PROFILBARU.COM

Korku
Korku
कोरकू
Region	Central India (Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra)
Ethnicity	Korku
Native speakers	730,000 (2011 census)
Language family	Austroasiatic Munda North Korku; ; ;
Writing system	Devanagari script (Balbodh style)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kfq
Glottolog	kork1243
ELP	Korku
	Korku is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Distribution of the Munda languages in India, with Korku the leftmost in central India

Korku (also known as Kurku, or Muwasi^[3]) is an Austroasiatic language spoken by the Korku people of central India, in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. It is isolated in the midst of the Gondi people, who are Dravidian, while its closest relatives are in eastern India. It is the westernmost Austroasiatic language.

Korkus are also closely associated with the Nihali people, many of whom have traditionally lived in special quarters of Korku villages.^[4] Korku is spoken by around 700,000 people, mainly in four districts of southern Madhya Pradesh (Khandwa, Harda, Betul, Narmadapuram) and three districts of northern Maharashtra (Rajura and Korpana tahsils of Chandrapur district, Manikgarh pahad area near Gadchandur in Chandrapur district) (Amravati, Buldana, Akola).

The name Korku comes from Koro-ku (-ku is the animate plural), Koro 'person, member of the Korku community' (Zide 2008).^[5]

Sociolinguistics

The Indian national census of 2011 reported 727,133 people claiming to speak Korku, which is an unscheduled language according to the Indian system.^[6] However, Korku is classified as “vulnerable” by UNESCO, the least concerning of the levels of language endangerment nonetheless.^[7] Most adult men are bilingual in Hindi, or multilingual in Hindi and the local Dravidian languages (Zide 2008: 156). Literacy in the language is low.^[1]

Throughout recent history, the use of the Korku language has been heavily influenced by larger hegemonic languages, especially Hindi. A few Korku-speaking groups have had relative success in increasing the viability of their dialect, specifically the Potharia Korku from the Vindhya Mountains.^[8]

Dialects

Zide (2008:256) lists two dialects for Korku, a Western and an Eastern one. The Western Dialect, which has a handful of subdialects is also called Korku. Among the Western varieties, the one spoken in Lahi is notable for its loss of the dual number.

Western (aka Korku) dialect: spoken in the districts of Melghat, Betul-Narmadapuram, and Narmadapuram.
Eastern (aka Muwasi/Mowasi/Mawasi, or Kurku): spoken in the Chhindwara district of southeastern Madhya Pradesh.

Glottolog lists four dialects for Korku:^[9]

Ruma (Korku)
Bondoy
Bouriya
Mawasi

Geographical Distribution

Korku is spoken in the following regions (Zide 2008:256):

South-central Madhya Pradesh
- East Nimar district (Khandwa district)
- Betul district
- Narmadapuram district
- Chhindwara district (Mawasi speakers)
Northeastern Maharashtra
- Amravati district (majority of speakers in Maharashtra)
- Buldana district
- Akola district

Phonology

Vowels

Korku has 10 phonemic vowels, which can occur short or long (e.g. /aː/), plus one mid vowel that only occurs as a short segment /ə/.^[10]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i iː		u uː
Mid	e eː	ə	o oː
Open		a aː

Consonants

Korku has a large consonant phoneme inventory,^[10] in which stops occur in several places of articulation. Like many languages of India, Korku stops distinguish between voiced, plain voiceless, and voiceless aspirated consonants.

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	voiceless	p	t	ʈ	c	k	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	ʈʰ	cʰ	kʰ
	voiced	b	d	ɖ	ɟ	ɡ
	breathy	bʱ	dʱ	ɖʱ	ɟʱ	ɡʱ
Fricative			s				h
Nasal		m	n		ɲ
Approximant			l	ɭ	j
Flap			ɾ	ɽ

Word-finally, all stops are unreleased.^[10]

Morphosyntax

Korku is a highly agglutinating, suffixing language. It has postpositions, a case system, a two-gender system, and three numbers. The verb phrase can be complex in Korku; functions that in English and other languages may be encoded in by the use of auxiliary verbs and of prepositions may be expressed in Korku through suffixation.

Word order

Korku, as all Munda languages, shows a strict Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) word order.^[11]


Subject	Object		Verb
iɲɟ	dukanaʈen	saːkaɾ	sasaːba
I	store-from	sugar	bring.will
“I will bring sugar from the store”

Adjectives are expressed verbally - as intransitive verbs - with the exception of a few cases in which a separate word occurs before the noun they are modifying.^[3]

	Numeral	Adjective	Noun
ɖiɟaʔ	apʰai	kenɖe	simku
her/his	three	black	chickens
“Her/His three black chickens”

Morphology

Nouns in Korku are assigned one of two grammatical genders: animate, and inanimate, and inflect for several different grammatical cases.

Grammatical number

Korku distinguishes three grammatical numbers: singular, dual (two of X), and plural (three or more of X) for nouns in the animate class. Nouns in the inanimate class are rarely marked for number. Final vowels are sometimes deleted before dual or plural endings (see the example at koɾo).^[10]^[2]


Singular	Dual	Plural
konɟe-Ø ‘daughter’	konɟe-kiɲ ‘two daughters’	konɟe-ku ‘daughters’
koɾo ‘man’	koɾkiɲ ‘two men’	koɾku ‘men’
siʈa ‘dog’	siʈakiɲ ‘two dogs’	siʈaku ‘dogs’

Case system

In Korku, the function of participants in a sentence (e.g. agent, patient, etc.) is expressed through grammatical case markings on nouns. Additionally, ideas that are expressed via prepositions in English (e.g. towards, from, with, etc.) are also expressed via case markings in Korku. The table below illustrates the different cases and the suffixes used to express them.^[10]^[3]

Case	Marker	Example^[3]	Function
Nominative	-Ø	ɖiɟ ‘s/he’ siʈa ‘the dog’ (subj.)	Subject
Accusative-Dative	-kʰe(ʔ)	ɖiɟkʰeʔ ‘her/him’ siʈakʰeʔ ‘the dog’ (obj.)	(In)Direct object
Genitive	-a(ʔ)	ɖiɟaʔ ‘her/his' ɟikɽaaʔ ‘of a porcupine’	Possession
Locative	-en	uɾagen ‘in the house’ Nagpuɾen ‘in Nagpur’	Spatio-temporal location
Comitative	-gon/-gella	konɟegon ‘with a daughter’	Company, togetherness
Instrumental	-ten	kolomten ‘by/in pen’	Means
Allative	-ʈae	Acalpurʈae ‘towards Achalpur'	Direction at/towards
Ablative	-(a)ten	uɾagaten ‘from the house’	Source, spatial origin

Additionally, Korku regularly marks direct object on the verb, as in other Munda languages.^[3] In the sentence below, the suffix /eɟ/ on the verb compound /senɖawkʰen/ indicates that it was someone else who was given permission to go.

Subject	Object	Verb
iɲɟ	ɖikʰeʔ	senɖawkʰen-eɟ
I	her/him	allowed.to.go-obj
“I allowed her/him to go”

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

Sources:^[12]^[10]

Personal pronouns in Korku show different number and gender patterns depending on the person. The first person (“I, we”) distinguishes not only the three numbers but also whether the hearer is included (“all of us”) or excluded (“us, but not you”) in the communicative context. The second person (“you, you all”) only encodes number, whereas the third person (“s/he, they”) distinguishes gender, and number for animate nouns.

		Singular	Dual	Plural
1st person	Inclusive	iɲɟ	alaŋɟ	abuɲ
1st person	Exclusive	iɲɟ	aliɲɟ	ale
2nd person		aːm	apinɟ	ape
3rd person	Animate	ɖic ~ in	ɖikinɟ	ɖiku
3rd person	Inanimate	ɖiː

Demonstratives

In Korku, demonstratives (e.g. “this, that, those”) encode not only distance (e.g. “here and there”) but also gender and number. Unlike English, which only distinguishes between a single proximal (this) and distal (that) spatial references, Korku demonstratives encode four levels of proximity to the speaker (i.e. ‘very close’ vs. ‘close’ vs. ‘far’ vs. ‘very far’), plus a fifth distinction, when one is pinpointing.^[10] The table below illustrates the forms used in Korku.


Gender	Number	Distance
		Proximal		Distal
		Very close	Close	Far	Very far	Pinpointing
Inanimate	Singular	ni	ini / noːɟe	ɖi	ha / hu / ho	huɟɟe
Animate	Singular	nic	inic	ɖic	huc / huɟ / huɟe	hoːɟe
	Dual	niɲɟ	inkiɲɟ / noːkiɲɟ	ɖikiɲɟ	huɟkiɲɟ	hoːkiɲɟ
	Plural	niku	inku / noːku	ɖiku	huɟku	hoːku

Lexicon

Numerals

The basic cardinal numbers from 1 to 10 (transcribed in IPA) are:

1	miɲaʔ
2	bari
3	apʰai
4	apʰun
5	monoe
6	tuɾui
7	ei
8	ilaɾ
9	aɾei
10	gel

Numbers after 11 are mainly of Indo-Aryan origin.^[13]

Kinship terms

As with many Austroasiatic languages, Korku has several words to refer to members of one's family, including the extended family and in-laws. There are often separate terms for people depending on their gender and seniority, for instance /bawan/ “wife's older brother” and /kosɾeʈ/ “elder brother's son”. In the tables below, words that include the suffix -/ʈe/ refer to someone else's family member, so that /kon/ means “my son”, whereas /konʈe/ is used when talking about someone else's son, for instance /ɖukriaʔ konʈe/ “the old woman's son”.^[10]

Immediate family^[10]
mother	anʈe / maːj
father	baːʈe / aba
daughter	konɟaj / konɟeʈe
son	kon / konʈe
younger sister	bokoɟe / bokoɟeʈe
older brother	ɖaj / ɖajʈe
younger brother	boko

Korku has words to refer to pairs or groups of people in the family.

Pairs or groups of family members
parents	anʈebaːʈe
children	baːlbacca
children and wife	konkuɟapaj
mother and son	ajomkokoɲa
father and son	baːkokoɲa
siblings	bombuku

In-laws (Wife's side)^[10]
wife	ɟapaj
wife's elder sister	ɟiɟikaɲkaɾ(ʈe)
wife's younger sister	bewanɟe(ʈe)
wife's sister's husband	saɽgi(ʈe)
wife's elder brother	baːw(ʈe)
wife's younger brother	bawan(ʈe)

Writing system

The Korku language uses the Balbodh style of the Devanagari script, which is also used to write the Marathi language.^[2]

References

^ ^a ^b Korku at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
^ ^a ^b ^c Sebeok, Thomas Albert, ed. (1971). Current Trends in Linguistics. Walter de Gruyter. p. 425. Archived from the original on 7 December 2014.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2015). Munda Languages. Taylor and Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-82886-0. OCLC 907525916.
^ Nihali at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
^ Cust, R. N. "Grammatical Note and Vocabulary of the Language of the Kor-ku, a Kolarian Tribe in Central India." The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. no. 2 (1884): 164 - 179. JSTOR 25196986
^ Sengupta, Papia. "Endangered Languages: Some Concerns." Economic And Political Weekly. no. 32 (2009): 17-19. JSTOR 25663414
^ "Korku". UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in danger. UNESCO. Retrieved 2018-03-18.
^ Fuchs, Stephen. "Thirty Korku Dancing Songs." Asian Folklore Studies. no. 1 (2000): 109-140. JSTOR 1179030
^ "Glottolog". Retrieved 2021-03-24.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j Nagaraja, K.S. (1999). Korku language : grammar, texts, and vocabulary. Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. ISBN 4872977459. OCLC 1035920730.
^ Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2007). The Munda verb : typological perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. p. 19. ISBN 978-3-11-092425-1. OCLC 607263871.
^ Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2017-03-29). Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics: Munda Languages. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.37. ISBN 978-0-19-938465-5. Retrieved 2021-03-23.
^ Paul., Sidwell (8 December 2014). The handbook of Austroasiatic languages. ISBN 978-90-04-28357-2. OCLC 1058188885.