Ahirwati (''Ahīrvāṭī'', sometimes also known as Hīrwāṭī) is an Indo-Aryan dialect of India. It is spoken within the

Ahirwal Ahirwal is a region spanning parts of southern Haryana, north-eastern Rajasthan, and South-Western Delhi The region was once a small principality based from the town of Rewari and controlled by members of the Ahir community from around the time ...

region located to the south-west of the capital

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...

. It belongs to the Rajasthani language group and is commonly taken to be a dialect of

Mewati Mewati ( Devanagri: मेवाती; Perso-Arabic: میواتی) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken predominantly by the Meo people. It has three million speakers in the Mewat Region with most speakers in Nuh district of Haryana. It is al ...

, but in many respects it is intermediate with the neighbouring varieties of

Haryanvi Haryanvi (हरियाणवी or हरयाणवी) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken primarily in the Indian state of Haryana and the territory of Delhi. Haryanvi is considered to be part of the dialect group of Western Hindi, which a ...

and Bagri, and is especially close to

Shekhawati Shekhawati is a region in the northern part of the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Rajasthan, comprising the districts of Sikar, Jhunjhunu, and Churu district, Churu. The language of this region is also called Shekhawat ...

. There are no reliable census figures for the number of speakers. In the past it was variously written in either

Devanagari Devanagari ( ; in script: , , ) is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent. It is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental systems: alphabets, writing system), based on the ancient ''Brāhmī script, Brā ...

Gurmukhi Gurmukhī ( , Shahmukhi: ) is an abugida developed from the Laṇḍā scripts, standardized and used by the second Sikh guru, Guru Angad (1504–1552). Commonly regarded as a Sikh script, Gurmukhi is used in Punjab, India as the official scrip ...

, or the

Perso-Arabic script The Persian alphabet (), also known as the Perso-Arabic script, is the right-to-left script, right-to-left alphabet used for the Persian language. It is a variation of the Arabic script with four additional letters: (the sounds 'g', 'zh', ' ...

. A peculiar feature of the grammar of Ahirwati is the use of the same

postposition Adpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositions (which precede their complemen ...

to mark both the

agent Agent may refer to: Espionage, investigation, and law *, spies or intelligence officers * Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another ** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuran ...

(in certain tenses) and the

object Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an a ...

Geographic distribution

Ahirwati is spoken mostly in the south of

Haryana Haryana () is a States and union territories of India, state located in the northern part of India. It was carved out after the linguistic reorganisation of Punjab, India, Punjab on 1 November 1966. It is ranked 21st in terms of area, with les ...

. At its maximal extent, its territory extends from

Loharu Loharu is a city, municipal committee and assembly constituency, near Bhiwani City in the Bhiwani district of the Indian state of Haryana. It is the administrative headquarters of one of the four administrative sub-divisions of the district a ...

in the west to

Sohna Sohna is a town and a municipal council in the Gurugram district of Haryana, India. A popular tourist weekend and conference retreat, it is on the highway from Gurugram to Alwar near a vertical rock. Sohna is known for its hot springs and Sh ...

in the east, and from

Jhajjar Jhajjar is a town in Jhajjar district in the Indian state of Haryana. It is a part of Delhi National Capital Region (NCR) and situated on the road connecting Rewari to Rohtak (NH-352), Loharu to Meerut (NH334B), Charkhi Dadri to Delhi and Gu ...

and

Najafgarh Najafgarh is a town in the South West Delhi, South West Delhi district of National Capital Territory of Delhi, India. It is one of the three subdivisions of the Southwest Delhi district. Najafgarh is located on outskirts of NCT Delhi in south we ...

in the north to

Bawal Bawal is a big industrial town located, near Rewari city in Rewari district in Indian state of Haryana. It lies in the National Capital Region (NCR) of India. It is located on national highway NH 48 (formerly called NH 8), 11 km from ...

and

Narnaul Narnaul is a city, a Municipal Council, and location of headquarters of the Mahendragarh district in the Indian state of Haryana. It is located in the National Capital Region of India. History & etymology During the early vedic period o ...

Behror Behror () is a city in the Kotpulti-Behror district of Rajasthan of the Jaipur division. It serves as the administrative headquarters of the eponymous ''Behror'' Tehsil and shares headquarters for Kotputli-Behror district with Kotputli. It ...

in the south. It encompasses partially or fully the districts of

Mahendragarh Mahendragarh is a city and a municipal committee in Mahendragarh district in the Indian state of Haryana. It is nearly from Gurgaon and comes under National Capital Region (India). Etymology Earlier earlier was known as Kanaud because i ...

Rewari Rewari is a city and a municipal council in Rewari district in the Indian state of Haryana. It is the district headquarters of Rewari district. It is located in south-west Haryana around 82 km from DelhiGurgaon Gurgaon (), officially named Gurugram (), is a satellite city of Delhi and administrative headquarters of Gurgaon district, located in the northern Indian state of Haryana. It is situated near the Delhi–Haryana border, about southwest ...

, as well as the areas of

Taoru Taoru or Tauru is a town, near Nuh city in Nuh district in the Indian state of Haryana. History Fort Fort of Taoru, also called Taoru Fort of Raja Nahar Singh, has chambers and rooms surrounded by high walls. It is presently used as a po ...

in Nuh district (all in Haryana),

Mundawar Mundawar is a town and tehsil in Khairthal - Tijara district in Indian state of Rajasthan. Mundawar is 15 km from Khairthal city. Geography Mundawar is situated at latitude 38 16' 58" N and longitude 77° 9' 39" E in northern part of A ...

(in the district of Alwar, Rajasthan),

Kotputli Kotputli is a city and municipal council in Kotputli-Behror district of Rajasthan, India, located between Jaipur city and New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territo ...

(in the district of Jaipur, Rajasthan),

(in Delhi), and additionally an enclave further to the north in the region of

Hansi Hansi, is a city and municipal council in Hisar district in the Indian state of Haryana. It appears that at one time Hansi was larger, more prosperous and more important than Hisar. The town has several important buildings of archeological impor ...

, in Hisar district. Ahirwati's neighbouring dialects are Bangru and Bagri to the north,

and

Torawati Torawati (also known as Tanwarawati or Toravati) was a small chieftainship whose rulers claimed to be direct descendants of Anangpal II, the Tomara. Anangpal established the city of Patan during his rule in the 12th century AD and Torawati was ...

to the west, and

to the south.According to ; he additionally lists

Braj Bhasha Braj is a language within the Indo-Aryan language family spoken in the Braj region in Western Uttar Pradesh centered on Mathura. Along with Awadhi, it was one of the two predominant literary languages of North-Central India before gradually ...

as an eastern neighbour, but this appears to be contradicted by the other chapters in the volume (e.g. ), which present Mewati as intervening between Ahirwati and Braj.

References

Bibliography

* * * *{{cite book, last = Yadav , first = Shankar Lal, chapter = Ahīrvāṭī , title = Hariyāṇā kī upabhāṣāeṃ, date = c. 1979 , editor-last = Sharada, editor-first = Sadhu Ram , pages = 193–269, place = Chandigarh, publisher = Bhasha Vibhag, language = Hindi Indo-Aryan languages Haryana