Marwari is a Rajasthani language spoken in the Indian state of Rajasthan. Marwari is also found in the neighbouring state of Gujarat and Haryana, Eastern Pakistan and some migrant communities in Nepal. With some 7.8 million or so speakers, it is one of the largest varieties of Rajasthani. Most speakers live in Rajasthan, with a quarter million in Sindh and a tenth that number in Nepal. There are two dozen dialects of Marwari. Marwari is popularly written in Devanagari script, as is Hindi, Marathi, Nepali and Sanskrit; although it was historically written in Mahajani, it is still written in the Perso-Arabic script by the Marwari minority in Eastern Pakistan, where it has educational status but where it is rapidly shifting to Urdu. Indian Marwari has no official status in the government in India and is not used as a language of education. Marwari is still spoken widely in and around Bikaner and Jodhpur.
Marwari is primarily spoken in the Indian state of Rajasthan. Marwari speakers have dispersed widely throughout India and other countries but are found most notably in the neighbouring state of Gujarat and in Eastern Pakistan. Speakers are also found in Bhopal. With around 7.9 million speakers in India according to the 2001 census. There are several dialects: Thaḷī, Bāgṛī, Bhitrauti, Sirohī, Godwārī.
Lexis
Indian Marwari in Rajasthan shares a 50%–65% lexical similarity with Hindi. It has many cognate words with Hindi. Notable phonetic correspondences include /s/ in Hindi with /h/ in Marwari. For example, /sona/ 'gold' and /hono/ 'gold'. Pakistani Marwari shares 87% lexical similarity between its Southern subdialects in Sindh and Northern subdialects in Punjab, 79%–83% with Dhakti , and 78% with Meghwar and Bhat Marwari dialects. Mutual intelligibility of Pakistani Marwari with Indian Marwari is decreasing due to the rapid shift of active speakers in Pakistan to Urdu, their use of the Arabic script and different sources of support medias, and their separation from Indian Marwaris, even if there are some educational efforts to keep it active. Many words have been borrowed from other Pakistani languages. Merwari shares 82%–97% intelligibility of Pakistani Marwari , with 60%–73% lexical similarity between Merwari varieties in Ajmer and Nagaur districts, but only 58%–80% with Shekhawati , 49%–74% with Indian Marwari , 44%–70% with Godwari , 54%–72% with Mewari , 62%–70% with Dhundari , 57%–67% with Haroti . Unlike Pakistani Marwari , the use of Merwari remains vigorous, even if its most educated speakers also proficiently speak Hindi .
Phonology
/h/ sometimes elides. There are also a variety of vowel changes. Most of the pronouns and interrogatives are, however, distinct from those of Hindi.
Morphology
Marwari languages have a structure that is quite similar to Hindustani. 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 distinction in their plural pronouns.
Vocabulary
Marwari vocabulary is somewhat similar to other Western Indo-Aryan languages, especially Rajasthani and Gujarati, however, elements of grammar and basic terminology differ enough to significantly impede mutual intelligibility. In addition, Marwari uses many words found in Sanskrit which are not found in Hindi.
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 Perso-Arabic script with modifications. Historical Marwari orthography for Devanagari uses other characters in place of standard Devanagari letters.
