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Mahasu Pahari (
Takri The Tākri script (Takri (Chamba district, Chamba): ; Takri (Jammu Division, Jammu/Dogri script, Dogra): ; sometimes called Tankri ) is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic scripts, Brahmic family of scripts. It is derived from the Sharada ...
: ) is a
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 spoken in
Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; Sanskrit: ''himācāl prādes;'' "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a States and union territories of India, state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen Indian Himalayan ...
. It is also known as Mahasui or Mahasuvi. The speaking population is about 1,000,000 (2001). It is more commonly spoken in the Himachal Pradesh,
Shimla Shimla, also known as Simla ( the official name until 1972), is the capital and the largest city of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. In 1864, Shimla was declared the summer capital of British India. After independence, the city ...
(Simla) and
Solan Solan is a city in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh and the district headquarters of Solan district. It is located south of the state capital, Shimla. Solan has an average elevation of . The city is situated between Chandigarh (joint cap ...
districts. It is to be known that Shimla and Solan were parts of the old Mahasu district. Himachal Pradesh State on 1 September 1972 reorganised the districts dissolving Mahasu district. The Solan district was carved out of Solan and Arki tehsils of the then Mahasu district and tehsils of Kandaghat and
Nalagarh Nalagarh is a city and a municipal committee, near the city of Solan in Solan district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Nalagarh is a gateway to Himachal Pradesh in North India, from Shimla, from Delhi and from Chandigarh. Hist ...
of the then Shimla District of Punjab.


Area

According to different locations, the language has developed several dialects. Lower Mahasu Pahari (Baghati, Baghliani, Kiunthali), Upper Mahasu Pahari ( Rampuri, Rohruri, Shimla Siraji, Sodochi). The Kiunthali variety appears to be understood by others, and their attitude toward it is favorable. Rampuri is also called Kochi; Rohruri is also called Soracholi; and Sodochi is also known as Kumharsaini or Kotgarhi after the
Kumarsain Kumarsain (; ), also known as Kumharsain, is a town in Shimla District in the States and territories of India, Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Formerly under the British Raj, it was the capital of princely state of Kumharsain, which was one of ...
and Kotgarh areas of Shimla District respectively. Intelligibility among dialects is above 85%. Lexical similarity is 74%–82% with upper dialects, and 74%–95% with lower dialects. The language is used in home and for religious purposes. It is understood and spoken from people of vital age group. The educated are more proficient in
Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...
and English. It is considered to be highly endangered as the number of people speaking it is constantly going down. It is closely related to Sirmauri and to Jaunsari.


Script

The native script of the language is a variety of
Takri The Tākri script (Takri (Chamba district, Chamba): ; Takri (Jammu Division, Jammu/Dogri script, Dogra): ; sometimes called Tankri ) is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic scripts, Brahmic family of scripts. It is derived from the Sharada ...
Script. There are some written records of the language in
Takri script The Tākri script (Takri ( Chamba): ; Takri (Jammu/Dogra): ; sometimes called Tankri ) is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic family of scripts. It is derived from the Sharada script formerly employed for Kashmiri. It is the sister scrip ...
and Nastaliq script but nowadays
Devanagari script Devanagari ( ; in script: , , ) is an Indic script used in the Indian subcontinent. It is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental writing system), based on the ancient '' Brāhmī'' script. It is one of the official scripts of India an ...
is usually used.


Phonology


Consonants

* Sounds sʰ bʱ dʱare only seldom heard among dialects. * Allophones of /b d ɡ/ are heard as ̥ d̥ ɡ̊in word-final position. * ʃʰoccurs from Hindi loanwords. * can be heard as allophone of /dʒ/. * is heard when a nasal occurs before velar stops. * /ɦ/ may also be heard as a voiceless among dialects. *
, w The comma is a punctuation mark that appears in several variants in different languages. Some typefaces render it as a small line, slightly curved or straight, but inclined from the vertical; others give it the appearance of a miniature fille ...
are mainly heard after vowels. can also be an allophone of /ʋ/.


Vowels

* A short /u/ may also have an allophone of a near-close sound * is mainly heard as an allophone of /ɑ/. /ɑ/ can also be heard as an open mid sound


Status

The language is commonly called Pahari or Himachali. The language has no official status and is recorded as dialect of Hindi. According to the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the language is of definitely endangered category, i.e. many Mahasui children are not learning Mahasui as their mother tongue any longer. Earlier, the language had state patronage. Everything changed since independence, due to favoritism towards Hindi by the Indian Government. The demand for the inclusion of 'Pahari (Himachali)' under the Eight Schedule of the Constitution, which is supposed to represent multiple Pahari languages of Himachal Pradesh, had been made in the year 2010 by the state's Vidhan Sabha. There has been no positive progress on this matter since then even when small organisations strive to save the language and demand it. Due to political interest, the language is currently recorded as a dialect of Hindi, even when having a poor mutual intelligibility with it.


References


External links

* * *
Map of Western Pahari languages
from Grierson's early 20th-century
Linguistic Survey of India The Linguistic Survey of India (LSI) is a comprehensive survey of the languages of British India, describing 364 languages and dialects. The Survey was first proposed by George Abraham Grierson, a member of the Indian Civil Service and a lingu ...
{{Dogri-Kangri languages Indo-Aryan languages Northern Indo-Aryan languages Languages of Himachal Pradesh Endangered languages of India Languages written in Devanagari Languages listed as Hindi dialects in latest census