| Kurukh | |
|---|---|
| Kurux, Oraon, Uraon | |
| कुँड़ुख़ (उराँव), কুড়ুখ্, କୁଡ଼ୁଖ୍ | |
 'Kuṛux' or 'Kuṁṛux' in Kurukh Banna alphabet (top) and Tolong Siki alphabet (bottom) | |
| Native to | India,Bangladesh, andNepal |
| Region | Odisha,Jharkhand,West Bengal,Chhattisgarh,Assam,Bihar,Tripura[1] |
| Ethnicity | |
Native speakers | 2.28 million (2002–2011)[2][1][3] |
Dravidian
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Devanagari Odia Kurukh Banna Tolong Siki | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | India
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Variously:kru – Kuruxkxl – Nepali Kurux (Dhangar)xis – Kisan |
| Glottolog | kuru1301 |
| ELP | Nepali Kurux |
 | |
Kurukh (/ˈkʊrʊx/ or/ˈkʊrʊk/;[4]Devanagari: कुँड़ुख़,IPA:[kũɽux]), alsoKurux,Oraon orUranw (Devanagari: उराँव,IPA:[uraːũ̯]),[5] is aNorth Dravidian language spoken by theKurukh (Oraon) andKisan people ofEast India. It is spoken by about two million people in the Indian states ofJharkhand,Chhattisgarh,Odisha,West Bengal,Assam andTripura, as well as by 65,000 in northernBangladesh, 28,600 of a dialect called Uranw inNepal and about 5,000 inBhutan. The most closely related language to Kurukh isMalto; together withBrahui, all three languages form theNorth Dravidian branch of theDravidian language family. It is marked as being in a "vulnerable" state in UNESCO's list ofendangered languages.[6] The Kisan dialect has 206,100 speakers as of 2011.
According toEdward Tuite Dalton, "Oraon" is anexonym assigned by neighbouringMunda people, meaning "to roam". They call themselves Kurukh.[7] According toSten Konow, Uraon will meanman as in the DravidianKurukh language, the word Urapai, Urapo and Urang meansMan. The word Kurukh may be derived from the wordKur orKurcana means "shout" and "stammer". So Kurukh will mean 'a speaker'.[8]
Kurukh belongs to the Northern Dravidian group of theDravidian family languages,[9] and is closely related to Sauria Paharia and Kumarbhag Paharia, which are often together referred to asMalto.[10]
Kurukh is written inDevanagari, a script also used to writeSanskrit,Hindi,Marathi,Nepali and otherIndo-Aryan languages.
In 1991, Basudev Ram Khalkho fromOdisha released theKurukh Banna script. InSundargarh district of Odisha the Kurukh Banna alphabet is taught and promoted by Kurukh Parha. Fonts have been developed and people are using it widely in books, magazines and other material. The alphabet is also used by Oraon people in the states of Chhattisgarh, Bengal, Jharkhand and Assam.[11]
In 1999, Narayan Oraon, a doctor, invented thealphabetic Tolong Siki script specifically for Kurukh. Many books and magazines have been published inTolong Siki script, and it saw official recognition by the state ofJharkhand in 2007. The Kurukh Literary Society of India has been instrumental in spreading the Tolong Siki script for Kurukh literature.[12][13]
In India, Kurukh is mostly spoken inRaigarh,Surguja,Jashpur ofChhattisgarh,Gumla,Ranchi,Lohardaga,Latehar,Simdega ofJharkhand;Jharsuguda,Sundargarh andSambalpur district ofOdisha.
It is also spoken inJalpaiguri district ofWest Bengal,Assam andTripura states by Kurukh who are mostly Tea-garden workers.[1]
It is spoken by 2,053,000 people from theOraon andKisan tribes, with 1,834,000 and 219,000 speakers respectively. The literacy rate is 23% in Oraon and 17% in Kisan. Despite the large number of speakers, the language is considered to beendangered.[14] The governments of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have introduced the Kurukh language in schools with majority Kurukhar students. Jharkhand and West Bengal both list Kurukh as an official language of their respective states.[15] Bangladesh also has some speakers.
The phonology ofTrue Kurukh represents the language in its native Dravidian state. It is defined by a strict absence of native aspirated consonants and a system where voicing in stops is an allophonic process rather than a phonemic distinction.
| Height | Front | Central | Back | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | i ⟨i⟩,iː ⟨ī⟩ | u ⟨u⟩,uː ⟨ū⟩ | Each cardinal vowel exists in four states: short, long, and their respective nasalized forms. | |
| Mid | e ⟨e⟩,eː ⟨ē⟩ | o ⟨o⟩,oː ⟨ō⟩ | ||
| Low | a ⟨a⟩,aː ⟨ā⟩ | |||
| Diphthong | ai̯ ⟨ay⟩ | au̯ ⟨aw⟩ | Native diphthongs are glide-vowel sequences. |
| Manner | Bilabial | Dentalveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Occlusive | Stop | p ⟨p⟩ | t ⟨t⟩ | ʈ ⟨ṭ⟩ | k ⟨k⟩ | ||
| Nasal | m ⟨m⟩ | n ⟨n⟩ | (ɳ) ⟨ṇ⟩ | ɲ ⟨ñ⟩ | ŋ ⟨ṅ⟩ | ||
| Affricate | tʃ ⟨c⟩,dʒ ⟨j⟩ | ||||||
| Fricative | s ⟨s⟩ | x ⟨kh⟩ | |||||
| Liquid | Lateral | l ⟨l⟩ | (ɭ) ⟨ḷ⟩ | ||||
| Rhotic | r ⟨ṟ⟩,ɾ ⟨r⟩ | ɻ ⟨r̤⟩ | |||||
| Semi-Vowel | w ⟨w⟩ | j ⟨y⟩ | h ⟨h⟩ | ||||
In standard spoken Kurukh, aspirated stops like/bʰ/,/dʰ/, and/ɡʰ/ are common due to centuries of contact with Nagpuri and Hindi. In True Kurukh, these are recognized as non-native. The revival process replaces these imports with their unaspirated equivalents or native fricatives (like the velar/x/), effectively restoring the Dravidian "hardness" of the tongue.
Perhaps the most significant shift is the status of voiced stops (b, d, g). In Indo-Aryanized Kurukh, these are independent phonemes. InNative True Kurukh, voicing ispurely environmental. A stop is generally voiceless at the beginning of a word but becomes voiced intervocalically (between vowels). This "Lenition" rule simplifies the phonemic inventory while adding a melodic, fluid quality to spoken sentences.
Revived Kurukh places heavy emphasis on its rhotic and lateral distinctions:
The revival enforces native syllable structures, largely preferringConsonant-Vowel (CV) patterns and strictly governing consonant clusters. This "refining" removes the heavy, cluster-laden phonology of borrowed Sanskritized terms, opting instead for the rhythmic, agglutinative flow native to the Kurukh people.
The pronominal system ofKurukh (Oraon) exhibits a sophisticated morphological structure based on long-vowel stems and nasal augmentation. While the personal pronouns follow established standard rules of clusivity, the third-person system is currently the subject of linguistic innovation regarding gender categorization.
Personal pronouns distinguish between singular (-n) and plural (-m) forms. A defining feature is the distinction between **Exclusive** (excluding the listener) and **Inclusive** (including the listener) 1st-person plural forms. Notably, the inclusive form (*nām*) represents a collective identity; therefore, no singular form exists for the inclusive 1st person.
| Category | Case & Augment | Number Suffix | Functional Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | |||
| (*-n) | (*-m) | |||
| 1st (Excl.) Stem:*ē- | Nominative | ēn | ēm | Exclusive: Excludes the listener. |
| Oblique | eṅ(g)- | em(m)- | ||
| 1st (Incl.) Stem:*nā- | Nominative | — | nām | Inclusive: Includes the listener. Plural only. |
| Oblique | — | nam(m)- | ||
| 2nd Person Stem:*nī- | Nominative | nīn | nīm | Direct address to listener. |
| Oblique | niṅ(g)- | nim(m)- | ||
| Reflexive Stem:*tā- | Nominative | tān | tām | Reflexive: "Self-referential." |
| Oblique | taṅ(g)- | tam(m)- | ||
The third-person pronominal system is fundamentally deictic, mapping grammatical referents onto physical space (Proximal, Medial, and Distal). Historically and in contemporary usage, Kurukh utilizes aBinary Gender System, though a new proposal (2026) suggests a transition to aTernary Gender System.
The existing standard in Kurukh categorizes all referents into two groups:[16]
This linguistic innovation proposes splitting the "Non-Masculine" category to create a three-way distinction. This is achieved by introducing a specificFeminine Definite Marker (suffix*-ḷ) to distinguish female persons from the Neuter category.[17]
| Deictic Category | *ī- Proximal (Near) | *Hu- Medial (Mid) | *ā- Distal (Far) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gender | Case | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural |
| Epicene (Hon.) Suffix:*-ṟ | Nom. | īṟ | iwar̤aṟ | Huṟ | Huwar̤aṟ | āṟ | awar̤aṟ |
| Obl. | īṟ- | iwar̤aṟ- | Huṟ- | Huwar̤aṟ- | āṟ- | awar̤aṟ- | |
| Masculine Suffix:*-s | Nom. | īs | iwar̤as | Hus | Huwar̤as | ās | awar̤as |
| Obl. | īs- | iwar̤as- | Hus- | Huwar̤as- | ās- | awar̤as- | |
| Feminine (New Proposal) Suffix:*-ḷ | Nom. | īḷ | iwar̤aḷ | Huḷ | Huwar̤aḷ | āḷ | awar̤aḷ |
| Obl. | īḷ- | iwar̤aḷ- | Huḷ- | Huwar̤aḷ- | āḷ- | awar̤aḷ- | |
| Neuter Suffix:*-d | Nom. | īd | iwar̤ad | Hud | Huwar̤ad | ād | awar̤ad |
| Obl. | īd- | iwar̤ad- | Hud- | Huwar̤ad- | ād- | awar̤ad- | |
Technical and Status Notes:
| |||||||
In Kurukh, grammatical cases are formed by appending suffixes to theOblique Stem of the pronoun. The genitive system utilizes a stable pronominal suffix alongside person-specific attributive suffixes.
| Case | Suffix | Function | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | (Stem) | Subject of the sentence | ēn (I) |
| Accusative | -an | Direct object | eṅgan (Me) |
| Genitive-Pronominal | -ay | True Possessive Suffix (Stable across all persons) | eṅgay / āsay (Mine / His) |
| Genitive-Attributive (Personal) | -e | Possessive for 1st/2nd Person (Attributive) | eṅge (My...) |
| Genitive-Attributive (3rd Person) | -in | Possessive for 3rd Person (Attributive) | āsin (His...) |
| Dative | -āgē | Indirect object (To/For) | eṅgāgē |
| Instrumental | -(a)tī | By means of / Agent | eṅgatī |
| Ablative | -antī / -le | Movement away from / Source | eṅgantī |
| Locative | -(a)nū | Location (In / On / Inside) | eṅganū |
The Genitive-Attributive category (used when the pronoun modifies a noun) exhibits a categorical split based on the person of the referent:
Kurukh, like other Dravidian languages, is an agglutinative language. The sentence structure is Subject-Object-Verb (SOV). In its morphological construction, there is suffixation but there are no infixes or prefixes.[1]
Kurukh nouns have three grammatical genders, namely masculine, feminine and neuter. To the Kurukh only men are masculine ; women and goddesses (evil spirits) are feminine ; all others are neutral. Masculine nouns of the third person singular have two forms, the indefinite and the definite. The indefinite is the simplest form of the noun, thusāl man. The definite form is made by adding-as for the singular, thusālas, ("the man").[2]
There are only two grammatical numbers, the singular and the plural.[2]
The following is an example declension table for a masculine noun "āl", meaning "man"[3]
| Case | Singular | Definite | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | āl | ālas | ālar |
| Genitive | āl | ālas gahi | ālar gahi |
| Dative | āl | ālas gē | ālar gē |
| Accusative | ālan | ālasin | ālarin |
| Ablative | āltī | ālas tī | ālartī , ālarintī |
| Instrumental | āltrī, āltrū | - | ālarṭrī, ālartrū |
| Vocative | ē ālayо̄ | - | ē ālarо̄ |
| Locative | āl | ālas nū | ālar nū |
The feminine declension is almost identical to the masculine, but lacks a definite form. The following example is for "mukkā" ("woman").[3]
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | mukkā | mukkar |
| Genitive | mukkāgahi | mukkar gahi |
| Dative | mukkāgē | mukkar gē |
| Accusative | mukkan | mukkarin |
| Ablative | mukkantī | mukkartī , mukkarintī |
| Instrumental | mukkātrī, mukkātrū | mukkartrī, mukkartrū |
| Vocative | ē mukkai | ē mukkarо̄ |
| Locative | mukkānū | mukkar nū |
The neuter declension for "allā" ("dog") shows almost identical singular forms, but a difference in pluralization.[3]
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | allā | allāguṭhi |
| Genitive | allāgahi | allāguṭhi gahi |
| Dative | allāgē | allāguṭhi gē |
| Accusative | allan | allāguṭhin |
| Ablative | allantī | allāguṭhi tī , allāguṭhintī |
| Instrumental | allātrī, allātrū | allāguṭhi trī, allāguṭhi trū |
| Vocative | ē allā | ē allāguṭhi |
| Locative | allānū | allāguṭhi nū |
The Kurukh language is taught as a subject in the schools ofJharkhand,Chhattishgarh,Madhya Pradesh,Odisha,West Bengal andAssam.[4]
| Phrases | English Translation |
|---|---|
| Nighai endra naame? | What is your name? |
| Neen ekase ra'din? | How are you? (Girl) |
| Neen ekase ra'dai? | How are you? (Boy) |
| Een korem ra'dan. | I am fine. |
| Neen ekshan kalalagdin? | Where are you going? (Girl) |
| Neen ekshan kalalagday? | Where are you going? (Boy) |
| Endra manja? | What happened? |
| Ha'an | Yes |
| Malla | No |
| Een mokha Lagdan. | I am eating. |
| Neen mokha. | You eat. |
| Neen ona. | You drink |
| Aar mokha lagnar. | They are eating. |
| Daw makha | Good Night |
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
होर्मा आलारिन् हक् गहि बारे नू मल्लिन्ता अजादि अरा आण्टें मन्ना गहि हक़् ख़खर्कि रै। आरिन् लुर् अरा जिया गहि दव् बौसा ख़खकि रै अरा तम्है मझि नू मेल्-प्रें गहि बेव्हार् नन्ना चहि।
Hōrmā ālārin hak gahi bāre nū mallintā azādi arā aṅṭēm mannā gahi haq xakharki raī. Ārin lur arā jiyā gahi dav bausā xakhakī raī arā tamhai majhi nū mēl-prēm gahi bēvhār nannā nā cahi.
Kurukh has a number of alternative names such as Uraon, Kurux, Kunrukh, Kunna, Urang, Morva, and Birhor. Two dialects, Oraon and Kisan, have 73% intelligibility between them. Oraon but not Kisan is currently being standardised. Kisan is currently endangered, with a decline rate of 12.3% from 1991 to 2001.[5]
