthani was included in the number of literary languages ​​of the country recognized and supported by the Literary Academy of India, after which the number of translations into it from other languages ​​significantly increased: Sanskrit, modern New Indian, English, German, etc.

However, the language is not present in the , enumerating the official languages ​​of this state. Despite a parliamentary resolution of Rajasthan of 2003 calling for the inclusion of rajasthani in the list of official languages ​​of the country, this issue has not been resolved to the present ^[1] .

The authorities of Rajasthan are also considering the issue of granting the status of official language to Rajasthani.

Rajasthani belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language macro-family . It evolved from the old Gujarati, a common ancestor of modern Rajasthani and Gujarati. The earliest written monuments on the old western Rajasthani, which was then called "dingal", date back to the fourteenth century.

The place of Rajasthani in the classification of Indo-Aryan languages ​​is not definitively determined: J. Grierson assigns it to the central subgroup (along with Hindi), S.K. Chatterjee - to the west (along with Gujarati). As noted by G.A. Zograph in an article on Rajasthani in the encyclopedia “New Indo-Aryan Languages”, the second point of view seems to be more genetically justified, but an unequivocal solution to the problem is difficult due to the dialect continuum.

The basis of Rajasthani is the dialects of the Marvari group. The Ethnologue handbook identifies dialects of dhata, goaria, loarca, marvari in Pakistan and dhundari, godvari, marvari, mevari and shekhavati in India, and in addition to marvari, separate dialects of bagri, gujri, gurgul, hadadhi, lambadi, lohar, malvi and nimadi not grouped. Some scholars bring Malvi and some other dialects closer to those of Western Hindi.

The Ethnologue Handbook estimates ^{[1] the} number of speakers of Rajasthani at 16 million people worldwide ^[2] , while considering a number of dialects of Rajasthani as independent languages.

The 2001 Census of India cites a figure of 18 million Rajasthani speakers in India. ^[3]

The current number of native speakers is estimated by a number of sources at 50 ^[4] —80 million people; Estimates vary greatly depending on the inclusion or non-inclusion of certain dialects.

The basic dialect of literary Rajasthani is Marwari, first of all, the dialect of Jodhpur. As explained in the already mentioned article, G.A. Zografa, “the special role of marwari is explained, firstly, by the fact that most of the speakers of Rajasthani speak it, and secondly, marwari is the lingua franca, connecting various regions of Rajasthan. Since ancient times, it has served as the language of communication at weekly bazaars in large villages and at regular city fairs. Active distributors of marwari have long been nomadic “banjara” peddlers and representatives of the mercenary and usurious castes “marwari” and “baniya” who have been wandering around Rajasthan for a long time. Finally, ethnic self-identification is most closely associated with the mother tongue, especially among Marvari speakers who make efforts to preserve their language and expand its social functions, while using Marvari in all areas of informal communication. ”

In official communication, including in the state of Rajasthan, Hindi prevails - the official language of India and the state. It is widely used in administrative clerical work, mass media, educational institutions, etc. However, there is a lot of fiction published in Rajasthani, radio broadcasts and several films made. Interest in it increased significantly after India gained independence and the formation of the state of Rajasthan

Dialects

The main dialects of Rajasthani include:

• Marvari - 13 million speakers
• Dhundari (Jaipuri) - 9 million speakers
• Mevari - 5 million speakers
• Mevati - 5 million speakers
• Bagri - 5 million speakers
• Harauti (Hadoti) - 4 million speakers
• Shekhavati - 3 million speakers

Among other dialects of Rajasthani, dhatas, godwari, goaria, loarki, gujari, lambadi, malvi, etc. are distinguished.

Rajasthani dialects distinguish between two genera (male and female), two numbers and three main cases (direct, general, agency). Verbal categories are generally common with Hindi. Just as in Hindi, three verb forms can be distinguished - imperfect (imperfective), perfect (perfective) and continued (progressive).

The basis of the vocabulary of Rajasthani is the original vocabulary (tadbhava). It differs from the vocabulary of related languages ​​phonetically, and partly by the choice of Indo-Aryan roots. However, in Swadesh’s 210-word list, 50-65 percent of vocabulary shows compliance with Hindi vocabulary. Borrowings from external sources - Persian, English, etc. - in Rajasthani less than in Hindi. Small amounts of Sankrit borrowing appeared in Rajasthan poetry in the Middle Ages, now their number has increased due to modern socio-political, administrative, etc. terminology, coming mainly through Hindi.

In India, the Rajasthani is written using the Devanagari alphabetical syllable . The merchant cursive of can also be used to record bills and settlements. In Pakistan, the Arabic script is used for writing Rajasthani, a variant of the Sindhi script ^{[5] [6]} .

In terms of the type of expression of morphological meanings, the dialects of Rajasthani are similar to each other and quite close to Hindi. Analytical forms predominate; old synthetic forms play a relatively smaller role. The concretization of indirectly reliable values ​​is expressed with the help of postpositions, among which directive-object, depositional, agentic and adjective are especially important.

Rajasthani is an inflectional language, but just like Hindi, fusion is not peculiar to it.

In possessive noun groups in Rajasthani, dependent marking is used.

In some dialects of Rajasthani, as well as in Hindi, transitive verbs of a perfect form require ergative case marking and verb coordination, while in other cases an accusative construction is used.

Other dialects combine accusative / three-part case marking with ergative verb matching.

The basic word order is SOV, varying depending on the context or stylistic tasks.

• Zograph G. A. Rajasthani language // World Languages. New Indo-Aryan languages. M .: Academia, 2011.
• Zograph G.A., Oranskaya T.I. Hindi language // World Languages. New Indo-Aryan languages. M .: Academia, 2011.
• Khohlova LV Syntactic Peculiarities of Rajasthani // 17th Euroean Conference on Modern South Asian Studies. Heidelberg: 2002.
• Udaar U. Ergativity: a Descriptive Study of Mewari & Marwari Ergative Case // Typology of Morphosyntactic Parameters. Materials of the international conference. 2015. M.: Moscow State Pedagogical University, 2015.
• Stroński K. Variation of Ergativity Patterns in Indo-Aryan // Poznań Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 46 (2). Poznań: Adam Mickiewicz University, 2010.

• Center for Rajasthani Studies
• Rajasthani-English dictionary online
• Presentation of the Rajasthani language at the VII Moscow International Festival of Languages ​​November 18 , 2012 at the Higher School of Economics (video lecture, 41:16)