Memoni (ميموني, મેમોની) is an

Indo-Aryan language The Indo-Aryan languages (or sometimes Indic languages) are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family. As of the early 21st century, they have more than 800 million speakers, primarily concentrated in India, Pa ...

spoken by Kathiawari Memons from the

Kathiawar Kathiawar () is a peninsula, near the far north of India's west coast, of about bordering the Arabian Sea. It is bounded by the Gulf of Kutch in the northwest and by the Gulf of Khambhat (Gulf of Cambay) in the east. In the northeast, i ...

region 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 ...

, India.

Memon people The Memon are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group that originated in the Sindh region of Pakistan. The majority of the Memon people around the world follow the Hanafi fiqh of Sunni Islam. The Memon people have cultural similarities with the Khoja, Khat ...

are a subgroup or an ethnic group that originated in north-western India. After the Indian partition in 1947, Memons of the Kathiawar region migrated to neighboring states, cities and towns within India, but a large number of Memons settled in Karachi, Pakistan,

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

, Malawi, Kenya and even United States and Canada.

History

The true origin of the Memoni language is still debated among the historians of the region. Memon people speak the language in different styles or accent due to the influence of other languages in areas of settlement. Basically Memoni language is the mixture of

Sindhi Sindhi may refer to: *something from, or related to Sindh, a province of Pakistan * Sindhi people, an ethnic group from the Sindh region * Sindhi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them People with the name * Sarkash Sindhi (1940–2012 ...

, Kutchi 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- ...

Languages. Memoni language does not have its alphabetical system of reading and writing, nor having its literature and dictionary. But the language is spoken and inherited by the generations of the Memon people. Due to this reason, Memoni language is differentiated among the speakers in the Memon community. Lately, Haji Mohammed Husein Abdel Kareem Nagani invented the alphabet of Memon language to bring the Memoni language to its highest standard like other major languages in the world. The Memon community is generally divided into three major subgroups such as Kathiawari Memons (speak the Memoni language) Sindhi Memons (speak the

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, witho ...

) and Kutchi Memons (speak the

Kutchi language Kutchi (; કચ્છી, , ڪڇّی) or Kachhi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Kutch region of India and Sindh region of Pakistan. The name of the language is also transliterated as Katchi, Kutchhi, Kachchi, Kachchhi, Kachhi or Cu ...

). Memons originating in

region are simply called Kathiawari ''Memons'' and they speak the ''Memoni'' language. Memon people from this particular region were largely Muslims that followed the Hanafi Islam.

and Kutchi languages are spoken by both

Muslims Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

and non-Muslims, in contrast to the Memoni language, which is exclusively spoken by

Memons The Memon are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group that originated in the Sindh region of Pakistan. The majority of the Memon people around the world follow the Hanafi fiqh of Sunni Islam. The Memon people have cultural similarities with the Khoja, Khat ...

origin, who are almost entirely Muslims. In stress, intonation, and everyday speech, Memoni is very similar to

or Kutchi, but it borrows extensively from

, Hindustani and

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

language. Like most languages of the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, In ...

the sentence structure of Memoni generally follows subject–object–verb order.Memoni Language Project
/ref> Especially in

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 ...

, Memoni language has adopted many

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Kathiawar Kathiawar () is a peninsula, near the far north of India's west coast, of about bordering the Arabian Sea. It is bounded by the Gulf of Kutch in the northwest and by the Gulf of Khambhat (Gulf of Cambay) in the east. In the northeast, i ...

, variations arose.

Nouns

The most nouns have a

grammatical gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all noun ...

, either masculine or feminine and often have singular and plural forms. The Memons borrow vast majorities of the

nouns A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...

from Hindustani (mixture of

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' second person nominative pronoun ‘you’ is expressed two different ways: the polite form ‘aaen’ (cognate with ‘avheen’ in standard Sindhi), generally used for respected strangers, the elderly, parents and older relatives, and the familiar form ‘tu’, used among close friends and when addressing subordinates. The

accusative The accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘ ...

possessive A possessive or ktetic form ( abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ow ...

and reflexive pronouns are often

inflected In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and de ...

for masculine and feminine and their gender must agree with their referents. See Urdu Pronouns

Example

In most Indic languages the third person such as, he, she, it and they and the

demonstrative Demonstratives ( abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular fram ...

pronouns this, these, that, those same pronouns are used and they are divided into two categories; one for a near object or person and the other for a far object or person.

Example 2

No significant differences are among the object,

and reflexive pronouns. In addition these pronouns are further inflected for masculine and feminine and must agree to the object (noun, pronouns, adjective and adverbs).

Verbs

The verbs generally conjugated according to person, number, tense, aspect, mood and voice. They may also agree with the person gender, and/or number of some of their other arguments, including the object. The verb generally appears at the end of the sentence.

Adjectives

Like English, the position of the adjectives nearly always appears immediately before the noun and they are modified and often inflected for masculine and feminine and must be agree to the noun that follows. The proposition generally comes after a noun or a verb.

Script

In the past there was some attempt to write the Memoni dialect using Gujarati and later in Urdu script with little success. Some attempt has been made to write Memoni using the Latin script.

References

External links

Reference
Origin of Memoni Language a Memoni Language Project by Siddique Katiya
{{DEFAULTSORT:Memoni Language Sindhi language Gujarati language Memon Languages of India Languages of Sindh Northwestern Indo-Aryan languages Subject–object–verb languages Languages of Gujarat