Bangani ( ''baṅgāṇī'') is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in parts of Uttarkashi district in the west of the Garhwal region of

Uttarakhand Uttarakhand (, ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; List of renamed places in India, the official name until 2007), is a States and union territories of India, state in North India, northern India. The state is bordered by Himachal Pradesh to the n ...

, India. It has been described either as a member of the

Western Pahari The Western Pahari languages are a range of languages and dialects of Northern Indo-Aryan languages spoken in the western parts of the Himalayan range, primarily in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. They are also spoken in Jammu and Jaunsar ...

language group, or as a dialect of the Central Pahari

Garhwali language Garhwali (, , in native pronunciation) is an Indo-Aryan language of the Central Pahari subgroup. It is primarily spoken by over million Garhwali people in the Garhwal region of the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand in the Indian Himalaya ...

. It shares between one half and two thirds of its basic vocabulary with neighbouring varieties of Garhwali and with the Western Pahari languages of Jaunsari and

Sirmauri Sirmauri is a Western Pahari language spoken in the Sirmaur district in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; Sanskrit: ''himācāl prādes;'' "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a States and union territories of ...

Lexical similarity with neighbors

Centum substrate hypothesis

Bangani is of interest amongst scholars of

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

, due to some unusual features. Since the 1980s, Claus Peter Zoller – a scholar of Indian linguistics and literature – has claimed that there is a

centum Languages of the Indo-European family are classified as either centum languages or satem languages according to how the dorsal consonants (sounds of "K", "G" and "Y" type) of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) developed. An ...

language

substrate Substrate may refer to: Physical layers *Substrate (biology), the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the surface or medium on which an organism grows or is attached ** Substrate (aquatic environment), the earthy material that exi ...

in Bangani. Zoller has also suggested that Bangani has been misclassified as a dialect of Garhwali and is more closely related to the Western Pahari languages. The substance of Zoller's claims has been rejected by

George van Driem George "Sjors" van Driem (born 1957) is a Dutch professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Bern. He studied East Asian languages and is known for the father tongue hypothesis. Education * Leiden University, 1983–1987 (PhD, ''A Gra ...

and Suhnu Sharma, in publications since 1996, which claim that Zoller's data was flawed and that Bangani is an unambiguously

satem Languages of the Indo-European family are classified as either centum languages or satem languages according to how the dorsal consonants (sounds of "K", "G" and "Y" type) of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) developed. An ...

language. Zoller does not accept the findings by van Driem and Sharma, and claims that there are methodological issues and factual errors in van Driem and Sharma's work. In addition, Zoller also notes the two scholars did not set foot in Bangan but interviewed speakers at another location near Bangan. Professor Anvita Abbi visited Bangan after them and confirmed Zoller's data. Support for Zoller's hypothesis and his underlying data has been offered by other linguists and Indologists, such as

Anvita Abbi Anvita Abbi (born 9 January 1949) is an Indian linguist and scholar of minority languages, known for her studies on tribal languages and other minority languages of South Asia. In 2013, she was honoured with the Padma Shri, the fourth highest ci ...

Hans Henrich Hock Hans Henrich Hock (born 26 September 1938) is an American linguist and Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Sanskrit at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Hock holds an M.A. from Northwestern University (1964) and a PhD in linguist ...

, and

Koenraad Elst Koenraad Elst (; born 7 August 1959) is a Belgian author, known primarily for his adherence to the Hindutva ideology and support of the Out of India theory, which is rega ...

.See, for example,

Koenraad Elst Koenraad Elst (; born 7 August 1959) is a Belgian author, known primarily for his adherence to the Hindutva ideology and support of the Out of India theory, which is rega ...

, 2007, ''Asterisk in Bhāropīyasthān: Minor Writings on the Aryan Invasion Debate'', Delhi, Voice of India, p. 31.

References

{{Reflist Northern Indo-Aryan languages Languages of Uttarakhand Indo-Aryan languages