Marwari (मारवाड़ी, IAST: Mārwāṛī; also rendered as ''Marwadi'' or ''Marvadi'') is a

Rajasthani language 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 ...

spoken in the Indian state 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 ...

. Marwari is also found in the neighbouring states of

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

and

Haryana Haryana (; ) is an Indian state located in the northern part of the country. It was carved out of the former state of East Punjab on 1 Nov 1966 on a linguistic basis. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with less than 1.4% () of India's land ...

, some adjacent areas in Eastern parts of

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

, and some migrant communities in

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is ma ...

. With some 7.8 million or so speakers (ce. 2011), it is one of the largest varieties of Rajasthani. Most speakers live in Rajasthan, with a quarter-million in

Sindh Sindh (; ; ur, , ; historically romanized as Sind) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the southeastern region of the country, Sindh is the third-largest province of Pakistan by land area and the second-largest province ...

and a tenth of that number in Nepal. There are two dozen dialects of Marwari. Marwari is popularly written in

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, as are many languages of India and Nepal, including

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 ...

, Marathi,

Nepali Nepali or Nepalese may refer to : Concerning Nepal * Anything of, from, or related to Nepal * Nepali people, citizens of Nepal * Nepali language, an Indo-Aryan language found in Nepal, the current official national language and a language spoken ...

, and

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

; although it was historically written in

Mahajani Mahajani is a Laṇḍā scripts, Laṇḍā mercantile script that was historically used in northern India for writing accounts and financial records in Marwari language, Marwari, Hindi and Punjabi language, Punjabi. It is a Brahmic script and ...

, it is still written in the

Perso-Arabic script The Persian alphabet ( fa, الفبای فارسی, Alefbâye Fârsi) is a writing system that is a version of the Arabic script used for the Persian language spoken in Iran ( Western Persian) and Afghanistan ( Dari Persian) since the 7th ce ...

by the Marwari minority in Eastern parts of Pakistan (the standard/western Naskh script variant is used in

Sindh Province Sindh (; ; ur, , ; historically romanized as Sind) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the southeastern region of the country, Sindh is the third-largest province of Pakistan by land area and the second-largest province ...

, and the eastern Nastalik variant is used in Punjab Province), where it has educational status but where it is rapidly shifting to

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Marwari has no official status in India and is not used as a language of education. Marwari is still spoken widely in

Jodhpur Jodhpur (; ) is the second-largest city in the Indian state of Rajasthan and officially the second metropolitan city of the state. It was formerly the seat of the princely state of Jodhpur State. Jodhpur was historically the capital of the ...

Pali Pali () is a Middle Indo-Aryan liturgical language native to the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pāli Canon'' or '' Tipiṭaka'' as well as the sacred language of '' Theravāda'' Buddh ...

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 ...

, Barmer,

Nagaur Nagaur is a city and municipal council in Nagaur district of the state of Rajasthan in India. It is the administrative headquarters of Nagaur District. The Nagaur city lies about midway between Jodhpur and Bikaner. Nagaur is famous for spices ...

Bikaner Bikaner () is a city in the northwest of the state of Rajasthan, India. It is located northwest of the state capital, Jaipur. Bikaner city is the administrative headquarters of Bikaner District and Bikaner division. Formerly the capital o ...

History

It is believed that Marwari and

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...

evolved from ''Gujjar Bhakha'' or ''Maru-Gurjar''. Formal grammar of Gurjar Apabhraṃśa was written by

Jain Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle being ...

monk and

scholar Hemachandra Suri.

Geographical distribution

Marwari is primarily spoken in the Indian state of Rajasthan. Marwari speakers have dispersed widely throughout India and other countries but are found most notably in the neighbouring state of Gujarat and in Eastern Pakistan. Speakers are also found in

Bhopal Bhopal (; ) is the capital city of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and the administrative headquarters of both Bhopal district and Bhopal division. It is known as the ''City of Lakes'' due to its various natural and artificial lakes. It i ...

. With around 7.9 million speakers in India according to the 2001 census. There are several dialects: Thaḷī (spoken in eastern

Jaisalmer district Jaisalmer is the largest district in the Indian state of Rajasthan, and the third largest district in India. Located in Marwar (Jodhpur Division), the city of Jaisalmer is the administrative headquarters of the district. It is around from the ...

and northwestern

Jodhpur district Jodhpur District is a district in the State of Rajasthan in western India. The city of Jodhpur is the administrative headquarters of the district. As of the 2011 census, it is the second highest populated district of Rajasthan (out of 33), ...

), Bhitrauti, Sirohī, Godwārī.

Lexis

Indian Marwari wrin Rajasthan shares a 50%–65% lexical similarity with Hindi (this is based on a Swadesh 210 word list comparison). It has many

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical ef ...

words with Hindi. Notable phonetic correspondences include /s/ in Hindi with /h/ in Marwari. For example, /sona/ 'gold' (Hindi) and /hono/ 'gold' (Marwari). Pakistani Marwari veshares 87% lexical similarity between its Southern subdialects in Sindh (Utradi, Jaxorati, and Larecha) and Northern subdialects in Punjab (Uganyo, Bhattipo, and Khadali), 79%–83% with Dhakti ki and 78% with Meghwar and Bhat Marwari dialects. Mutual intelligibility of Pakistani Marwari vewith Indian Marwari wris decreasing due to the rapid shift of active speakers in Pakistan to Urdu, their use of the Arabic script and different sources of support medias, and their separation from Indian Marwaris, even if there are some educational efforts to keep it active (but absence of official recognition by Pakistani or provincial government level). Many words have been borrowed from other Pakistani languages. Merwari ryshares 82%–97% intelligibility of Pakistani Marwari ve with 60%–73% lexical similarity between Merwari varieties in Ajmer and Nagaur districts, but only 58%–80% with Shekhawati wv 49%–74% with Indian Marwari wr 44%–70% with Godwari dx 54%–72% with Mewari tr 62%–70% with Dhundari hd 57%–67% with Haroti oj Unlike Pakistani Marwari ve the use of Merwari remains vigorous, even if its most educated speakers also proficiently speak

Phonology

*Nasalization of vowels is phonemic, all of the vowels can be nasalized. *Diphthongs are /ai, ia, ae, əi, ei, oi, ui, ua, uo/ *Implosives are mostly only found word initially and it formed due to the influence of neighbouring languages. *// is [] before front vowels and [] elsewhere e.g. [ʋɪwwa] 'marriage'.

Morphology

Marwari languages have a structure that is quite similar to Hindustani (Hindi or Urdu). Their primary word order is subject–object–verb Most of the pronouns and interrogatives used in Marwari are distinct from those used in Hindi; at least Marwari proper and

Harauti Harauti or Hadauti (Hadoti) is a Rajasthani language spoken by approximately four million people in the Hadoti region of southeastern Rajasthan, India. Its speakers are concentrated in the districts of Kota, Baran, Bundi and Jhalawar in Rajast ...

have a

clusivity In linguistics, clusivity is a grammatical distinction between ''inclusive'' and ''exclusive'' first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called ''inclusive " we"'' and ''exclusive "we"''. Inclusive "we" specifically includes the addressee ...

distinction in their plural pronouns.

Vocabulary

Marwari vocabulary is somewhat similar to other Western Indo-Aryan languages, especially Rajasthani and

, however, elements of grammar and basic terminology differ enough to significantly impede mutual intelligibility.

Writing system

Marwari is generally written in the Devanagari script, although the

script is traditionally associated with the language. In Pakistan it is written in the

with modifications. Historical Marwari orthography for Devanagari uses other characters in place of standard Devanagari letters.

References

External links

Hanvant's Rajasthani Dictionary
{{Authority control Western Indo-Aryan languages Languages of Rajasthan Languages of Punjab, Pakistan Languages of Sindh Marwar Rajasthani languages Languages of Nepal Languages of Gujarat