This article is about a language isolate spoken in central India, known as Nihali or Nahali. For the unrelated Indo-Aryan language also called Nahali, see Kalto language.
Nihali-speaking area spanning the border between Maharashtra to the south and Madhya Pradesh to the north
Nihali, also known as Nahali or erroneously as Kalto, is an endangeredlanguage isolate that is spoken in west-central India (in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra), with approximately 2,000 people in 1991 out of an ethnic population of 5,000.[2] The Nihali tribal area is just south of the Tapti River, around the village of Tembi in Burhanpur district of Madhya Pradesh.[3] Speakers of the Nihali language are also present in several villages of the Buldhana district in Maharashtra such as Jamod, Sonbardi, Kuvardev, Chalthana, Ambavara, Wasali, and Cicari. There are dialectal differences between the Kuvardev-Chalthana and the Jamod-Sonbardi varieties.[4]
The language has a very large number of words adopted from neighboring languages, with 60–70% apparently taken from Korku (25% of vocabulary and much of its morphology), from Dravidian languages, and from Marathi, but much of its core vocabulary cannot be related to them or other languages, such as the numerals and words for "blood" and "egg". Scholars state that less than 25% of the language's original vocabulary is used today.[4] There are no longer any surviving monolingual speakers of the language. Those well-versed in modern Nihali are likely to speak varieties of Marathi, Hindi or Korku as well.[5]
For centuries, most Nihali have often worked as agricultural labourers, for speakers of languages other than their own. In particular, Nihali labourers have often worked for members of the Korku people, and are often bilingual in the Korku language. Because of this history, Nihali is sometimes used by its speakers only to prevent native Korku speakers and other outsiders from understanding them.[6]
Linguistic situation
Franciscus Kuiper was the first to suggest that Nihali may be unrelated to any other Indian language, with the non-Korku, non-Dravidian core vocabulary being the remnant of an earlier population in India. However, he did not rule out that it may be a Munda language, like Korku. Kuiper suggested that Nihali may differ from neighbouring languages, such as Korku, mostly in its function as an argot, such as a thieves' cant.[3] Kuiper's assertions stem, in part, from the fact that many oppressed groups within India have used secret languages to prevent outsiders from understanding them.[7]
Linguist Norman Zide describes the recent history of the language as follows:
"Nihali's borrowings are far more massive than in such textbook examples of heavy outside acquisition as Albanian." In this respect, says Zide, modern Nihali seems comparable to hybridised dialects of Romani spoken in Western Europe. Zide claims that this is a result of a historical process that began with a massacre of Nihalis in the early 19th century, organised by one of the rulers of the area, supposedly in response to "marauding". Zide alleges that, afterwards, the Nihalis "decimated in size", have "functioned largely as raiders and thieves ... who [have] disposed of ... stolen goods" through "outside associates". Zide adds that Nihali society has "long been multilingual, and uses Nihali as a more or less secret language which is not ordinarily revealed to outsiders" and that early researchers "attempting to learn the language were, apparently, deliberately rebuffed or misled".[8]
Some Korku-speakers refuse to acknowledge the Nihali as a distinct community, and describe the emergence of the Nihalis as resulting from a disruption of Korku civil society.[7]
The Nihali live similarly to the Kalto. That and the fact that Kalto has often been called Nahali led to confusion of the two languages.
There are 33 consonants. Unaspirated stops are more frequent than aspirated stops.[4]
Lexicon
Below are some Nihali basic vocabulary words without clear external parallels (in Korku, Hindi, Marathi, Dravidian, etc.) listed in the appendix of Nagaraja (2014).
Body parts
head
pe(ː)ñ
hair (head)
kuguso
eye
jikit
ear
cigam
nose
coːn
tooth
menge
mouth
kaggo
hand
bakko
shoulder
ṭ/tagli
belly
bhaːwri
intestines
koṭor
navel
bumli
liver
gadri
blood
corṭo
bone
paːkṭo
skin
ṭoːl (< Dravidian)
Animals and plants
bird
poe; pyu
egg
kalen
snake
koːgo
fish
caːn
louse
keːpe
mosquito
kaːn
fly (insect)
eḍ(u)go
tree
aːḍḍo
Natural phenomena
water
joppo
rain
maːnḍo
stone
caːgo, caːrgo
salt
coːpo (< Dravidian)
Material culture, kinship
road, path
ḍãːy, ḍa(ː)y
house
aːwaːr
name
jumu, jyumu
Verbs
(In Nihali, many verbs are suffixed with -be.)
eat
ṭ/tyeː-
drink
ḍelen-
bite
haru-
blow
bigi-, bhigi-
die
betto-, beṭṭo-
kill
paḍa-
laugh
haːgo-
cry, weep
aːpa-
go
eːr-, eṛe
come
paːṭo, pya
give
beː-
see
ara-
hear
cakni
Pronouns and demonstratives
The personal pronouns in Nihali are (Nagaraja 2014: 34):
singular
dual
plural
1st person
jo
tye:ko
ingi
2nd person
ne
na:ko
la
3rd person
eṭey
hiṭkel
eṭla < eṭey + la
Nagaraja (2014: 139) notes that Nihali has a different demonstrative paradigm than that of Korku.
Nihali
Korku
'what'
nan
co:(ch)
'who'
nani
je
'why'
naway, nawa:san
co:- ~ co:ch
‘when’
meran ~ miran
co:-la
‘where’
mingay
ṭone ~ ṭongan 'at where'
‘how much’
m(i)yan
co-ṭo
‘how’
naw-ki
co-phar
‘whose’
nan-in
je-konṭe ‘whose child’
‘which (book)’
nu-san
(pustak) ṭone-bukko ‘which (book)’
Morphosyntax
Nihali morphosyntax is much simpler than that of Korku and other Munda languages, and is unrelated to that of Munda languages (Nagaraja 2014: 144). Word order is SOV.
^ abFranciscus Bernardus Jacobus Kuiper, "Nahali: a comparative study", Mededeelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandsche Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde (5, Pt 25), N.V. Noord-Hollandsche Uitg. Mij., 1962
^ abcNagaraja, K.S. (2014). The Nihali Language. Manasagangotri, Mysore-570 006, India: Central Institute of Indian Languages. p. 7. ISBN978-81-7343-144-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
^Nagaraja, K.S. (2014). The Nihali Language. Central Institute of Indian Languages. p. 3. ISBN978-81-7343-144-9.
^Nagaraja, K.S (2014). The Nihali Language. Manasagangotri, Mysore-570 006: Central Institute of Indian Languages. p. 250. ISBN978-81-7343-144-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
^ abAnderson, Gregory (2008). The Munda Languages. New York, New York: Routledge. p. 772. ISBN978-0-415-32890-6.
^Norman Zide, "Munda and non-Munda Austroasiatic languages". In Current Trends in Linguistics 5: Linguistics in South Asia, p 438
Bibliography
Nagaraja, K. S. (2014). The Nihali Language (Grammar, Texts and Vocabulary). Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages. ISBN9788173431449.