It is spoken by 21.7 million people. Of those, 3.2 million areNepalese speakers.[9] The language is predominantly written inDevanagari, but the historicalTirhuta andKaithi scripts retained some use until today.[12]
In 2003, Maithili was included in theEighth Schedule of theIndian Constitution as a recognisedIndian language, which allows it to be used in education, government, and other official contexts in India.[5] In March 2018, Maithili received the second official language status in theIndian state ofJharkhand.[13]
In 1870s,Beames considered Maithili a dialect of aBengali.Hoernlé initially treated it as a dialect ofEastern Hindi, but after comparing it with theGaudian languages, recognised that it shows more similarities with theBengali language than withHindi.Grierson recognised it as a distinct language, grouped under 'Bihari' and published its firstgrammar in 1881.[20][21]
Several other dialects of Maithili are spoken in India and Nepal, including Dehati, Deshi, Kisan, Bantar, Barmeli, Musar, Tati and Jolaha. All the dialects are intelligible to native Maithili speakers.[9]
The name Maithili is derived from the wordMithila, an ancient kingdom of which KingJanaka was the ruler (seeRamayana). Maithili is also one of the names ofSita, the wife of KingRama and daughter of KingJanaka.[33]
The beginning of Maithili language and literature can be traced back to the 'Charyapadas', a form of Buddhist mystical verses, composed during the period of 700-1300 AD. These padas were written inSandhya bhasa by several Siddhas who belonged toVajrayana Buddhism and were scattered throughout the territory ofAssam,Bengal,Bihar andOdisha. Several of the Siddhas were from the Mithila region such as Kanhapa, Sarhapa etc. Scholars such asRahul Sankrityanan, Subhadra Jha andJayakant Mishra provided evidence and proved that the language ofCharyapada has traces of ancient Maithili or proto Maithili.[34]Apart from Charyapadas, there has been a rich tradition of folk culture, folk songs and which were popular among the common folks of the Mithila region.[35]
After the fall of thePala Empire, disappearance ofBuddhism, establishment of theKarnat dynasty and patronage of Maithili under Harisimhadeva (1226–1324) of Karnāta dynasty dates back to the 14th century (around 1327 AD).Jyotirishwar Thakur (1280–1340) wrote a unique workVarna Ratnakara in Maithili prose.[36] TheVarna Ratnākara is the earliest known prose text, written byJyotirishwar Thakur inMithilakshar script,[21] and is the first prose work not only in Maithili but in any modern Indian language.[37]
In 1324,Ghyasuddin Tughluq, the emperor ofDelhi invaded Mithila, defeatedHarisimhadeva, entrusted Mithila to his family priest and a great Military Scholar Kameshvar Jha, aMaithilBrahmin of theOiniwar Dynasty. But the disturbed era did not produce any literature in Maithili untilVidyapati Thakur (1360 to 1450), who was an epoch-making poet under the patronage ofShiva Simha Singh and his queenLakhimadevi. He produced over 1,000 immortal songs in Maithili on the theme of love ofRadha andKrishna and the domestic life ofShiva andParvati as well as on the subject of suffering of migrant labourers ofMorang and their families; besides, he wrote a number of treaties inSanskrit. Hislove-songs spread far and wide in no time and enchantedsaints,poets andyouth.Chaitanya Mahaprabhu saw the divine light of love behind these songs, and soon these songs became themes ofVaishnavism inBengal. As a young man,Rabindranath Tagore, driven by curiosity and a spirit of experimentation, composed a series of poems in imitation of these songs under the pseudonymBhanusimha. Vidyapati influenced the religious literature ofAssam,Bengal, andUtkala Kingdom. The blending of languages during the later period gave rise to artificial literary dialects likeBrajabuli in Bengal, andBrajavali in Assam.[38][39][40]
The earliest reference to Maithili or Tirhutiya is in Amaduzzi's preface to Beligatti'sAlphabetum Brammhanicum, published in 1771.[41] This contains a list of Indian languages among which is 'Tourutiana.' Colebrooke's essay on the Sanskrit and Prakrit languages, written in 1801, was the first to describe Maithili as a distinct dialect.[42]
Many devotional songs were written by Vaisnava saints, including in the mid-17th century, Vidyapati and Govindadas. Mapati Upadhyaya wrote a drama titledPārijātaharaṇa in Maithili. Professional troupes, mostly fromdalit classes known asKirtanias, the singers ofbhajan or devotional songs, started to perform this drama in public gatherings and the courts of the nobles.Lochana (c. 1575 – c. 1660) wroteRāgatarangni, a significant treatise on the science of music, describing the rāgas, tālas, and lyrics prevalent in Mithila.[43]
During theMalla dynasty's rule Maithili spread far and wide throughoutNepal from the 16th to the 17th century.[44][45] During this period, at least seventy Maithili dramas were produced. In the dramaHarishchandranrityam by Siddhinarayanadeva (1620–57), some characters speak pure colloquial Maithili, while others speakBengali language, Sanskrit orPrakrit.[46] One notable Malla King who patronised Maithili wasBhupatindra Malla who composed 26 plays in the Maithili language during his lifetime.[47]
After the demise of Maheshwar Singh, the ruler ofDarbhanga Raj, in 1860, the Raj was taken over by theBritish Raj as regent. The Darbhanga Raj returned to his successor, MaharajLakshmishvar Singh, in 1898. The Zamindari Raj had a lackadaisical approach toward Maithili. The use of Maithili language was revived through personal efforts of MM Parameshvar Mishra, Chanda Jha, Munshi Raghunandan Das and others.[48][49]
Publication ofMaithil Hita Sadhana (1905),Mithila Moda (1906), andMithila Mihir (1908) further encouraged writers. The first social organisation, Maithil Mahasabha,[50] was established in 1910 for the development of Mithila and Maithili. It blocked its membership for people outside of theMaithil Brahmin andKarna Kayastha castes. Maithil Mahasabha campaigned for the official recognition of Maithili as a regional language.Calcutta University recognised Maithili in 1917, and other universities followed suit.[51]
Babu Bhola Lal Das wroteMaithili Grammar (Maithili Vyakaran). He edited a bookGadya Kusumanjali and edited a journalMaithili.[52]In 1965, Maithili was officially accepted bySahitya Academy, an organisation dedicated to the promotion ofIndian literature.[53][54]
On 3 October 2024, the Union Government of India accorded additional five languages of India as theclassical status. These additional five languages were Assamese, Bengali, Marathi, Pali and Prakrit. But due to the lack of proposal from the Bihar government, the Maithili language missed out the status of classical language in India.[58] After the Union Cabinet’s approval of classical language recognition for the additional five languages in India, the campaign for classical language status for Maithili gained renewed momentum.[59] On 7 October 2024, JD(U) national working president cum Rajya Sabha MPSanjay Jha raised the demand for classical language status to Maithili, through his social media handle.[60]
All vowels havenasal counterparts, represented by "~" in IPA and ँ on the vowels, like आँ ãː .
All vowel sounds are realised as nasal when occurring before or after anasal consonant.[61]
Sounds eː and oː are often replaced by diphthongs əɪ̯ and əʊ̯.[citation needed]
ɔ is replaced by ə in northern dialects and by o in southernmost dialects.
There are three short vowels that were described by Grierson, but are not counted by modern grammarians. But they could be understood as syllable break: ॳ/ɘ̆/, इ/ɪ̆/, उ/ʊ̆/ . Or as syllable break ऺ in Devanagari and "." in IPA.
ꣾ is a Unicode letter in Devanagari, (IPA/əe̯/) which is not supported currently on several browsers and operating systems, along with its mātrā (vowel sign).
A peculiar type of phonetic change is recently taking place in Maithili by way ofepenthesis, i.e. backward transposition of final /i/ and /u/ in all sort of words.[62] Thus:
Fricative sounds[ʂ,ɕ] only occur marginally, and are typically pronounced as a dental fricative/s/ in most styles of pronunciation.[h] ः is always added after a vowel.
Apart from the retroflex series, all the rest four series show full phonological contrast in all positions. The retroflex tenius/ʈ/ and/ʈʰ/ show full contrast in all positions./ɖ/ and/ɖʱ/ show phonological contrast mainly word-initially.[63] Both are defective phonemes, occurring intervocalically and word finally only if preceded by a nasal consonant. Word finally and postvocalically,/ɖʱ/ surfaces as[ɽʱ~rʱ].[64] Non-initially, both are interchangeable with[ɽ~ɾ] and[ɽʱ~rʱ] respectively.[63]
/s/ and/ɦ/ are most common fricatives. They show full phonological opposition.[ɕ], which is present intatsama words, is replaced by/s/ most of the time, when independent, and prevocalic[ʂ] is replaced by/kʰ/,[x][63] or/s/.[ɕ] occurs before/tɕ/ and[ʂ] before/ʈ/.[x] and[f] occurs in Perso-Arabic loanwords, generally replaced by/kʰ/ and/pʰ/ respectively.[x] and[ɸ] also occurs in Sanskrit words (jihvamuliya and upadhmaniya), which is peculiar to Maithili.
/m/ and/n/ are present in all phonological positions./ŋ/ occurs only non-initially and is followed by a homorganic stop, which may be deleted if voiced, which leads to the independent presence of/ŋ/./ɳ/ occurs non-initially, followed by a homorganic stop, and is independent only in tatsama words, which is often replaced with/n/.[ɲ] occurs only non-initially and is followed by a homorganic stop always. It is the only nasal which does not occur independently.
In most styles of pronunciation, the retroflex flap[ɽ] occurs marginally. It is usually pronounced as an alveolar tap[ɾ] sound, and is often interchanged with/r/.[63]
Approximant sounds[ʋ,w,j] and fricative sounds[ɸ,f,z,ɕ,ʑ,ʂ,x], mainly occur in words that are borrowed from Sanskrit or in words of Perso-Arabic origin. The conjunct ष्प (IASTṣp) is pronounced[ɸp] in Maithili e.g. पुष्प[puɸp(ə)]. The conjunct ह्य (IASThy) is pronounced[ɦʑ] as in ग्रऻह्य (grahya)[graɦʑə].[63]
There are four non-syllabic vowels in Maithili-i̯, u̯, e̯, o̯ written in Devanagari as य़, व़, य़ॆ, व़ॊ. Most of the times, these are written without nukta.
Pronouns in Maithili are declined in similar way to nominals, though in most pronouns the genitive case has a different form. The lower forms below are accusative and postpositional. The plurals are formed periphrastically.
Beginning in the 14th century, the language was written in theTirhuta script (also known as Mithilakshara or Maithili), which is related to theBengali-Assamese script.[65] By the early 20th century, this script was largely associated with the Mithila Brahmans, with most others usingKaithi, andDevanagari spreading under the influence of the scholars atBanaras.[66] Throughout the course of the century, Devanagari grew in use eventually replacing the other two, and has since remained the dominant script for Maithili.[67][65][66] Tirhuta retained some specific uses (on signage in north Bihar as well as in religious texts, genealogical records and letters), and has seen a resurgence of interest in the 21st century.[65]
TheTirhuta andKaithi scripts are both currently included in Unicode.
अनुच्छेद १: सभ मानव जन्मतः स्वतन्त्र अछि तथा गरिमा आ अधिकारमे समान अछि। सभकेँ अपन–अपन बुद्धि आ विवेक छैक आओर सभकेँ एक दोसरक प्रति सौहार्दपूर्ण व्यवहार करबाक चाही।
Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They possess conscience and reason. Therefore, everyone should act in a spirit of brotherhood towards each other.
^Grierson and Hoernle used ◌॰ for pronounced schwa, and ◌• for the absent schwa in some of his works.
^Sometimes ◌' or even ◌ऽ is used for word final pronounced schwa, however not all of them are treated same, often only used to avoid confusion.
^abThe notationa can be used for non-final weak schwa, Maithili weakens the non-final schwa, instead of deleting it (pronounced as /ə̆/). Grierson also useda for the purpose, but sometimes used apostrophe (') also for the purpose.
^abFinal schwa is deleted in Maithili, though written in native scripts.
^abIn older texts, ◌꣱ or ः are used, not in current use though.
^Choudhary, P.K. (2013). "Causes and Effects of Super-stratum Language Influence, with Reference to Maithili".Journal of Indo-European Studies.41 (3/4):378–391.
^Majumdar, Ramesh Chandra; Pusalker, A. D.; Majumdar, A. K., eds. (1960).The History and Culture of the Indian People. Vol. VI: The Delhi Sultanate. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. p. 515.During the sixteenth century, a form of an artificial literary language became established ... It was theBrajabulī dialect ...Brajabulī is practically the Maithilī speech as current in Mithilā, modified in its forms to look like Bengali.
