Asuri is an Austroasiatic language spoken by the

Asur people Asur people are a very small Austroasiatic ethnic group living primarily in the Indian state of Jharkhand, specifically within the Gumla, Lohardaga, Palamu, and Latehar districts. They speak Asur, a Munda language. Occupations Asurs are tr ...

, part of the Munda branch. Asuri has many Dravidian loanwords due to contact with Kurukh. The majority of Asuri speakers reside in the Gumla district of Chota Nagpur. In addition, there are smaller groups of Asuri speakers in

Chhattisgarh Chhattisgarh (; ) is a landlocked States and union territories of India, state in Central India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, ninth largest state by area, and with a population of roughly 30 million, the List ...

West Bengal West Bengal (; Bengali language, Bengali: , , abbr. WB) is a States and union territories of India, state in the East India, eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabi ...

Odisha Odisha (), formerly Orissa (List of renamed places in India, the official name until 2011), is a States and union territories of India, state located in East India, Eastern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by ar ...

. ''Ethnologue'' states that ''Birjia'' is a dialect of Asuri, but also that there is a related language Birjia; it is not clear if these refer to the same thing. However, Anderson (2008:195), based on Prasad (1961:314), suggests that Birjia (Binjhia) may be 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 2024, there are more than 1.5 billion speakers, primarily concentrated east of the Indus river in Ba ...

, although the Birjia are an ethnic subgroup of the Asuri tribe, along with the Asur proper and the Agariya. Majhwar is unclassified, but based on location and other clues, it may turn out to be a dialect of Asuri. If so, its 35,000 speakers (reported in 1995, out of an ethnic group of 175,000) would make it the most populous form of Asuri. Asuri is considered to be an

endangered language An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a " dead langua ...

. One important reason for its distinction as endangered is due to a lack of any written form of the language. It exists only as a

spoken language A spoken language is a form of communication produced through articulate sounds or, in some cases, through manual gestures, as opposed to written language. Oral or vocal languages are those produced using the vocal tract, whereas sign languages ar ...

There are a total of 31

phonemes A phoneme () is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages con ...

in Asuri, made up of twenty-six "segmental" and five "supra-segmental" phonemes. Of the former, there are twenty-one consonants and five vowels. The Asur language is listed in UNESCO Interactive Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. Using mobile radio, the Asur community, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group(PVTG) in Jharkhand, has been spreading the popularity of the language within their geographical limits. News and entertainment programmes are broadcast on speakers at public places.

Geographical distribution

''Ethnologue'' lists the following districts and states where Asuri is spoken. *

Jharkhand Jharkhand (; ) is a States and union territories of India, state in East India, eastern India. The state shares its border with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north ...

: southern Palamau district, northern

Ranchi district Ranchi district is the most populous district of Jharkhand state in eastern India. Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand, is the district headquarters. History Iron slag, potsherds and iron tools have been found in the Chota Nagpur plateau dated to ...

Gumla district Gumla district is one of the twenty-four districts of Jharkhand state, India, and Gumla town is the administrative headquarters of this district. Etymology For centuries, the place was a meeting center for people from the hinterland who flocked ...

, and Lohardaga district of the

Chota Nagpur Plateau The Chota Nagpur Plateau () is a plateau in eastern India, which covers much of Jharkhand state as well as adjacent parts of Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal and Bihar. The Indo-Gangetic plain lies to the north and east of the plateau, and th ...

: Raigarh district and

Jashpur district Jashpur District is a district of the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh bordering Jharkhand and Odisha. Jashpur Nagar is the administrative headquarters of the district. The district was formerly a princely state before Independence. Highly ...

area *

: Sambalpur district *

References

{{Austro-Asiatic languages Munda languages Endangered languages of India