Koda, also known as Kora, Kaora, Korali, Korati, Kore, Mudi, or Mudikora, is an endangered

Munda language The Munda languages are a group of closely related languages spoken by about eleven million people in India, Bangladesh and Nepal. Historically, they have been called the Kolarian languages. They constitute a branch of the Austroasiatic langu ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

and

Bangladesh Bangladesh, officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, eighth-most populous country in the world and among the List of countries and dependencies by ...

spoken by the Kora. The Kora mainly live in West Bengal, in the districts of

Paschim Medinipur Paschim Medinipur (English: ''West Medinipur'', alternative spelling ''Midnapore'') district is one of the districts of the state of West Bengal, India. It was formed on 1 January 2002 after the partition of Midnapore into Paschim Medinipur a ...

and

Bankura Bankura () is a city and a municipality in the state of West Bengal, India. It is the headquarters of the Bankura district. Etymology It comes from the old Austric word ráŕhá or ráŕho which means “land of red soil”.P.R. Sarkar Rarh - ...

, with a few in neighbouring

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 ...

and

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 ...

. In 2005, there were 1,300 speakers in the

Rajshahi Division Rajshahi Division () is one of the eight first-level administrative divisions of Bangladesh. It has an area of and a population at the 2022 Census of 20,353,119. Rajshahi Division consists of 8 districts, 70 upazilas (the next lower administrat ...

of Bangladesh, though many said that Bengali was their best language. Koda is closely related to the Kol language. Kim et al. (2010) considers Koda and Kol to be Mundari cluster languages. Koda-speaking villages include Kundang and Krishnupur in

, Bangladesh, while Kol villages include Babudaing village. Koda verbs are inflected for tense-aspect-mood and person, number, finite/infinite, subject/object, possessor, animacy and transitivity. In recent times Koda is code-mixing with Bangla: including vocabulary replacement and greater adoption of Bengali syntax. These processes are seen more in younger speakers. Shamim (2021) presents a description of the phonology and morphology of Koda. It also presents a study of Koda in the context of language contact.

Phonology

Consonants

* The non-labial aspirated consonants () are found primarily in Bengali loanwords.

Vowels

* Vowel length and nasalization are not contrastive. Nasal vowels in Bengali loanwords lose their nasality. * Non-open vowels become

semivowels In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are ''y' ...

between vowels. * and raise to and when the next syllable contains a close vowel.

Notes

References

* Munda languages Endangered languages of India {{AustroAsiatic-lang-stub Languages of Bangladesh