Dhatki (धाटकी; ڍاٽڪي), also known as Dhatti (धाटी; ڍاٽي) or Thari (थारी; ٿَري), is one of the

Rajasthani languages Rajasthani (Devanagari: ) refers to a group of Indo-Aryan languages and dialects spoken primarily in the state of Rajasthan and adjacent areas of Haryana, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh in India. There are also speakers in the Pakistani provinces ...

of the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. Dhatki is closely related to Sindhi and Marwari both.

Speakers

Dhatki/Dhati has two major dialects Jaisalmeri and the other one spoken in tharparker, Jaisalmeri is spoken in western parts of

Jaisalmer Jaisalmer , nicknamed "The Golden city", is a city in the Indian state of Rajasthan, located west of the state capital Jaipur. The town stands on a ridge of yellowish sandstone and is crowned by the ancient Jaisalmer Fort. This fort contains a ...

and Barmer districts & Southern part of Jalore district of

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern s ...

, India and other in eastern parts of Sindh,

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

. Some Dhatki-speaking communities migrated to

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

in 1947 after the independence and continued to do so in small numbers after that date, but the great majority of Dhatki speakers still reside in

. Dhatki/Dhati is spoken by these communities: * The Tharis * Kunbhar * Thari Maheshwaris *

Rajputs Rajput (from Sanskrit ''raja-putra'' 'son of a king') is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Ra ...

* Rajpurohit * Charan * Sodha *

Khatri Khatri is a caste of the Indian subcontinent that is predominantly found in India, but also in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In the subcontinent, they were mostly engaged in mercantilistic professions such as banking and trade, they were the d ...

* Malhi * Suthar * Bajeer * Sonara * Meghwal * Behil * Harijan * Garasiya The majority speakers of Dhatki language live in Umerkot District and

Tharparkar District Tharparkar (Dhatki/ sd, ٿرپارڪر, ur, ), also known as Thar, is a district in Sindh province in Pakistan headquartered at Mithi. Before Indian independence it was known as the Thar and Parkar district. The district is the largest in Sin ...

in Sindh,

. 60% of the language's speakers are Muslims, 35% are Hindu and the remaining 5% practice traditional folk religions.

Phonology

Dhatki has

implosive Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants (and possibly also some affricates) with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism.''Phonetics for communication disorders.'' Martin J. Ball and Nicole Müller. Ro ...

consonants, unlike other closely related Rajasthani languages but like the neighbouring (but more distantly related)

Sindhi language Sindhi ( ; , ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by about 30 million people in the Pakistani province of Sindh, where it has official status. It is also spoken by a further 1.7 million people in India, where it is a scheduled language, withou ...

. It is likely that these consonants developed in the language from contact with more culturally dominant Sindhi speakers. Aside from this, its phonology is much like other Indo-Aryan languages: ;Notes # Marginal and non-universal phonemes are in parentheses. is lateral for some speakers (Masica 1991:98). # is post-velar. Dhakti has a fairly standard set of vowels for an Indo-Aryan language: � aː ɪ iː ʊ (sometimes: u) uː eː oː ɛː ɔː The vowel ''ʊ'' may be realized as a short ''u'' and the vowel ''ɪ'' may be realized as a short ''i''. The vowel ''ɛː'' is often realized as the diphthong ''əiː'' based and context or as an ''æː'' based on the speaker's accent. The vowel ''ɔː'' is often realized as the diphthong ''əuː'' based and context. Nazalized vowels occur word finally in Dhakti, they are: �ː ẽː ɛ̃ː ɑ̃ː ɔ̃ː õː ũː

Samples

A few of the typical sentences in Dhatki are: * "What are you doing?", "I am reading this Page.", * "What is your name?", * "I have to eat" ''(Literally translates to "I have to eat

roti Roti (also known as chapati) is a round flatbread native to the Indian subcontinent. It is popular in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica, Trini ...

)''. * "where are you going? "Nowhere.", * "How are you?". "I am Fine", -"who are you?"

Writing System

The language uses two major writing systems. In India, the

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ...

script (which is also used for Marwari,

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

and many other north Indian languages) is employed; whereas is in Pakistan, the Sindhi script is used. Some mercantile families, particularly on the Indian side of the border use their own scripts, usually variations of the Mahajani script.

References

{{Languages of Pakistan Languages of Rajasthan Languages of Sindh