Mewati ( Devanagri: मेवाती;

Perso-Arabic 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', ' ...

: میواتی) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken predominantly by the Meo people. It has three million speakers in the Mewat Region with most speakers in Nuh district of

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 ...

. It is also spoken in parts of Khairthal-Tijara district, Palwal district, Deeg district, Gurgaon district, and

Mathura district Mathura district () is situated along the banks of the river Yamuna is a district of Uttar Pradesh States and Territories of India, state of north-central India. The historic city of Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, Mathura is the district headquarters. ...

. According to the

2023 Pakistani census The 2023 Census of Pakistan was the detailed enumeration of the Pakistani population and the seventh national census in the country. It was conducted by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics. It was also the first ever digital census to be held in ...

, there are around 1.1 million Mewati speakers in

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# ...

. While other people in the region also speak the Mewati language, it is one of the defining characteristics of the Meo culture. There are 9

vowels A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

, 31

consonants In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

, and two

diphthongs A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...

. Suprasegmentals are less prominent than they are in the other. There are two numbers; singular and plural. Two genders; masculine and feminine, and three cases; direct, oblique, and vocative. The nouns decline according to their final segments. Case marking is

postposition Adpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositions (which precede their complemen ...

al.

Pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (Interlinear gloss, glossed ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the part of speech, parts of speech, but so ...

s are traditional in nature and are inflected for number and case. Gender is not distinguished in pronouns. There are two types of

adjective An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...

s. There are three tenses; past, present, and future. Participles function as adjectives.

Phonology

There are twenty plosives at five places of articulation, each being tenuis, aspirated,

voiced Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds (usually consonants). Speech sounds can be described as either voiceless (otherwise known as ''unvoiced'') or voiced. The term, however, is used to refe ...

, and

murmured Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like s ...

: . Nasals and laterals may also be murmured, and there is a voiceless and a murmured .

References

{{Authority control Mewat Languages listed as Hindi dialects in latest census

Phonology

See also

References