Munda languages

The Munda languages are a language family spoken by about nine million people in central and eastern India and Bangladesh. They constitute a branch of the Austroasiatic language family, generally placed in opposition to the Mon-Khmer languages of Southeast Asia, which means they are distantly related to Vietnamese and Khmer. The origins of the Munda languages are not known, though it is generally thought that they are autochthonous languages of eastern India. Ho, Mundari, and Santali are notable languages of this group.

The family is generally divided into two branches: North Munda, spoken in the Chota Nagpur Plateau of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bengal, and Orissa, and South Munda, spoken in central Orissa and along the border between Andhra Pradesh and Orissa.

North Munda, of which Santali is the chief language, is the larger of the two groups; its languages are spoken by about nine-tenths of Munda speakers. After Santhali, 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 little known.

Characteristics of the Munda languages include three grammatical numbers (singular, dual, and plural), two genders (animate and inanimate), a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first person plural pronouns, and the use of either suffixes or auxiliaries to indicate tense. In Munda sound systems, consonant sequences are infrequent except in the middle of a word. Other than in Korku, where syllables show a distinction between high and low tone, accent is predictable in the Munda languages.

Classification

Distribution of Munda language speakers in India

Diffloth (1974)

The bipartite Diffloth (1974) classification is widely cited:

• North Munda
  • Korku
  • Kherwarian
    • Kherwari branch: Agariya, Bijori, Koraku
    • Mundari branch: Mundari, Bhumij, Asuri, Koda, Ho, Birhor
    • Santali branch: Santali, Mahali, Turi
• South Munda
  • Kharia-Juang: Kharia, Juang
  • Koraput Munda
    • Remo branch: Gata (Gta), Bondo (Remo), Bodo Gadaba (Gutob)
    • Savara branch[Sora-Juray-Gorum] : Parengi (Gorum) [in Koraput District] , Sora (Savara), Juray, Lodhi

Diffloth (2005)

Gérard Diffloth (2005) shows a somewhat more complex picture:

Anderson (2001)

Contrary to either of Diffloth's classifications, Gregory D. S. Anderson (2001) rejects the existence of the "Koraput" clade and proposes, on the basis of morphological comparisons, that Proto-South Munda split directly into three sister groups: Kharia-Juang, Sora-Gorum, and Gutob-Remo-Gtaʔ.^[1]

References

• Diffloth, Gérard. 1974. Austro-Asiatic Languages. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 480-484.
• Diffloth, Gérard. 2005. The contribution of linguistic palaeontology to the homeland of Austro-asiatic. In: Sagart, Laurent, Roger Blench and Alicia Sanchez-Mazas (eds.). The Peopling of East Asia: Putting Together Archaeology, Linguistics and Genetics. RoutledgeCurzon. pp79–82.

Further reading

• Gregory D S Anderson, ed (2007). Munda Languages. Routledge Language Family Series. 3. Routledge. ISBN 041532890X. 
• Anderson, Gregory D S (2007). The Munda verb: typological perspectives. Trends in linguistics. 174. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 9783110189650. 
• Śarmā, Devīdatta (2003). Munda: sub-stratum of Tibeto-Himalayan languages. Studies in Tibeto-Himalayan languages. 7. New Delhi: Mittal Publications. ISBN 8170998603. 
• Newberry, J (2000). North Munda hieroglyphics. Victoria BC CA: J Newberry. 
• Varma, Siddheshwar (1978). Munda and Dravidian languages: a linguistic analysis. Hoshiarpur: Vishveshvaranand Vishva Bandhu Institute of Sanskrit and Indological Studies, Panjab University. OCLC 25852225. 

External links

• bibliography
• The Ho language webpage by K. David Harrison, Swarthmore College