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Kanjari language

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Kanjari
कंजरी
Native toPakistan
Native speakers
210,000 (2011)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3kft
Glottologkanj1259

Kanjari (also known as Kangar Bhat, Kangri, Kuchbandhi or "the Gypsy language"[2]) is an unclassified Indic tribal language of Pakistan and India, associated with the Muslim Kanjar tribe. Kanjari is spoken in Punjab in Pakistan and in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan in India.[2] It may be one of the Punjabi languages.[3] UNESCO classifies Kanjari as an endangered language. Some may use the word to describe Karina.[4]

Syntax

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George Abraham Grierson noted several grammatical features for Kanjari in the first Linguistic Survey of India:[5]

  • The final "ō" of adjectives is usually kept before an inflected noun, which suggests that adjectives are not inflected and that gender is weak. For example, tēro naukrī ("thy service").
  • Some pronouns are similar to Rajasthani languages, such as the demonstrative pronouns and . However, other pronouns are similar to the Dravidian languages, such as ūr ("he") compared to Tamil īr and Gondi ōr.
  • Overall, verb conjugations and words "broadly agree" with the patterns of Eastern Rajasthani languages, but some characteristics point to a "certain Dravidian element" being present in Kanjari.

Vocabulary

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Selected Kanjari Vocabulary[5]
Kanjari English Cognate
lug die
lugai beat
chūbkō son
rib house
tig see
pāḍō bull māḍu (Tamil)
tiūr give tara (Tamil)
ghamēlā sun kham (Romani)
jhūkal dog jukel (Romani)

References

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  1. ^ Kanjari at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  2. ^ a b Mhaiske, Vinod M.; Patil, Vinayak K.; Narkhede, S. S. (2016). Forest Tribology And Anthropology. p. 185. ISBN 9789386102089.
  3. ^ Frawley, William J. (2003). International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (2 ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 267. ISBN 0199771782.
  4. ^ "Kanjari". World Atlas of Languages. UNESCO. Retrieved 3 January 2023.
  5. ^ a b Grierson, George Abraham (1903–1928). Linguistic survey of India. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing. pp. 96–101. Retrieved 3 January 2023.