| Gondi | |
|---|---|
| गोण्डि,గోణ్డి,ଗୋଣ୍ଡି,𑵶𑶓𑶕𑶂𑶋,𑴎𑴽𑵀𑴘𑴳, | |
    | |
| Native to | India |
| Region | Gondwana |
| Ethnicity | Gondi |
Native speakers | 2.98 million (2011 census)[1] |
Dravidian
| |
| Telugu script,Devanagari,Odia script,Gunjala script,Masaram script (SeeGondi scripts) | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | gon |
| ISO 639-3 | gon – inclusive codeIndividual codes: gno – Northern Gondiesg – Aheri Gondiwsg – Adilabad Gondi |
| Glottolog | nort3258 |
 Areas where Gondi is spoken. Koya not included. | |
 Gondi is classified as Vulnerable by theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger. | |
| Person | Gōṇḍ |
|---|---|
| People | Gōṇḍir |
| Language | Gōṇḍī, Kōī, Kōītōr |
| Country | Gōṇḍvana |
Gondi (Gōṇḍī,IPA:[ɡoːɳɖiː]), natively known asKoitur (Kōī, Kōītōr,IPA:[koː.iː,koː.iː.t̪oːr]), is aSouth-Central Dravidian language, spoken by about three millionGondi people,[2] chiefly in theIndianstates ofMadhya Pradesh,Maharashtra,Chhattisgarh,Andhra Pradesh,Telangana and by small minorities in neighbouring states. Although it is the language of the Gond people, it is highly endangered, with only one fifth of Gonds speaking the language. Gondi has a rich folk literature, examples of which are wedding songs and narrations.Gondi people are ethnically related to theTelugus. Gondi is the largest minor Dravidian language by number of speakers.
Although almost 13 million people returned themselves as Gonds on the2011 census, however only 2.98 million recorded themselves as speakers of Gondi. In the present-day, large communities of Gondi speakers can be found in southeastern Madhya Pradesh (Betul,Chhindwara,Seoni,Balaghat,Mandla,Dindori, andJabalpur districts), eastern Maharashtra (Amravati,Nagpur,Yavatmal,Chandrapur,Gadchiroli andGondia districts), northern Telangana (Adilabad,Komaram Bheem, andBhadradi Kothagudem districts), theBastar division of Chhattisgarh andNabarangpur district ofOdisha.[1]
This is the result of a language shift from Gondi to regional languages in the majority of the Gondi population, especially those in the northern portion of their range. By the 1920s, half of Gonds had stopped speaking the language entirely.[3] The language is under severe stress from dominant languages such asHindi,Chhattisgarhi,Marathi andOdia due to their use in education and employment. In order to improve their situation, Gond households adopt the more prestigious dominant language and their children become monolingual in that language. Already in the 1970s, Gondi youth in places with increased contact with wider society had stopped speaking the language, seeing it as a relic of old times.[4] The constant contact between speakers of Gondi and Indo-Aryan languages has resulted in massive Indo-Aryan borrowing in Gondi, found in vocabulary, grammar and syntax. In one survey inAnuppur district for instance, it was found the dialect of Gondi spoken there, known asdehati bhasha ('rural language'), was actually a mixture of Hindi and Chhattisgarhi rather than Gondi. However, the survey also found younger Gonds had a positive attitude towards speaking Gondi and saving the language from extinction.[5] Another survey from areas throughout the Gond region found younger Gonds felt developing their mother tongue was less important, but there were still large numbers willing to help in its development. Some attempts at revitalization have included children's books and online videos.[6]
The origin of the name Gond, used by outsiders, is still uncertain. Some believe the word to derive from the Dravidiankond, meaning hill, similar to theKhonds of Odisha.[7]
Another theory, according to Vol. 3 of theWorldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life, is that the name was given to them by theMughal dynasty of the 16th–18th centuries. It was the Mughals who first used the term "Gond", meaning "hill people", to refer to the group.[8]
The Gonds call themselves Koitur (Kōītōr) or Koi (Kōī), which also has no definitive origin.[citation needed]
Glottolog classifies the Gondoid languages as follows:[9]
| Gondoid | |
Gondi has a two-gender system,substantives being either masculine or nonmasculine.[citation needed] Gondi has developed aspirated stops, distancing itself from its ancestorProto-Dravidian.[citation needed]
| Labial | Dental/ Alveolar | Retroflex | Post-alv./ Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | (ɳ) | (ɲ) | ŋ | ||
| Stop/ Affricate | voiceless | p | t | ʈ | tʃ | k | |
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | ʈʰ | tʃʰ | kʰ | ||
| voiced | b | d | ɖ | dʒ | ɡ | ||
| breathy | bʱ | dʱ | ɖʱ | dʒʱ | ɡʱ | ||
| Fricative | v | s | (ʂ) | h | |||
| Approx. | central | (w) | j | ||||
| lateral | l | ||||||
| Tap | ɾ | ɽ | |||||
| Front | Central | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | short | long | short | long | |
| High | i | iː | u | uː | ||
| Mid | e | eː | o | oː | ||
| Low | a | aː | ||||
Gondi has derivative suffixes to denote gender for certain special words:-a:l and-o:r for masculine, and-a:r for feminine. Plural suffixes are also divided into masculine and feminine,-r is used for most masculine nouns,-ir ends masculine nouns ending in-e, and-ur ends nouns ending in-o or-or. For instance:[10]
kānḍī - boykānḍīr - boys
kallē - thiefkallīr - thieves
tottōr - ancestortottūr - ancestors
are all masculine.
For non-masculine nouns, there are more suffixes:-n,-ik,-k, and a null suffix-ɸ
Before case markers are added, all nouns have an oblique marker. The oblique markers are-d-,-t-,-n-,-ṭ-, and -ɸ.
For instance:
kay-d-e: "in the hand"
Gondi has several case markers.[10]
Genitive case markers are-na,-va,-a.
The given sample text is Article 1 from the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[12]
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.
सब् माने कुन् गौरव् अरु अधिकार् ना मांला ते जनंजात् सुतन्तर्ता अरु बराबर् ता हक् पुट्ताल। अवेन् भायि लेह्का माने मासि बेव्हार् कियाना आन्द।
Sab māne kun gaurav aru adhikār nā māmlā tē janamjāt sutantartā aru barābar tā hak puṭtāla. Aven bhāyi lehkā māne māsi bevhār kiyānā ānda.
Most of the Gondi dialects are still inadequately recorded and described. The more important dialects are Dorla,Koya,Madiya,Muria, and Raj Gond. Some basicphonologic features separate the northwestern dialects from the southeastern. One is the treatment of the original initials, which is preserved in northern and western Gondi, while farther to the south and east it has been changed toh; in some other dialects it has been lost completely. Other dialectal variations in the Gondi language are the alteration of initialr with initiall and a change ofe ando toa.
In 2015, the ISO 639 code for the "Southern Gondi language", "ggo", was deprecated and split into two codes, Aheri Gondi (esg) and Adilabad Gondi (wsg).[13][14]
Gondi writing can be split into two categories: that using its own writing systems and that using writing systems also used for other languages.
For lack of a widespread native script, Gondi is often written inDevanagari andTelugu scripts.
In 1928, Munshi Mangal Singh Masaram designed a native script based on Brahmi characters and in the same format of an Indian alphasyllabary. This script did not become widely used,[citation needed] although it is being encoded inUnicode.[15] Most Gonds remain illiterate.[citation needed]
A native script that dates up to 1750 has been discovered by a group of researchers from the University of Hyderabad. It's usually namedGunjala Gondi Lipi, after the place where it was found. According to Maharashtra Oriental Manuscripts Library and Research Centre of India, a dozenmanuscripts were found in this script. Programs to create awareness and promotion of this script among theGondi people are in development stage. The Gunjala Gondi Lipi has witnessed a surge in prominence, and well-supported efforts are being undertaken in villages of northernAndhra Pradesh to widen its usage.[citation needed]
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