Munda languages


The Munda languages are a language family spoken by about nine million people in central and eastern India and Bangladesh. Historically, they have been called the Kolarian languages. They constitute a branch of the Austroasiatic language family, which means they are related to languages such as Mon and Khmer languages and Vietnamese, as well as minority languages in Thailand and Laos and the minority Mangic languages of South China. The origins of the Munda languages are not known, but they predate the other languages of eastern India. Ho, Mundari, and Santali are notable languages of Santali group.
The family is generally divided into two branches: North Munda, spoken in the Chota Nagpur Plateau of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, and Odisha, and South Munda, spoken in central Odisha and along the border between Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.
Santal, of which Santali is the most widely spoken, is the larger group; its languages are spoken by about ninety percent of Munda speakers. After Santali, the Mundari and Ho languages rank next in number of speakers, followed by Korku and Sora. The remaining Munda languages are spoken by small, isolated groups of people and are poorly known.
Characteristics of the Munda languages include three grammatical numbers, two genders, a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first person plural pronouns and the use of suffixes or auxiliaries to indicate tense. The Munda languages are also polysynthetic and agglutinating.
In Munda sound systems, consonant sequences are infrequent except in the middle of a word. Other than in Korku, whose syllables show a distinction between high and low tone, accent is predictable in the Munda languages.

Origin

Most linguists, like Paul Sidwell, suggest that the proto-Munda language probably split from Austroasiatic somewhere in Indochina and arrived on the coast of modern-day Odisha about 4000–3500 years ago and spread after the Indo-Aryan migration to the region.
Rau and Sidwell, along with Blench, suggest that pre-Proto-Munda had arrived in the Mahanadi River Delta around 1,500 BCE from Southeast Asia via a maritime route, rather than overland. The Munda languages then subsequently spread up the Mahanadi watershed.

Classification

Munda consists of five uncontroversial branches. However, their interrelationship is debated.

Diffloth (1974)

The bipartite Diffloth classification is widely cited:
Diffloth retains Koraput but abandons South Munda and places Kharia–Juang with the northern languages:

Anderson (1999)

's 1999 proposal is as follows.
However, in 2001, Anderson split Juang and Kharia apart from the Juang-Kharia branch and also excluded Gtaʔ from his former Gutob–Remo–Gtaʔ branch. Thus, his 2001 proposal includes 5 branches for South Munda.

Anderson (2001)

follows Diffloth apart from rejecting the validity of Koraput. He proposes instead, on the basis of morphological comparisons, that Proto-South Munda split directly into Diffloth's three daughter groups, Kharia–Juang, Sora–Gorum, and Gutob–Remo–Gtaʼ.
His South Munda branch contains the following five branches, while the North Munda branch is the same as those of Diffloth and Anderson.
considers Munda to consists of 6 coordinate branches, and does not accept South Munda as a unified subgroup.
;Munda
Language NameNumber of speakersLocation
Korku727,100Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra
Birjia25,000Jharkhand, West Bengal
Korwa28,400Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh
Mundari 1,100,000Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar, Assam, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal
Asur7,000Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha
Koda47,300Bangladesh
Ho1,400,000Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh
Birhor2,000Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal
Santali7,400,000West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar
Mahali33,000Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal
Turi2,000Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal
Kharia298,000Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand
Juang30,400Odisha
Gtaʼ3,000Odisha
Bonda9,000Odisha
Gutob8,000Odisha, Andhra Pradesh
Gorum9,400Odisha, Andhra Pradesh
Sora410,000Odisha, Andhra Pradesh
Juray801,000Odisha
Lodhi25,000Odisha, West Bengal

Reconstruction

The following Proto-Munda lexical proto-forms have been reconstructed by Sidwell & Rau. Two asterisks are given to denote the tentative, preliminary state of the proto-language reconstruction.
GlossProto-Munda
belly**laɟ
big**məraŋ
to bite**kaˀp
black**kEdE
blood**məjam
bone**ɟaːˀŋ
to burn **gEˀp
claw/nail**rəmAj
cloud**tərIˀp
cold**raŋ
die **gOˀj
dog**sOˀt
to drink **uˀt, **uˀk
dry **sAr
ear**lutur, **luˀt
earth/soil**ʔOte
to eat**ɟOm
egg**tAˀp
eye**maˀt
fat/grease/oil**sunum
feather**bəlEˀt
fire**səŋal
fish **ka, **kadO
fly **pEr
foot**ɟəːˀŋ
give**ʔam
hair **suˀk
hand**tiːˀ
to hear/listen**ajɔm
heart, liver**rE, **ʔim
horn**dəraŋ
I**iɲ
to kill**ɡOˀɟ
leaf**Olaːˀ
to lie **gətiˀc
long**ɟəlƏŋ
louse **siːˀ
man/husband, person/human**kOrOˀ
meat/flesh**ɟəlU
moon**harkE, **aŋaj
mountain/hill**bəru
mouth**təmOˀt
name**ɲUm
neck**kO, **gOˀk
new**təmI
night**ədiˀp
nose**muːˀ
not**əˀt
one**mOOˀj
rain**gəma
red**ɟəŋAˀt
road, path**kOrA
root **rEˀt
sand**kEˀt
see**El
sit**kO
skin**usal
sleep**gətiˀc
smoke **mOˀk
to speak, say**sun, **gam, **kaj
to stand**tənaŋ, **tƏŋgə
stone**bərƏl, **sərEŋ
sun**siŋi
tail**pata
thigh**buluuˀ
that **han
this **En
thou/you**Am
tongue**laːˀŋ
tooth**gənE
tree**ɟiːˀ
two**baːˀr
to walk, go**sEn
to weave**taɲ
water**daːˀk
woman/wife**selA, **kəni
yellow**saŋsaŋ

Proto-Munda reconstruction has since been revised and improved by Rau.

General references