Angika

Angika test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

Angika
अंगिका
Spoken in	India, Nepal
Region	Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal
Native speakers	740,000  (1997–2001)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Eastern Bihari Angika
Language codes
ISO 639-1	bh (Bihari languages)
ISO 639-2	anp
ISO 639-3	anp
This page contains Indic text. Without rendering support you may see irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. More...

Angika (अंगिका) is a language spoken in North Bihar and South-Eastern Part of Bihar, Santhal Praganas of Jharkhand and Maldah District of West Bengal. Angika is an Indo-Iranian language of the Anga region of India, a 58,000 km² area approx. that falls within the states of BiharJharkhand and West Bengal. Besides India, Angika is also spoken in Tarai region of Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia and other Southeast Asian countries. A sizeable Angika speaking population exists in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Gulf Countries.

History

Angika is close to Maithili and Bangla languages, and was classified by George A. Grierson as a dialect of Maithili, which he termed as "Chikka-Chikki ".[1] It has affinity to the Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, such as Bengali, Oriya, and Assamese. It had been traditionally classified as a "Bihari languages," which includes Angika, Bhojpuri, Magahi, Maithili, and Vajjika, though it has ancient history of being an independent language.[2]. The name Angika first appeared in the 1961 census.[3].

Verbs in Angika are similar to those of Bengali and Maithili. For example "dangaybey" in Angika is same as "daangabay" in Bengali and "dangaybai" in Maithili; "kanay chhai" in Angika is same as "kaanchey" in Bengali and "Kaanai chhai" in Maithili etc. Angika, Maithili, Assamese, Bengali and Oriya and are sister languages. Similarity between these sister languages can be observed in the following sample sentence constructions. One common feature is that the sound ca appears at the end of a verb, for instance, hamma ja'ychhiye ("I am going") in Angika, ham ja'ychhi / ham ja'ychhiye in Maithili, ami jacchi in Bengali, mo ja'yche in Assamese, and mu ja'uchi in Oriya. Similarly, there is the sound la as the verb ending in the past tense; for example, for "I went": hamma ga'yliyay in Angika, ham ge'yliyay / ham gel rahee in Maithili, a'mi gela'm in Bengali, man galo in Assamese. Similarly, in the future tense, the va sound occurs as a verb ending; for example, hamma ja'ybow in Angika, ham jaybai / ham jaayab in Maithili, a'mi ja'bo in Bengali.

Speakers

Estimates of Angika speakers vary.^[2][3] While SIL Ethnologue report puts the number of Angika speakers at 725,000 (in 1997), others claim that the number is as high as 2.5 Crore (25 million).^{[4][5][6][7][8]}

Status

Angika is not listed in the 8th schedule of the constitution of India. The demand for its inclusion in the Eighth Schedule is pending with the Government.^[9] A movement led by Anga Utthan Andolan Samiti is demanding the government recognition for the language.^[10]

Angika was previously unanimously regarded as a dialect of Maithili.^[11] The 1928 Linguistic Survey of India conducted under the supervision of George A. Grierson mentions Angika as "Chika-chiki boli", a dialect of Maithili language.^[11] Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) Mysore, lists Angika as of the five dialects of Maithili, but also states its claim as a separate language "on the ground of several phonetic as well as grammatical differences".^[12]

Writing System

Angika is commonly written in the Devanagari script, although in ancient period Anga Lipi and later on Kaithi were used historically.^[13]

Alternate Names

Various alternate names for the language are used:

• Aangi,
• Angikar,
• Chheka-Chhiki
• Chhai-chhow
• Bhagalpuri
• Chekari.

Demography / Current Use

Eastern Bihar

Bhagalpur District, Banka District, Jamui District, Munger District, Lakhisarai and Sheikhpura

Jharkhand

Sahebganj District, Godda District, Deoghar District, Pakur District, Dumka District and Jamtara

Elsewhere

A large number of Angika speakers have migrated to the Persian Gulf, the United Kingdom , the United States, Canada and other countries. Also a substantial portion of the Angika-speaking population has settled elsewhere in India, mainly in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Baroda, Surat, Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Jamshedpur and Bokaro.

People of Anga region in Bihar (mainly from Bhagalpur) prefer to go to Kolkata for jobs/higher studies or other purposes because of socio-cultural affinity with West Bengal.

Angika cinema

The first Angika language film released on 27 April 2007 in Laxmi Talkies, Khagaria, Bihar. The name of this film is "Khagaria Vali Bhouji".[4] The first ever completed feature film of Angika Language, however, is "Khissa Chando Bihula Bishari Ke", which is still to be released. A new Angika film, "Ang Putra" has been released in April 2010. Angika folk singer Sunil Chailaa Bihari plays lead role in the film.[5]

Angika literature

Suman Soorow,Ashwini (Click Here), Permanand Pandey, Vidyabhushan Venu, Amrendra,, Khushilal Manjar, Vimal Vidrohi, Ram Sharma Anal, Naresh Pandey- 'Chakore', Kundan Amitabh, Abhaykant Choudhary, Shri Umesh Jee are among prominent scholars of Angika Language who have contributed lots in Angika Literature. Hundreds of standard literary books are available in angika language.

Grammatical comparison with other languages

• Angika shows a regular contrast for animates.^[14]

Comparison of common words with related languages and dialects

Vote for Angika Wikipedia

• Voting Page

See also

• Anga Lipi
• Anga

References

External links

• Angika.com
• Angdesh.com