The Sadanic languages are
Bihari languages
Bihari is a group of the Indo-Aryan languages. The Bihari languages are mainly spoken in the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh and also in Nepal.Brass, Paul R. (1974). ''Language, Religion and Politics in North Ind ...
in the
Indo-Aryan languages. The languages are mostly spoken in the
Jharkhand state of India.
Etymology
The
Nagpuri language is known as Sadani as native language of
Sadan, the Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Chotanagpur. Sadani also referred to closely related Indo-Aryan languages of Jharkhand such as Nagpuri,
Panchpargania,
Kurmali and
Khortha. The origin of the word Sadan is somewhat obscure.
History
The Indo Aryan languages of Jharkhand such as
Nagpuri,
Panchpargania,
Kurmali,
Khortha are known as Sadani languages. Earlier linguist had classified these languages as dialects of
Bhojpuri
Bhojpuri (;[Bhojpuri entry, Oxford Dictionaries](_blank)
, Oxford U ...
and
Magahi language. But recent research suggest that these languages are developed from a single ancient language in the past and are closer to each other than any other languages. Their differences are due to their geographical distribution and contact with different tribal
Munda languages.
According to scholars, the Sadri/Nagpuri language was in contact with the
Mundari language
Mundari (MunÉ–ari) is a Munda language of the Austroasiatic language family spoken by the Munda tribes in eastern Indian states of Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal. It is closely related to Santali. Mundari Bani, a script specifically to wr ...
. Due to widespread use as a
lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
, it lost
ergativity as Munda languages have no ergativity. It gained attributive possession between alienable and inalienable in third person possessor. It lacks loan words from Dravidian and Austroasiatic languages but contributed countless loan words in its contact languages. According to Abbi (1997), Indo-Aryan languages influenced Dravidian and Austroasiatic languages. The converse marker of
Kharia (-ke, -kon) and
Kurukh (-ki) is due to influence from Indo-Aryan language.
The Khortha language has large numbers of borrowing from
Santali language.
Kurmali has several loan words from an extinct unknown language and few loan words from Santali. Panchparganiya does not have large numbers of loan words. It retain its morphological ergativity and did not develop an alienable or inalienable distinction in attributive possession.
References
{{Reflist
Languages of India
Eastern Indo-Aryan languages
Bihari languages