Marwari (, , ) is a Western Indo-Aryan language belonging to the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the

Indo-European 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. ...

languages. Marwari and its closely related varieties like Dhundhari,

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 ...

and Mewari form a part of the broader Rajasthani language family. It is spoken in the Indian state of

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; Literal translation, lit. 'Land of Kings') is a States and union territories of India, state in northwestern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the List of states and union territories of ...

, as well as the neighbouring states of

Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the List of states and union territories ...

and

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 ...

, some adjacent areas in eastern parts of

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

, and some migrant communities in

Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

. There are two dozen varieties of Marwari. Marwari is popularly written in

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 ...

script, as are many languages of

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

, including

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 ...

, Marathi, Nepali, and

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

; although it was historically written in Mahajani, it is still written in 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', ' ...

by the Marwari minority in Eastern parts of

(the standard/western Naskh script variant is used in

Sindh Province Sindh ( ; ; , ; abbr. SD, historically romanized as Sind or Scinde) is a province of Pakistan. Located in the southeastern region of the country, Sindh is the third-largest province of Pakistan by land area and the second-largest provin ...

, and the eastern Nastalik variant is used in Punjab Province), where it has educational status but where it is rapidly shifting to

Urdu Urdu (; , , ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in South Asia. It is the Languages of Pakistan, national language and ''lingua franca'' of Pakistan. In India, it is an Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of Indi ...

. Marwari has no official status in India and is not used as a language of education. Marwari is still spoken widely in

Jodhpur Jodhpur () is the second-largest city of the north-western Indian state of Rajasthan, after its capital Jaipur. As of 2023, the city has a population of 1.83 million. It serves as the administrative headquarters of the Jodhpur district and ...

Pali Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...

Jaisalmer Jaisalmer , nicknamed ''The Golden city'', is a city in the north-western Indian state of Rajasthan, located west of the state capital Jaipur, in the heart of the Thar Desert. It serves as the administrative headquarters of Jaisalmer district ...

, Barmer, Nagaur, and

Bikaner Bikaner () is a city in the northwest of the States and territories of India, state of Rajasthan, India. It is located northwest of the state capital, Jaipur. It is the administrative headquarters of Bikaner District and Bikaner division. Fo ...

History

It is believed that Marwari and Gujarati evolved from '' Old Western Rajasthani'' or '' Dingal''. Formal grammar of Gurjar Apabhraṃśa was written by Jain monk and Gujarati scholar Hemachandra Suri.

Geographical distribution

Marwari is primarily spoken in the Indian state of

. Marwari speakers have dispersed widely throughout India and other countries but are found most notably in the neighbouring state of

and in Eastern

. Speakers are also found in

Bhopal Bhopal (; ISO 15919, ISO: Bhōpāl, ) is the capital (political), capital city of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and the administrative headquarters of both Bhopal district and Bhopal division. It is known as the ''City of Lakes,'' due to ...

. With around 7.9 million speakers in India according to the 2001 census. Some

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

s of Marwari are:

Lexis

Indian Marwari wrin Rajasthan shares a 50%–65% lexical similarity with Hindi (this is based on a Swadesh 210 word list comparison). It has many

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...

words with Hindi. Notable phonetic correspondences include /s/ in Hindi with /h/ in Marwari. For example, /sona/ 'gold' (Hindi) and /hono/ 'gold' (Marwari). Pakistani Marwari veshares 87%

lexical similarity In linguistics, lexical similarity is a measure of the degree to which the word sets of two given languages are similar. A lexical similarity of 1 (or 100%) would mean a total overlap between vocabularies, whereas 0 means there are no common words. ...

between its Southern subdialects in Sindh (Utradi, Jaxorati, and Larecha) and Northern subdialects in Punjab (Uganyo, Bhattipo, and Khadali), 79%–83% with Dhakti ki and 78% with Meghwar and Bhat Marwari dialects. Mutual intelligibility of Pakistani Marwari vewith Indian Marwari wris decreasing due to the rapid shift of active speakers in Pakistan to

, their use of the

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic (Arabic alphabet) and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin script), the second-most widel ...

and different sources of support medias, and their separation from Indian Marwaris, even if there are some educational efforts to keep it active (but absence of official recognition by Pakistani or provincial government level). Many words have been borrowed from other Pakistani languages. Merwari ryshares 82%–97% intelligibility of Pakistani Marwari ve with 60%–73% lexical similarity between Merwari varieties in Ajmer and Nagaur districts, but only 58%–80% with Shekhawati wv 49%–74% with Indian Marwari wr 44%–70% with Godwari dx 54%–72% with Mewari tr 62%–70% with Dhundari hd 57%–67% with Haroti oj Unlike Pakistani Marwari ve the use of Merwari remains vigorous, even if its most educated speakers also proficiently speak

Phonology

*Nasalization of vowels is phonemic, all of the vowels can be nasalized. *Diphthongs are /ai, ia, ae, əi, ei, oi, ui, ua, uo/ *Implosives are mostly only found word initially and it formed due to the influence of neighbouring languages. *// is [] before front vowels and [] elsewhere e.g. [ʋɪwwa] 'marriage'.

Morphology

Marwari languages have a structure that is quite similar to Hindustani (Hindi or Urdu). Their primary word order is subject–object–verb Most of the pronouns and interrogatives used in Marwari are distinct from those used in Hindi; at least Marwari proper and Harauti have a

clusivity In linguistics, clusivity is a grammatical distinction between ''inclusive'' and ''exclusive'' first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called ''inclusive " we"'' and ''exclusive "we"''. Inclusive "we" specifically includes the address ...

distinction in their plural pronouns.

Vocabulary

Marwari vocabulary is somewhat similar to other Western Indo-Aryan languages, especially

Rajasthani Rajasthani may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Rajasthan, a state of India * Rajasthani languages, a group of Indic languages spoken there * Rajasthani people, the native inhabitants of the state * Rajasthani architecture, Indian ar ...

and Gujarati, however, elements of grammar and basic terminology differ enough to significantly impede mutual intelligibility. Word List Swadesh 100-word list with Marwari translations and IPA transcriptions, illustrating core vocabulary for linguistic comparison and historical linguistics.

Writing system

Marwari is generally written in the Devanagari script, although the Mahajani script is traditionally associated with the language. In Pakistan it is written in the

with modifications. Historical Marwari

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

for Devanagari uses other characters in place of standard Devanagari letters.

Perso-Arabic Script

Sample Texts

Below is a sample text in Marwari, in standard Devanagari Script, and transliterated into Latin as per

ISO 15919 ISO 15919 is an international standard for the romanization of Indic scripts. Published in 2001, it is part of a series of romanization standards by the International Organization for Standardization. Overview Relation to other systems ...

.Omniglot, ''Article 1 of the UDHR - Language family: Indo-European: Indo-Iranian'
https://omniglot.com/udhr/indoiranian.htm
/ref>

Notes

References

External links

Hanvant's Rajasthani Dictionary
{{Authority control Western Indo-Aryan languages Languages of India Languages of Rajasthan Languages of Punjab, Pakistan Languages of Sindh Marwar Rajasthani languages Languages of Nepal Languages of Gujarat Languages written in Devanagari Languages listed as Hindi dialects in latest census