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Munda
Languages Database Project
The Munda languages of India are among the most poorly known
of the world’s languages. Spoken by so-called ‘tribals’
primarily in the eastern and central India states of
Jharkhand and Orissa, with enclaves in adjacent states of
Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal. Despite
representing the oldest known layer of population in India,
predating the Dravidian and Indo-Aryan peoples that dominate
the area today, the linguistic relatives of the Munda in the
large Austroasiatic language family are to be found in
remote mountainous regions scattered across southeast Asia
(Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, southern China, in addition to
the far eastern Indian regions of Meghalaya and the Nicobar
Islands), as well as the national languages of Cambodia and
Vietnam.
Map of Munda Languages
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Munda Map |
From Gregory D. S. Anderson
"The Munda Verb: Typological
Perspectives" Mouton de Gruyter. p. 7. Reproduced with
permission |
The Munda Languages Project by
Living Tongues Institute
for Endangered Languages began in 2005. It is a multi-year,
multi-language project that will ultimately serve as the
primary on-line presence and information source for people
interested in these important languages of South Asia. Goals
of the project include a comprehensive digital archive of
Munda language grammatical and lexical materials.
There are three areas of concentration of Munda language
speakers. One is southern Orissa and is the domain of five
of the groups, Sora/Savara, Gorum/Parengi, Remo/Bonda, Gta’/Dideyi,
and Gutob/Gadaba. The first desgination is how they call
themselves and how they are generally known in linguistic
literature and the second is their Indian designation and
how they are commonly referred to in (older) ethnographic
literature.
There are two main concentrations of speakers of Munda
languages and this in part reflects divisions in the
language family. One group, the North Munda group is found
in Jharkand, and adjacent parts of northern Orissa, West
Bengal and northern Chhattisgarh. There is an outlier set of
North Munda [NM] group, the Korku, who live in west-central
Madhya Pradesh. Apart from the Korku who stand apart from
the other NM languages both geographically and
linguistically, the remaining NM languages form a large
dialect continuum called Kherwarian in which at least two
and possibly many different languages or semi-mutually
intelligible varieties are recognizable. But many more than
that are sociolinguistically identified. We have recorded
Ho, Bhumij, Santali, Munda, and Mundari.
The other group, South Munda [SM] is found primarily in
southern Orissa and adjacent parts of Andhra Pradesh, but is
also found in the form of Juang in northern Orissa and
Kharia distributed along with other NM groups. In addition
to these two geographically northern languages, SM consists
of Sora and Gorum, obviously but not closely related to each
other and a closely related subgroup consisting of Gutob and
Remo. Gta’ may form a larger but more distantly connected
subgroup with Gutob-Remo but shares certain similarities
with Juang while Gutob-Remo in turn share many features with
Kharia.
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Orissa Map |
From Gregory D. S. Anderson
"The Munda Verb: Typological
Perspectives" Mouton de Gruyter. p. 27. Reproduced with
permission |
Audio
Clips From Munda Languages Project
Researchers from Living Tongues have recorded speakers of
several Munda languages. These include Remo, spoken by a few
thousand people in the remote tracks along the border
between Koraput and Malkangiri districts in southern Orissa.
The Remo or Bonda people are among the most celebrated of
the non-Hindu indigenous peoples of India, known for the
elaborate jewelry the women wear, among other things.
Sora is another South Munda language recorded by researchers
from the Living Tongues Institute. It is a language spoken
by three hundred thousand people occupying villages centered
around terraced mountain rice-fields in southern Orissa and
northern Andhra Pradesh. Many have been Christianized or
Hinduized. Hear and see some samples from this theoretically
challenging language of the South Munda group in which
entire sentences maybe expressed by one word, such as ‘we
eat pork’.
The main languages threatening the fascinating, diverse, and
ancient Munda language family are varieties of Oriya and
Sadani or Bengali. For North Munda languages outside of
Orissa, the last two mentioned languages predominate, while
in northern Orissa, the target variety is relatively close
to standard Oriya, while in southern Orissa, a marked
‘tribal’ Desia Oriya which differs considerably from
standard Oriya is being acquired (for example it has largely
replaced Gorum in Parenga villages in Orissa).
Fieldtrips to India for the Munda Languages Project have
been funded by public donations to the Living Tongues
Institute for Endangered Languages and by support from
Ironbound Films. This support is gratefully acknowledged.
Without your donations, this work can not continue.
Click
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Video Clips
From The Munda Project
Soon to be
added
Photos from Munda Languages Project
Photo credits: David Harrison, Greg Anderson, Mark Eglinton
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