| Asuri | |
|---|---|
| असुर | |
| Native to | India |
| Ethnicity | Asur |
Native speakers | 7,000 (2007)[1] |
Austroasiatic
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | asr |
| Glottolog | asur1254 |
| ELP | Asuri |
Asuri is anAustroasiatic language spoken by theAsur people, part of theMunda branch.[2]Asuri has manyDravidian loanwords due to contact withKurukh.[3]
The majority of Asuri speakers reside in the Gumla district ofChota Nagpur. In addition, there are smaller groups of Asuri speakers inChhattisgarh,West Bengal,Odisha.[4]
Ethnologue states thatBirjia is a dialect of Asuri, but also that there is a related languageBirjia; it is not clear if these refer to the same thing. However, Anderson (2008:195), based on Prasad (1961:314), suggests thatBirjia (Binjhia) may be anIndo-Aryan language, although the Birjia are an ethnic subgroup of the Asuri tribe, along with the Asur proper and the Agariya.
Majhwar is unclassified, but based on location and other clues, it may turn out to be a dialect of Asuri. If so, its 35,000 speakers (reported in 1995, out of an ethnic group of 175,000) would make it the most populous form of Asuri.
Asuri is considered to be anendangered language.[5] One important reason for its distinction as endangered is due to a lack of any written form of the language. It exists only as aspoken language There are a total of 31phonemes in Asuri, made up of twenty-six "segmental" and five "supra-segmental" phonemes. Of the former, there are twenty-one consonants and five vowels.[5]
The Asur language is listed in UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. Using mobile radio, the Asur community, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group(PVTG) in Jharkhand, has been spreading the popularity of the language within their geographical limits. News and entertainment programmes are broadcast on speakers at public places.[6]
Ethnologue lists the following districts and states where Asuri is spoken.
Asuri lacks phonemic nasalization, so a nasalised vowel cannot affect word meaning. Nasalizations are consistently used in words borrowed from Hindi and inonomatopoeic words like words for animal sounds. No acoustic studies have ever been done focusing on Asuri vowel length, durations, quality, frequencies, correlated features, and syllable prominence neither.[7]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a | ||
| Diphthong | /ai,ae,au,ao,oi,ou,ui/ | ||
| Bilabial | Denti- Alveolar | Retroflex | Postalv./ Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop/Affricate | voiceless | p | t̪ | ʈ | t͡ʃ | k | (ʔ) |
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | ʈʰ | t͡ʃʰ | kʰ | ||
| voiced | b | d̪ | ɖ | d͡ʒ | ɡ | ||
| aspirated | bʰ | dʰ | ɖʰ | d͡ʒʰ | gʰ | ||
| Fricative | s | h | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||||
| Approximant | w | l | j | ||||
| Trill | r | ||||||
| Flap | ɽ | ||||||
Asuri belongs to the Mundaric type ofKherwarian languages which allows a transitive verb to encode maximum two pronominal clitic markers.[8] The shorter forms of these person clitics only attach to the last open syllables.
| singular | dual | plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person | exclusive | =iŋ/=ɲ | =aliŋ/=liŋ | =ale/=le |
| inclusive | =alaŋ/=laŋ | =abu/=bu | ||
| 2nd person | =am/=m | =aben/=ben | =ape/=pe | |
| 3rd person | =ae/=e | =akin/=kin | =aku/=ku | |
| Active | Middle | |
|---|---|---|
| Future | -ku/-ko/-kw/-k/-ke | – |
| Present | -Ø | – |
| Present Progressive | -d | -tan |
| Simple Past | -l/-ked | -n/-nen |
| Perfect | -tad | – |
| Past perfect | – | -tahil/-tahin/-t̪ʰin |
| Habitual | -kin | |
| Irrealis | -ta/tahi-kw/ku/ko/k/ke | |
| Imperative | -e | |
| Marker | |
|---|---|
| Passive | -o |
| Causative | -tʃi |
| Reciprocal | -opɽiŋo |
| Reflexive | -l-n |