Gujarati language

Infobox Language
name=Gujarati
nativename=ગુજરાતી गुजराती گُجراتی "Gujǎrātī"
pronunciation=/gudʒ.(ə)'ɾɑ̈t̪i/
region=India, Pakistan, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, U.S., UK, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Canada, Zambia, Zimbabwe
speakers=46.1 millionHarvnb|Gordon|2005]
rank=26
familycolor=Indo-European
fam2=Indo-Iranian
fam3=Indo-Aryan
fam4=Western Indo-Aryan
script=Gujarati script, Arabic (Ismaili community [http://www.ukindia.com/zguj1.htm] ), Devanagari (occasional, used in the past more often [http://www.ukindia.com/zguj1.htm] ; used also by Gujarati immigrants to Devanagari areas)
nation=Gujarat (India) [Harvnb|Dwyer|1995|p=5]
iso1=gu|iso2=guj|iso3=guj
notice=Indic

Gujarati (ગુજરાતી "Gujǎrātī") is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is native to the Indian state of Gujarat, and is its chief language, as well as of the adjacent union territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

There are about 46 million speakers of Gujarati worldwide, making it the 26th most spoken native language in the world. Along with Romany and Sindhi, it is among the most western of Indo-Aryan languages. Gujarati was the first language of Mohandas K. Gandhi, the "father of India", Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the "father of Pakistan," and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the "iron man of India."

History

Gujarati (also having been variously spelled as "Gujerati", "Gujarathi", "Guzratee", "Guujaratee", "Gujrathi", and "Gujerathi"Harvnb|Mistry|2001|pp=274] ) is a modern Indo-Aryan language evolved from Sanskrit. The traditional practice is to differentiate the IA languages on the basis of three historical stages:
# Old IA (Vedic and Classical Sanskrit)
# Middle IA (various Prakrits and Apabhramshas)
# New IA (modern languages such as Hindi, Punjabi, Bengali, etc.)Another view accords successive family, tree splits, in which Gujarati is assumed to have separated from other IA languages in four stagesHarvnb|Mistry|2003|p=115] :
# IA languages split into Northern, Eastern, and Western divisions based on the innovate characteristics such as stops becoming voiced in the Northern (Skt. "danta" "tooth" > Punj. "dānd") and dental and retroflex sibilants merging with the palatal in the Eastern (Skt. "sandhya" "evening" > Beng. "śājh"). [Harvnb|Mistry|1997|pp=654-655]
# Western, into Central and Southern.
# Central, in Gujarati/Rajasthani, Western Hindi, and Punjabi/Lahanda/Sindhi, on the basis of innovation of auxiliary verbs and postpositions in Gujarati/Rajasthani.
# Gujarati/Rajasthani into Gujarati and Rajasthani through development of such characteristics as auxiliary "ch"- and the possessive marker -"n"- during the 15th century. [Harvnb|Mistry|1997|p=655]

The principal changes from Sanskrit are the following:
*Phonological
**Loss of phonemic length for vowels
**Change of consonant clusters to geminate and then to single consonants (with compensatory vowel length)

Writing system

Similar to other Nāgarī writing systems, the Gujarati script is an abugida. It is used to write the Gujarati and Kutchi languages. It is a variant of Devanāgarī script differentiated by the loss of the characteristic horizontal line running above the letters and by a small number of modifications in the remaining characters.

Gujarati and closely related languages, including Kutchi, can be written in the Arabic or Persian scripts. This is traditionally done by many in Gujarat's Kutch district.

The Ismaili community in India and Pakistan write the language in Arabic script. Classical Gujarati was written in Devanagari. [http://www.ukindia.com/zguj1.htm]

Vocabulary

Categorization and Sources

These are the three general categories of words in modern Indo-Aryan: "tatsam", "tadbhav", and loanwords. [Snell, R. (2000) "Teach Yourself Beginner's Hindi Script." Hodder & Stoughton. pp. 83-86.]

Tadbhav

તદ્ભવ્ "tadbhav", "of the nature of that". Gujarati is a modern Indo-Aryan language descended from Sanskrit (old Indo-Aryan), and this category pertains exactly to that: words of Sanskritic origin that have demonstratively undergone change over the ages, ending up characteristic of modern Indo-Aryan languages specifically as well as in general. Thus the "that" in "of the nature of that" refers to Sanskrit. They tend to be non-technical, everday, crucial words; part of the spoken vernacular. Below is a table of a few Gujarati "tadbhav" words and their Old Indo-Aryan sources:

What remains are words of foreign origin ("videśī"), as well as words of local origin that cannot be pegged as belonging to any of the three prior categories ("deśaj"). The former consists mainly of Persian, Arabic, and English, with trace elements of Portuguese and Turkish. While the phenomenon of English loanwords is relatively new, Perso-Arabic has a longer history behind it. Both English and Perso-Arabic influences are quite nation-wide phenomena, in a way paralleling "tatsam" as a common vocabulary set or bank. What's more is how, beyond a transposition into general Indo-Aryan, the Perso-Arabic set has also been assimilated in a manner characteristic and relevant to the specific Indo-Aryan language it's being used in, bringing to mind "tadbhav".

Perso-Arabic

India was ruled for many a century by Persian-speaking Muslims. As a consequence Indian languages were changed greatly, with the large scale entry of Persian and its many Arabic loans into the Gujarati lexicon. One fundamental adoption was Persian's conjunction "that", "ke". Also, while "tatsam" or Sanskrit is etymologically continuous to Gujarati, it is essentially of a differing grammar (or language), and that in comparison while Perso-Arabic is etymologically foreign, it has been in certain instances and to varying degrees grammatically indigenized. Owing to centuries of situation and the end of Persian education and power, (1) Perso-Arabic loans are quite unlikely to be thought of or known as loans, and (2) more importantly, these loans have often been Gujarati-ized. "dāvo" - claim, "fāydo" - benefit, "natījo" - result, and "humlo" - attack, all carry Gujarati's masculine gender marker, "o". "khānũ" - compartment, has the neuter "ũ". Aside from easy slotting with the auxiliary "karvũ", a few words have made a complete transition of verbification: "kabūlvũ" - to admit (fault), "kharīdvũ" - to buy, "kharǎcvũ" - to spend (money), "gujarvũ" - to pass. The last three are definite part and parcel.

Below is a table displaying a number of these loans. Currently some of the etymologies are being referenced to an Urdu dictionary, so it should be noted that Gujarati's singular masculine "o" corresponds to Urdu "ā", neuter "ũ" groups into "ā" as Urdu has no neuter gender, and Urdu's Persian "z" is not upheld in Gujarati and corresponds to "j" or "jh". In contrast to modern Persian, the pronunciation of these loans into Gujarati and other Indo-Aryan languages, as well as that of Indian-recited Persian, seems to be in line with Persian spoken in Afghanistan and Central Asia, perhaps 500 years agoHarvnb|Masica|1991|p=75] .

* ¹ These English forms are often used (prominently by NRIs) for those family friends and elders that aren't actually uncles and aunts but are of the age.

Portuguese

The smaller foothold the Portuguese had in wider India had linguistic effects. Gujarati took up a number of words, while elsewhere the influence was great enough to the extent that creole languages came to be ("see Portuguese India, Portuguese-based creole languages#India and Sri Lanka"). Comparatively, the impact of Portuguese has been greater on coastal languages [Harvnb|Masica|1991|p=49] and their loans tend to be closer to the Portuguese originals [Harvnb|Masica|1991|p=73] . The source dialect of these loans imparts an earlier pronunciation of "ch" as an affricate instead of the current standard of [ʃ] .

:

:

:

See also

* Languages of India
* List of national languages of India
* List of Indian languages by total speakers

References

Bibliography

Dictionaries

*Belsare, M.B. (1904) "An etymological Gujarati-English Dictionary."
*Deshpande, P.G. (1974) "Gujarati-English Dictionary." Ahmadabad: University Granth Nirman Board.
*Deshpande, P.G. (1982) "Modern English-Gujarati Dictionary." Bombay: Oxford University Press.
*Deshpande, P.G. & Parnwell, E.C. (1977) "Oxford Picture Dictionary. English-Gujarati." Oxford University Press.
*Deshpande, P.G. (1988) "Universal English-Gujarati Dictionary." Bombay: Oxford University Press.
*Mehta, B.N. & Mehta, B.B. (1925) "The Modern Gujarati-English Dictionary."
*Harvard reference
last= Platts
first= J.T.
year= 1884
title= A dictionary of Urdu, classical Hindi, and English
place= London
publisher= W. H. Allen & Co
url= http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/platts/.
*Suthar, B. (2003) [http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/plc/gujarati/guj-engdictionary.pdf "Gujarati-English Learner's Dictionary" (1 Mb)]
*Harvard reference
last= Turner
first= Ralph Lilley
authorlink= Ralph Lilley Turner
year= 1966
title= A Comparative Dictionary of the Indo-Aryan Languages
place= London
publisher= Oxford University Press
url= http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/soas/.

Grammars

*Harvard reference
last= Cardona
first= George
authorlink= George Cardona
year= 1965
title= A Gujarati Reference Grammar
publisher= University of Pennsylvania Press.
*Harvard reference
last= Taylor
first= G.P.
year= 1908
title= The Student's Gujarati Grammar
place= New Delhi
publisher= Asian Educational Services.
*Harvard reference
last= Tisdall
first= W.S.
year= 1892
title= A Simplified Grammar of the Gujarati Language
url= http://www.archive.org/details/simplifiedgramma00tisdiala.

Courses

*Harvard reference
last= Dave
first= Jagdish
year= 1995
title= Colloquial Gujarati
publisher= Routledge
edition= 2004
isbn= 0415091969.
*Harvard reference
last= Dwyer
first= Rachel
year= 1995
title= Teach Yourself Gujarati
place= London
publisher= Hodder and Stoughton
url= http://www.racheldwyer.com/publications.html.
*Harvard reference
last= Lambert
first= H.M.
year= 1971
title= Gujarati Language Course
publisher= Cambridge University Press.

Phonology

* Harvard reference
last= Dave
first= T.N.
title= Notes on Gujarati Phonology
journal= Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies
volume= 6
issue= 3
year= 1931
pages= 673-678
url= http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1356-1898%281931%296%3A3%3C673%3ANOGP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W .
*Harvard reference
last= Firth
first= J.R.
title= Phonetic Observations on Gujarati
journal= Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
volume= 20
issue= 1
year= 1957
pages= 231-241
url= http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0041-977X%281957%2920%3A1%2F3%3C231%3APOOG%3E2.0.CO%3B2-P .
*Harvard reference
last= Mistry
first= P.J.
year= 1997
chapter= Gujarati Phonology
editor-last= Kaye
editor-first= A.S
title= Phonologies of Asia and Africa
place= Winona Lake
publisher= Eisenbrauns.
*Harvard reference
last= Pandit
first= P.B.
title= Historical Phonology of Gujarati Vowels
journal= Language
volume= 37
issue= 1
year= 1961
pages= 54-66
url= http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0097-8507%28196101%2F03%2937%3A1%3C54%3AHPOGV%3E2.0.CO%3B2-R .
*Harvard reference
last= Turner
first= Ralph Lilley
title= Gujarati Phonology
journal= Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
year= 1921
pages= 505-544 .
*Harvard reference
last= Turner
first= Ralph Lilley
title= Indo-Aryan Nasals in Gujarati
journal= Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
year= 1915
pages= 1033-1038 .

Overviews

*Harvard reference
last1= Cardona
first1= George
year= 2003
authorlink1= George Cardona
last2= Suthar
first2= Babu
authorlink2= Babu Suthar
chapter= Gujarati
url= http://books.google.com/books?id=jPR2OlbTbdkC&pg=PA659&dq=indo-aryan+languages&sig=69z4DJxBuD4SPTTINIbzK_YW6ac
editor1-last= Cardona
editor1-first= George
editor2-last= Jain
editor2-first= Dhanesh
title= The Indo-Aryan Languages
publisher= Routledge
isbn= 9780415772945.
*Harvard reference
last= Dalby
first= Andrew
authorlink= Andrew Dalby
year= 1998
chapter= Gujarati
title= Dictionary of languages: the definitive reference to more than 400 languages
place= New York
publisher= Columbia University Press
isbn= 0231115687.
*Harvard reference
last= Mistry
first= P.J.
year= 2003
chapter= Gujarati
editor-last= Frawley
editor-first= William
title= International Encyclopedia of Linguistics
edition= 2nd
place= Oxford
publisher= Oxford University Press
volume= 2.
*Harvard reference
last= Mistry
first= P.J.
year= 2001
chapter= Gujarati
editor1-last= Garry
editor1-first= Jane
editor2-last= Rubino
editor2-first= Carl
title= An encyclopedia of the world's major languages, past and present
publisher= New England Publishing Associates.

Old Gujarati

*Bender, E. (1992) "The Salibhadra-Dhanna-Carita: A Work in Old Gujarati Critically Edited and Translated, with a Grammatical Analysis and Glossary". American Oriental Society: New Haven, Conn. ISBN 0-940490-73-0
* Harvard reference
last= Brown
first= W.N.
title= An Old Gujarati Text of the Kalaka Story
journal= Journal of the American Oriental Society
volume= 58
issue= 1
year= 1938
pages= 5-29
url= http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-0279%28193803%2958%3A1%3C5%3AAOGTOT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6 .
*Dave, T.N. (1935) "A Study of the Gujarati Language in the XVth Century". The Royal Asiatic Society. ISBN 0947593306
*Tessitori, L.P. (1914-1916) "Notes on the Grammar of Old Western Rajasthani." "Indian Antiquary". 43-45.

Other

*Harvard reference
last= Gajendragadkar
first= S.N.
year= 1972
title= Parsi Gujarati
place= Bombay
publisher= University of Bombay.
*Harvard reference
last= Gordon
first= Raymond G., Jr. (ed.)
year= 2005
chapter= [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=guj Gujarati]
title= Ethnologue: Languages of the World
place= Dallas
publisher= SIL International
edition= 15th.
*Harvard reference
last= Masica
first= Colin
authorlink= Colin Masica
year= 1991
title= The Indo-Aryan Languages
place= Cambridge
publisher= Cambridge University Press
isbn= 9780521299442
url= http://books.google.com/books?id=J3RSHWePhXwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=indo-aryan+languages.
*Harvard reference
last= Mistry
first= P.J.
year= 1996
chapter= Gujarati Writing
editor1-last= Daniels
editor2-last= Bright
title= The World's Writing Systems
publisher= Oxford University Press.

External links

Linguistic resources

* [http://lmp.ucla.edu/Profile.aspx?menu=004&LangID=85 UCLA Language Materials Project: Gujarati]
* [http://www.gujaratilexicon.com/ Ratilal Chandaria's Online Language Resources]
* [http://gu.wiktionary.org Gujarati Wiktionary]
* [http://www.readgujarati.com Website for reading Gujarati Literature Online]
* [http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Gujarati-english/ Gujarati English Dictionary]
* [http://service.vishalon.net/pramukhtypepad.htm Online Gujarati Type Pad]
* [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/gujarati.htm Gujarati script and alphabets]

Other

* [http://wahgujarat.com Gujarati Language and Literature]
* [http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/plc/gujarati/ Gujarati Language and Literature]
* [http://www.iranica.com/articles/v11f4/v11f4020.html A brief history of the Gujarati language]
* [http://www.mahek.co.uk/gwg Gujarati Writers Guild UK]
* [http://www.radio.sbs.com.au/language.php?language=Gujarati SBS Gujarati Radio (Australia)]
* [http://gujaratikavita.wordpress.com Gujarati Kavita and Gazals]
* [http://www.loc.gov/acq/ovop/delhi/salrp/gujarati.html The South Asian Literary Recordings Project, The Library of Congress. Gujarati Authors.]