The sociolinguistic study of

A MAHARASHTRIAN VARIETY OF MARWARI

-ROHAN SARAF

Terana Dam, Aurad Shahajani.

The sociolinguistic study of

A MAHARASHTRIAN VARIETY OF MARWARI

-ROHAN SARAF

For the partial fulfillment of the course Masters of Arts (English)

Submitted by: Rohan Saraf Supervisor: Prof. R N Bakshi

MA (Eng), Director,CIEFL, CIEFL,Lucknow. Lucknow.

CENTRAL INSTITUTE OF ENGLISH AND FOEIGN LANGUAGES

2

LUCKNOW CAMPUS

To my late father...

Whose presence still I can feel...

3

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am extremely grateful to Prof. R N Bakshi, who not only sanctioned my

topic but provided me all necessary guidance and help. Without his

invaluable guidance, I would not have been able to complete this project.

I am very thankful to him to welcome my ideas regarding the data collection

and the project and for giving me his precious time.

I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. Vipin Kumar, to provide me

necessary guidelines about project-writing. I would like to thank Dr. N V

Krishna Mohan who always had discussed with me about my project work.

It was a matter of prestige for me to spend time with such persons for the

past two years.

I would like to express special thanks to my senior friend from Vijay Wada,

Mr. Sriniwasa Kumar, who always guided me through net chatting. He has

been a constant help to me.

I would like to mention about the support provided my mother constantly

through this project work. She helped me for a better understanding of

Marwadi language.

4

My acknowledgements can not be completed without mention of a person,

my cousin Karan Sharma, who took great efforts for the data collection.

INDEX

I. INTRODUCTION……………………………………...6-14

Purpose behind the study About AURAD SHAHAJANI Linguistic case of Aurad Marwadi community in Aurad

II. DATA COLLECTION…………………………………15-21 The making of the questionnaire The Modus Operandi Statistics

III. DERIVED FACTS………………………………..........22-31 Language use and Language choice of the Marwadi

users in Aurad Languages used in different situations Languages used for different purposes Language preferences of a Marwadi user in Aurad

IV. TRANSFORMATION OF MARWARI INTO MARWADI....................................................31-37

Code-switching and Code-borrowing Syntactical changes Phonemic changes

5

V. CONCLUSION………………………………………..38

VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………..39

INTRODUCTION

Purpose behind the study

There is a very famous saying in Marathi, about languages. It says,”

language changes every fifty miles.” It somehow derives a limit for the

language domain roughly. The same language can have some changes out of

the range of fifty miles as stated in this saying. But careful observation says

that language does not vary by place to place but person to person.

I belong to a family which has a bilingual situation in itself. My father was

Marathi and my mother is Rajasthani by birth. I have grown up learning

both languages simultaneously. Also I was brought up in a place people

were different linguistic background mix with each other and form a unique

multilingual situation. I was happened to face four different languages since

my childhood, three of which I can speak fluently. My interest was raised in

this topic when I noticed some changes in the original variety of Marwari,

6

because of Marathi. My interest about the history of this community was

also found its place. Being a fluent speaker both languages, I could contrast

both of them in a well manner. So, I decided to dig out the fact about the

changes occurred in Marwari because the constant touch of a totally alien

language, Marathi. During my studies at CIEFL, Lucknow campus, I came

across Sociolinguistics, which helped me to be familiar with the basic

concepts. It certainly helped me in focusing about the topic.

Another purpose behind this study is to talk about a community which

migrates from its homeland to some stranger places for its survival. Marwari

community is unique in itself. This community migrated to Maharashtra and

gave a new variety of Marwari. Like this they have migrated to all parts of

the world, so uncountable number of varieties of Marwari is possible. This

thing is not possible with a language like Marathi. Yet Marathi has its own

number of varieties but limited one. Because Marathi community is not

migrant. So this study is a small effort to reach to the history of this

community through their language. As Noam Chomsky said once, “I want

reach to people’s minds through their languages.” This study tries to follow

Mr. Chomsky’s path.

7

About AURAD SHAHAJANI

Aurad Shahajani, shortly known as Aurad only, is a small town in

Maharashtra. It has population of 20000-22000. Aurad has a history of more

than 450 years which officially is not available. Aurad is located in the

southern part of Maharashtra. It is situated on the border of Maharashtra and

Karnataka. A river, named TERNA flows on the west side of Aurad. As

mentioned above Aurad is situated on the border, it has a commercial

importance. It is 200 km away from Hyderabad, so people from different

place and different background have their business interests in Aurad. It

gives Aurad a status of a multicultural and multilingual town. People of

different religions and communities live in Aurad. The four communities are

prominent in Aurad, i.e. Marathi, Marwari, Lingayat (followers of Lord

Basweshwara) and Muslim. Initial three communities come under Hindu

religion. Apart from Hindu and Muslim, some minor number of people of

Jain and Buddhist communities lives there. So this is the multicultural social

background of Aurad.

8

Linguistic case of Aurad

As mentioned in previous section, Aurad has a multicultural and

multilingual background. There is a case of Quadra-lingual1 society which

contains four languages as follows, Marathi, Marwadi, Kannada and a mixed

variety of Hindi and Urdu. Marathi is the official language of the town. It is

used in all kinds of official affairs. It is a medium of education, too. Marathi

is the dominant language there. Because Marathi has the largest number of

speakers in Aurad. The second most spoken language is Kannada, which is a

language of Lingayata community. This community has its roots in

Karnataka. It was formed by Lord Basweshwara in 1700 AD. Aurad has a

business relationship with several other places in Karnataka. That is why

many Kannada speakers are based in Aurad. The third language is the

Marwadi, which is a language of a migrant community, Marwadi. They

migrated to Aurad around 200 years ago. The fourth language is variety of

Hindi and Urdu, mostly spoken by Muslim community of Aurad. This

1 A linguistic domain with four different languages.

9

variety of Hindi has a Hyderabadi accent. It occurred because of the business

relationship of Aurad with Hyderabad. So with these four major languages,

Aurad becomes an example of a multilingual town, where four totally

different languages exist. These four languages influence each other without

any doubt. Being the most dominant language, Marathi has a greater

influence comparing to other languages. Other languages have borrowed

some lexical terms from Marathi. It will be very interesting to see an

Auradian2 speaking in a language that is made by mixing of codes of two or

more languages. Kannada and Hindi have taken place a change in them

considerably, but highly influenced language by Marathi is Marwadi.

Marwadi is actually a variety of a Rajasthani language, i.e. Marwari.

Marwadi has taken such a form that no Marwari speaker could easily

understand what a Marwadi speaker means. Marwadi has accepted many

words, phrases and idioms. That makes it a different variety of Marwari. It

has taken such expressions which could take place in the context of

Maharashtra only.

Aurad has four languages in its domain but the language for writing and

reading is Marathi only. As mentioned above Marathi is a medium of

education and Marathi language is a compulsory subject till Higher

Secondary Level. Although some English medium and Urdu medium 2 A citizen of Aurad Shahajani.

10

schools are being run in the town, but they are very minor in number.

Marathi and Hindi speaker know how to write and read in their mother

tongues, but in case of Kannada very few people know their own script.

Marwadis do not know at all how to read or write in their language. In fact

they do not have any script. I hope this will give a general idea of the

linguistic case of Aurad Shahajani.

11

Marwadi community in Aurad

Nobody knows exactly when Marwadis migrated to Aurad Shahajani. There

is no official proof for that. I consulted many old members of the

community, aged 92+yrs; they told me that they belong to third or fourth

generation of their family. We can imagine that Marwadis must have

migrated to Aurad around 200-250 years ago. They were wondering in

search of food and water. Most of the Marwadi families are rooted to

Jodhpur, Rajasthan. Some others are from Udaipur, Bundelkhand and

Jaisalmer3. This community came to Aurad and to many other places of

Maharashtra. They became a part of these places. Because of the difficult

geographical conditions of their home region, they were forced to leave their

places. George Ludi discusses the types of migration, i.e. Internal migration

and External migration. He says,

A considerable number of German-speaking people have moved into

other language regions and vice versa in order to study, to find a better

employment, for personal reasons (marriage!), or to learn the

3 names of the districts in Rajasthan, India

12

language. When referring to these people who have crossed a

linguistic border in the country or who are born from parents having

done so, we will use the term Internal Migration. (1996: 105)

This was Ludi’s observation about the migrant communities of Switzerland.

Reasons behind migration might be different but ultimately the migration is

same in case of both Swiss and Marwadi migrant communities.

After becoming a part of Aurad, Marwadi community contributed a lot to the

development. Being a merchant community, they knew how to do business.

Gradually, Aurad became a central location for all types of businesses,

mainly agricultural. Marwadi community, who came to Aurad with almost

nothing, became the richest community within few decades.

Even after accepting the Maharashtrian culture, Marwadis never forgot their

rituals and customs which their ancestors used to follow in Rajasthan. They

are very proud of their origins and still worship their family gods.

Now Marwadis are inseparable part of Aurad. They started changing their

professions. Most of them are choosing education and corporate sector as a

career option. Their language keeps on changing as time passed. They are

businessman basically. So they have to interact with almost every class and

caste of society. It was a necessary for a Marwadi to be a multilingual

personality. That is why a Marwadi in Aurad can speak minimum three

13

languages, Marathi, Hindi and of course, Marwadi. This proves beneficial

for a businessmen community. In Marwadi family, hardly anybody could be

found who is not doing business. Education is of least important for them.

Also they are very conservative when it comes to women. No Marwadi

woman can work outside. Although the scenario is changing a bit, but

percentage of girls learning is very less than boys. That is the reason why

Marwadi women are not efficient speakers of Marathi. The reason is less

exposure to the language, which does not happen in case of Marwadi men.

Marwadi community and their language are at their peak level. The more

changes come in them; more are the chances that they will forget about their

roots.

14

DATA COLLECTION

The Making of the Questionnaire

As I have mentioned before that my purpose behind the study was to note

down the changes occurred in Marwadi because of Marathi. I had to collect

a data which will supposedly help me to come to a conclusion. I have

enclosed a model copy of the questionnaire at the end of the project. As my

topic deals with only the speakers of Marwadi, data collection was centered

on them only. I met about one hundred and six people personally for the said

purpose. The questionnaire was mainly focused on their language habits4.

The questionnaire starts with the queries about personal information of the

interviewee. It contains information like Name, Age, sex, Education and the

Medium of Education, Mother tongue and Languages known. Age and Sex

were important in order to make an analytical study about the language use

by Marwadi speakers. Among all the interviewees around Fifty-five were

male and Forty-five were female. There were people from all age group.

4 Habits of using language at different places and for different purposes.

15

People from the age of five to eighty-five years were taken the interview.

The point of their education was not that important because most of them

belong to business class. Majority of them have taken their education in

Marathi medium. Here one thing, I have deliberately excluded, i.e.

Occupation. This thing I have not mentioned because almost all of them are

either shop owners or businessmen. The lower age group is learning which

sooner or later joins their seniors.

The second half of the questionnaire deals with the language habits of the

interviewees. It has two sections: one which discusses about the language

choice of a Marwadi speaker at different places and other which discusses

with the language choices for different purposes. They noted down their

language choice with a preference. That means they have chosen language

for a particular context with the preference. E.g. a speaker finds himself

comfortable speaking in Hindi with his friends and sometime he uses

Marwadi as well, he gave first preference to Hindi then to Marwadi. This

shows their command and level of comfort towards a language.

Although the questionnaire has all four languages5 in options but no one has

selected Kannada as their choice for any question. It shows that any speaker

5 i.e. Marathi, Marwadi, Hindi, Kannada.

16

of Marwadi can speak maximum three languages, i.e. Marwadi, Marathi and

Hindi.

17

The Modus Operandi

The Modus Operandi i.e. the method of the data collection was very clear. I

approached speakers having a note pad and copies of questionnaire in my

hand. I have a good access to the Marwadi people and most of them are

familiar with me, so I did not face much difficulty in collecting the data.

Although the questionnaire has spaces to fill, I had to fill them myself

manually because they were written in English and nobody in Aurad has a

good command over English. So I had to ask them questions and to get the

data out of it. As I mentioned, my cousin, Karan helped me in collection. We

did not face any problems with adults and that also with men, but with

women and kids it was a bit difficult. Because women, being from very

conservative families, sometimes refused to answer.

Some interviewee said that they have never looked at their language in this

way. It was all new for them. Then some people started thinking about their

language use consciously. I think partially my purpose behind the study was

successful. In this process, I came to know about various aspects of Marwadi

language. E.g. if one has to show his/her disliking towards something, two

different expressions are used in two different situations. avad and bhav are

the two expressions. avad is used when one has to show his/her disliking

18

towards anything but the food and edible things, and bhav is used when one

has to show his/her disliking towards an edible thing.

The method which was used for the said process was based on a pure

communicative way of talking. It also helped me to note down some markers

of Marwadi language which prove influence of Marathi over Marwadi.

19

Statistics

In the survey held for the purpose of data collection, around One Hundred

and Five persons were interviewed personally. For a better understanding,

we will be considering only hundred feedbacks here, out of which Fifty-five

are male and Forty-five are female. For the convenience, the feedbacks are

sorted out on the basis of their age and sex. I have used following

abbreviations for convenience.

A = below 18 yrs

B = 18 yrs – 25 yrs

C = 26 yrs – 40 yrs

D = 41 yrs – and above.

M = Male; F = female.

So, studying these abbreviations one could easily understand meanings of

other abbreviations like AM, DF, etc. AM is a group of males who belong to

the age group below 18 yrs.

20

The table of statistics of the interviewee is as given below.

Male Female

A = Below 18 yrs 20 10

B = 18 – 25 yrs 16 12

C = 26 – 40 yrs 13 14

D = 41 – above 9 13

TOTAL 55 45

After the analysis of the data, few facts came in the notice. In the age group,

A in which the members are below 18 yrs, few could speak only two

languages. They are actually child language learner. They are exposed to

only two languages, i.e. Marwadi and Hindi. The age group B is of average

language capacity. But the age groups C and D are the most efficient users

of all three languages that are Marwadi, Marathi and Hindi. The statistics

regarding some uses of language do not vary, like use of language at home

and at work, language for reading, listening and writing. But for the further

issues the statistics do vary at a large level.

21

DERIVED FACTS

Language use and Language choice of Marwadis

In Aurad, Marwadis unconsciously use three different languages in their

daily routine. They can not figure out which language is used by them at

what time. The other interesting thing about Marwadi users is that they can

switch to any language in the same context. Let us imagine a situation in

which me and my mother are having a piece of conversation with each other.

My mother but obviously speaks in Marathi with me. She asks me,

‘jevayalaa kay karu’, which means what do you want to have in the lunch?

Suddenly she happens to see our sweeper and asks him, ‘ kahaan jaa rahe

ho’, which means ‘where are you going’ in Hindi. Before anybody could

answer her question, her cell phone rings and she gets a call from her mother

and says, ‘kai karan laagi’, ‘which means how do u do’ in Marwadi. So

unconsciously she switched to three different languages, talking to three

different persons in three different contexts. Many examples like these can

be found in day to day life of Aurad. If we consider speakers other than

marwadis, a case of bilingualism is found in Aurad. Each and every person

22

in Aurad can speak at least two languages, i.e. Marathi and Hindi. Hindi has

a status of second language in Aurad. That is why it is known to everybody

there. Marwadi people have their own priorities of languages. A Marwadi

fellow to other will always speak in Marwadi only. With people from other

communities he will use either Marathi or Hindi. This is the way language is

chosen by a Marwadi speaker. In case of child language user, when speaking

to a speaker other than Marwadi, only Hindi will be used, because at that

time the child language user may not be competent enough to speak in

Marathi. The multilingual compatibility6 of a Marwadi speaker is directly

proportional to his/her age. The order of exposure to the language since his

childhood is as follows, Marwadi-Hindi-Marathi-English. So, at first a child

Marwadi user will learn Marwadi, because it is his mother tongue. Then he

will be exposed to Hindi language, which is very close to Marwadi

language. Thirdly he will be exposed to Marathi language because of the

surroundings. At last, he will get an exposure to English language because of

the education criteria. In this way a child language learner in Aurad leads

towards a process of being a multilingual personality.

Languages used in different situations6 Capacity of a speaker t speak in more than two languages.

23

In the previous chapter, I have given an example of switch over of a

language to another in the daily routine of Marwadi users. In this section, we

are going to observe their language habits7. In the second part of the

questionnaire, questions regarding their language habits are given. The first

part of the section deals with the use of language at different places. The

options given are At home, At work place, with friends and In a social

gathering.

For the first question, everybody has given the same answer which is, of

course, Marwadi. Marwadi people are very particular about the use of

language at their home with their family members. Wherever they will go,

this thing will remain the same.

The second question deals with the work place. For the age group C and D

(see previous section, Statistics for the details) the work place is indeed their

shop. But for the age group A and B the work place is their schools or

colleges. Child language learners did not fill this section as they do not have

to go anywhere to work. The data says that most of the Marwadi users use

Marathi and at some extent Hindi at their work place. But no doubt they

7 Tendency to use different languages at different places and for different purposes.

24

prefer Marathi over Hindi. The switch over from one language to another

happens very rapidly and unconsciously at this situation. This is the situation

where a Marwadi user starts getting exposure to other languages.

The third question enquires about the language used in a situation where

Marwadi users are with their friends. Unlike the previous one, this is a very

casual situation of use of a language. Here there is no formality. In this

situation, some possibilities are there. One possibility is that a user must be

engaged in conversation with a friend who is also a Marwadi. Then in this

situation, as I mentioned earlier, a Marwadi will speak in Marwadi only.

With friends from other language community, he will use Hindi not Marathi.

This is a surprising observation that in a formal situation like business or

learning/teaching a Marwadi speaker finds Hindi more casual than Marathi.

He/she uses Marathi in a formal situation because of its reach. But there is

one observation about Marwadi people that they are likely to be attached to

their community at most of the time. That is the reason why most of the

interviewees gave preference to Marwadi while speaking with friends.

The fourth and the last observation about language choice of Marwadi

people is about a situation where they are in a social gathering. Again the

25

similar kind of observation has been recollected here. Most of the

interviewees have chosen Marwadi as their prime choice in a social

gathering and then comes Marathi and finally Hindi. Social gatherings could

be only among Marwadi people. So in this situation they will use only

Marwadi. But in the situation where they have to socialize with the speakers

of other languages, they will use Marathi or Hindi as the situation demands.

Again this depends on the particular event they are attending. In a formal

event like National Flag Holding on the Independence Day, they will

certainly use Marathi. But in a casual social event like marriages they will be

comfortable with Hindi. These observations in the form of a table is as

follows,

At home At work With friends In social

gatherings

26

Marwadi Marathi Marwadi Marwadi

Marwadi Hindi Hindi Hindi

Marwadi Marathi Marathi

Marwadi

Here first row shoes the situations and other shows the languages used in

that particular situation. The languages in a column indicate language choice

of that particular situation. Languages in a column of a situation are

mentioned in a descending order of preference.

This section of the questionnaire puts an interesting observation about the

Language-use and the Language-choice of a Marwadi speaker. That is

degree of formality in case of a Marwadi users in Aurad decreases as

follows, Marathi > Hindi > Marwadi. The reason which I tried to figure out

when consulted to all the interviewees is they find themselves more

comfortable in Hindi than Marathi. Because they need not to be conscious

while process of thinking and talking goes on. But in case of Marathi, they

have to think first and then translate it into the said language. Of course, they

think in their Mother tongue, which is Marwadi. This section can be called

27

as the core of this study. It helps the study to draw a conclusion which

makes a statement about marwadis.

Languages used for different purposes

28

The second part of the section deals with the Language-use for the different

purposes. Purposes means for the utilization of different language skills like

LSRW8. Here Marwadi speakers can have choices between Marathi and

Hindi only, except in the case of speaking. The hypothesis of the data

collected is given below.

Listening

(songs, news,

commentary etc)

Speaking Reading

(newspaper,

books, etc)

Writing

(formal, letter,

etc)

Hindi Marwadi Marathi Marathi

Marathi Hindi Hindi Hindi

Marathi

It should be clear by now how marwadis maintain their language habits. In

the given table, the languages are mentioned in the decreasing order of their

preferences. Firstly for listening purpose, only two languages are available

in Aurad, i.e. Hindi and Marathi. Among which Hindi is more popular. So

marwadis give preference to Hindi, when it comes to listening songs, news

8 Skills of languages, listening, speaking, reading and writing.

29

on Television or Radio. For speaking, of course, they prefer Marwadi than

other languages. This point is already discussed in previous section about

their language choices. The third skill which is about reading leaves only

two choices for marwadis, i.e. Marathi and Hindi. In the print medium,

Marathi is dominant. Also the status of Marathi in Aurad does matter in this

case. Hindi has secondary status in this matter. What is applicable to

Reading is also applicable to Writing, too. For writing purpose, like for

writing a letter I both formal and informal cases, marwadis prefer Marathi

only. As Marathi is the official language, all the formal affairs like

fulfillment of official forms, etc happen in Marathi only. Hindi again has a

secondary status like it does have in the case of reading. But unfortunately

there are no means for marwadis to read or write in their language. Even

they do not know how to read or write in Marwadi. So this is the situation of

a community which speaks in its language but can nit read or write in it.

Language preference of a Marwadi user in Aurad

30

It will be interesting to see a criterion of Language-choice for a Marwadi

user in Aurad. It depends on so many things. Even the age is an important

factor. E.g. a Marwadi user who is five years old can not say which language

he/she prefers for the writing or reading purposes. Also a language choice

does depend on the educational qualification of the user sometimes.

It is observed that marwadis give preference to Marwadi as much as

possible. That is how they have maintained to keep their roots safe to a

culture and place where they belong. They give almost equal preference to

both Marathi and hind in circumstances. I found some people in a confused

state while giving answers for some questions, like ‘which language do u

use with your friends?’ some said that they use all three of them. Some could

not decide to which language they should give preference among Marathi

and Hindi. This shows how the linguistic situation gets complicated in

Aurad.

31

TRANSFORMATION

OF

MARWARI INTO MARWADI

Code-switching and Code-borrowing

After being exposed to other languages for a huge time span of more than

200 years, it was but obvious for a language like Marwari to have changes in

itself. When marwadis came to Aurad in order to search food and water, they

were from different places of Rajasthan, speaking different dialects of

Marwari and Rajasthani. They were from Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Mewad,

Bundelkhandi, etc places in Rajasthan. They were speaking different dialects

like Marwari, Mewari, Bundelkhandi, Jaisalmeri and many like these.

When these people from different background of languages and cultures

gathered in Aurad, their language had undergone a long process of change.

Generations by generations they forgot their original languages. They used

to speak different variety of the same language, i.e. Marwari. So, even their

languages had variations but the soul structure of the all languages was

same. So all these varieties were influenced by the most dominant language,

32

i.e. Marathi. Gradually the interaction between them and the other language

users increased. More the interaction, more the influence on Marwari. This

whole process through which all the varieties of Marwari underwent,

resulted in a common variety of all marwadis that was Marwadi.

This variety of Marwari has some features of Marathi, too. A constant Code-

switching and Code-borrowing still goes on in case of Marwadi and Marathi.

E.g. I am feeling cold. English

Mala thandi vajat ahe. Marathi

In Marathi, to express that one is felling cold, he/she uses the expression

thandi vajane (to feel cold). But if we look at the literal meaning of the

words in the given expressions,

Thandi cold

Vajane to beat (or bajaana in Hindi)

Whatever the words mean literally, the expression conveys the message that

the speaker is feeling cold.

We have some different expression in Hindi,

E.g. mujhe thand lag rahi hai. Hindi

If we try translating the above Marathi expression in English literally, it

becomes something like this,

E.g. I am beaten by the cold. English

33

Of course, the derived expression will not be a proper one. But my point is

in the process of transformation Marwadi has borrowed so many codes

which are not relevant in the original context of their language. But such

codes are appropriate in the context of Marathi. So what happened in the

case of Marwadi, it has borrowed this expression literally from Marathi. It is

as follows,

E.g. man thandi baajan lagi ha. Marwadi

Here Marwadi not only borrowed the code of using the expression feeling

cold but also it has switched the code of the word Cold. It is as follows,

Cold English

Thandi Marathi

Thand Marwari

Thandi Marwadi

In this way, Code-switching and Code-borrowing happened in the process of

transformation of Marwari into Marwadi.

34

Syntactical changes

One syntactical change in Marwari, we have already witnessed in the

previous section about Code-switching and Code-borrowing. That is code

switching of the word thandi from Marathi to Marwadi. It signifies Cold.

There are so many examples of syntactical changes in Marwari because of

Marathi. But interesting thing is that they borrow some word, but with

certain modifications. Again Marathi and Hindi have a great syntactical

similarity between them, so it has been very easy for Marwadi to borrow

words from Marathi. The modifications in the original words are in the form

of phonemic structure. But some words are accepted as they are.

e.g. Long English

laamb Marathi

lambaa Hindi

lambo Marwadi

I am giving a list of some words which are taken in Marwadi from Marathi.

It is as follows,

35

Marathi Marwadi

Kala (black) Kalo

(phonemic change in the last sound)

Kantala (boredom) Kantalo

(phonemic change in the last sound)

Aamba (mango) Aambo

(phonemic change in the last sound)

Fukatya (lazy person) Fukatyo

(phonemic change in the last sound)

I think, by now it is pretty clear how a syntactical change in Marwadi took

place because of Marathi.

36

Phonemic change

Marwadi, in the process of transformation, faced not only syntactical

changes but also some phonemic changes. One can easily observe the

difference between of accents of a Rajasthani Marwadi speaker and a

Maharashtrian Marwadi speaker. Rajasthani speakers have a typical way of

pronouncing some sounds like na, kha and da. These sounds are totally

omitted from the Maharashtrian variety of Marwari. Plus, there is an

addition of a sound from Marathi to Marwadi. That is l a. Marwadi has

accepted this sound in the use. There are not so much phonemic changes

which one can easily look for.

37

CONCLUSION

During this sociolinguistic study of Marwadi, I happened to observe various

aspects of lives of marwadis. I feel, somehow, I have managed to reach to

their minds through their languages, as Mr. Chomsky wants.

After completing the study, I felt that, Marwadi is at the peak level of its

transition phase. Aurad is changing with an enormous speed. A fourth factor

in this process is added that is affecting all the other languages that is

English. So what will be the future of Marwadi? Might be it will be a

language which lost its original status in the flow of time.

38

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dittmar, N Sociolinguistics: A critical survey of theory and application,

Sand, P. (trans.), (London: Edward Arnold, 1976)

Fasold, R. The Sociolinguistics of Society, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984)

Gupta, R.S. ‘Interrogating ‘Indian’ bilingualism’, Studies in Indian

sociolinguistics, Gupta, R.S. and K.S. Aggarwal, (New Delhi: Relative,

1998)

Ludi, G. ‘Multilingualism through migration: A comparison of internal and

external migrant communities in Switzerland’, Contrastive Sociolinguistics,

Hellinger M. and U. Ammon (eds.), (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1996, 103-

33)

39