Kharia language

Kharia
खड़िया, ଖଡ଼ିଆ
Region	India (Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha).
Ethnicity	Kharia
Native speakers	297,614; 69% of ethnic population (2011 census)[1]
Language family	Austroasiatic Munda South Kharia
Writing system	Devanagari, Odia, Latin
Official status
Official language in	India Jharkhand (additional)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	khr
Glottolog	khar1287
ELP	Kharia

The Kharia language (Kharia pronunciation: [kʰaɽija] or [kʰeɽija]^[2]) is a Munda language of the Austroasiatic language family, that is primarily spoken by the Kharia people of eastern India.

The first systematic description of the Kharia language is Banerjee (1894)'s Kharia grammar, followed by Tea Districts Labour Association (1929) and Floor et al. (1934), which resulted in a Kharia-English Dictionary. An ethnological study on the tribe was published in 1937 by Roy & Roy.^[3]

The first major academic approach to Kharia were taken by linguist Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow in the 1950s and 1960s with studies published in both German and English. Other works include Biligiri (1965)'s full study and lexicon; Mahapatra (1976) on Kharia and Juang verbs, Malhotra (1982) Ph.D. dissertation attempting a comprehensive grammar of Kharia; Abbi (1993; 1997) on language change and contact; Rehberg (2003) on Kharia phonology (in German).^[4]

Kharia belongs to the Kharia–Juang branch of the Munda language family. Its closest extant relative is the Juang language, but the relationship between Kharia and Juang is remote.

Kharia is in contact with Sadri (the local lingua franca), Mundari, Kurukh, Hindi, and Odia (in Odisha).^[2]

Kharia speakers are located in the following districts of India.^[2]

• Jharkhand
  • Simdega district
  • Gumla district
• Odisha
  • Sundargarh district
  • Jharsuguda district

Kharia consonants^[5]

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Retroflex	Post-alv./ Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n	(ɳ)	ɲ	ŋ
Stop/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t̪	ʈ	c	k	(ʔ)
	aspirated		t̪ʰ	ʈʰ	cʰ	kʰ
	voiced	b	d̪	ɖ	ɟ	ɡ
	breathy	bʱ	d̪ʱ	ɖʱ	ɟʱ	ɡʱ
	glottalised	ˀb		ˀɖ	ˀɟ
Fricative		f	s				ɦ
Approximant		w	l		j
Tap	unaspirated		ɾ	(ɽ)
	aspirated			(ɽʱ)

• [ɽ, ɽʱ] are only marginally phonemic and are normally intervocalic allophones of /ɖ, ɖʱ/.

• /f/ can also be pronounced among some speakers as an affricate [p͡f].

• /c, cʰ, ɟ, ɟʱ/ are often realized as affricate sounds [t͡ʃ, t͡ʃʰ, d͡ʒ, d͡ʒʱ], especially in loanwords.

• [ʔ] is an allophone of /ɡ/ when in coda position.^[5]

Kharia vowels^[5]

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e	(ə)	o
Open		a
Diphthong	/ae̯, ao̯, ou̯, oe̯, ui̯/

• /i, e, o, u/ have lax allophones of [ɪ, ɛ, ɔ, ʊ].
• /a/ can have allophones of [ɑ, ä, ə, ʌ].^[5]

Gemination only occur in morpheme boundaries of words. Consonant length can be phonemic. Eg. /oton=na/ realized as [ɔtɔnːɑ] (press=INF). /ʔ/, /s/, and /h/ may not be geminated.^[6]

		Singular	Dual	Plural
1st person	exclusive	iɲ/iŋ (less common)	iɲjar	ele
	inclusive		anaŋ	aniŋ
2nd person		am	ambar	ampe
3rd person	Anaphoric	aɖi	aɖ(i)kiyar	aɖiki
	unmarked	hokaɽ, hojeʔ ukaɽ, ujeʔ hinkaɽ, hinjeʔ hankaɽ, hanjeʔ	hokiyar ukiyar hinkiyar hankiyar	hoki uki hinki hanki

Kharia NPs has three cases:

• Nominative: unmarked
• Oblique: =te
• Genitive: =aʔ

Grammatical gender is not a morphosyntactical feature of Kharia, but the language has independent words to identify whether a male or female of a lexical word is intended. Eg. kokro siŋkoy 'rooster' and kitur siŋkoy 'hen'.^[7]

Inalienable nominals are cross-referenced with possessive markers showed in the table below.

		Singular	Dual	Plural
1st person	exclusive	=ɲ/iɲ/(i)ŋ	=jar	=le
	inclusive		=naŋ	=niŋ
2nd person		=nom	=bar	=pe
3rd person		=ɖom	=ɖom=kiyar	=ɖom=ki

	Interrogatives
ata	'what?, which?'
atu	'where?'
ber, behar	'who?'
i	'what?'
ina	'why?'
a-	Question marker

Kharia has two numeral systems. The one native to Kharia is no longer in common productive use, therefore having great disparities and disagreements. The other, which was borrowed from Sadri, is used in daily life.

	native numerals	borrowed from Sadri
0		sun
1	moɲ (NHUM), muɖu (HUM)	ek
2	ubar	dui
3	upʰeʔ	tin
4	ipʰonʔ, tʰam	cair, ceir
5	moloy, tʰum	pãc
6	tibru, tibʱru, ʈibru	chaw
7	gʰul, tʰam, tʰom, tʰoŋ	sat
8	tʰam, tʰom, tʰomsiŋ, gʰul	aʈh
9	tʰomsiŋ, tomsiŋ, gʰal, gʰul	naw, nãw
10	gʰol	das
100	moloy ekɽi	say, saw, sos
1000		hajar

The Sadri derived numerals often go with numeral classifiers. Classifiers occur very seldom with native numerals, at least by modern speakers, perhaps due to the unfamiliarity of the modern speakers with the Kharia numerals.^[8]

Similar to Remo, Gutob, Gtaʔ, and recently Juang, Kharia predicate only marks person/number of the subject argument.^[9] Distinction between animate and inanimate agents is not so profound in Kharia as they are both marked, although Biligiri (1965) stated that "there is a stronger tendency to observe number agreement with an animate subject than with an inanimate subject."^[10]

		singular	dual (HON)	plural
1st person	exclusive	=ɲ(iɲ)/=ŋ(iŋ)	=jar	=le
	inclusive		=naŋ	=niŋ
2nd person		=(e)m	=bar	=pe
3rd person		=Ø	=kiyar	=ki/=may

Kharia, like many Munda languages, merges TAM categories with active and middle voices.^[11]

	Middle	Active
Present	=ta	=te
Present Progressive	=taˀjɖ	=teˀjɖ
Past Neutral (Past I)	=ki	=(y)oʔ
Irrealis	=na	=e
Past II	=khoʔ
Prefect	=siʔ(ɖ)
Optative	guɽuʔ/guɖuʔ

The causative derivation increases the valency of a verb stem by introducing a higher or superordinate agent who causes the lower agent to act or a non-agentive event to happen. In Kharia, the signature marker of the Austroasiatic family -(o)(ʔ)b- (including allomorphs) is used as the causative prefix or infix.^[12] Double causative constructions are also allowed.^[13]

root	gloss	Simple causative	meaning	Double causative	meaning
aloŋ	'sing'	a-ˀb-loŋ	'have someone sing'	ob-a-ˀb-loŋ	'someone make someone sing'
ɖeˀb	'rise, climb'	o-ɖeˀb	'raise, offer up, sacrifice'	oˀb-ɖeˀb	'have someone sacrifice'
lemeˀɖ	'go to bed'	le-ʔ-meˀɖ	'put someone to bed'	oˀb-le-ʔ-meˀɖ	'have someone put someone to bed'
sore	'become ready'	so-ˀb-re	'prepare'	ob-so-ˀb-re	'have someone prepare'

The passive voice/reflexive in Kharia is realized as standalone word ɖom, itself has no lexical meaning.^[14] Historically, it might have stemmed from the verb dʒom ('to eat'), as it appears to cognate with Santali passive -jɔn (< jɔm 'to eat') and Sora-Juray reflexive/low transitive denoting marker -dəm-.^[15]

There are two telic markers in Kharia which serve the narrative structure^[16]:

• ɖoˀɖ (allomorph ɖoɽ) indicates that another event follows directly upon the event denoted by the predicate that it marks;
• goˀɖ (allomorph goɽ) denotes a turning point or culmination in a narrative.^[17]

In Kharia, incorporation of nouns and adjuncts is possible but mostly limited to certain stems and under a lexicalized (non-productive) degree. Polysyllabic nominals are subtracted from their final syllable(s) while there are no phonological adjustments occurring on monosyllabic items. The incorporated compounds may obscure or alter the original meaning of the nominal or the verbal element.^[18]

1. (< tiʔ ('hand'))

2. (< soreŋ ('stone'))

• Gagan Chandra Banerjee (1894). Introduction to the Khariā Language. Bengal Secretariat Press. ISBN 9788120617728. Retrieved 25 August 2012. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
• Peterson, John (2008). "Kharia". In Anderson, Gregory D. S' (ed.). The Munda languages. Routledge Language Family Series. Vol. 3. New York: Routledge. pp. 434–507. ISBN 0-415-32890-X.
• Peterson, John M. (2011). A Grammar of Kharia: A South Munda Language. Brill. ISBN 978-9-00418-720-7. OCLC 31045692.

• Online Kharia Dictionary Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine