A Sociolinguistic Survey
of the Bhumij People of India
of the Bhumij People of India
Troy Bailey and Loren Maggard
Researchers:
Troy Bailey
Marshal Joshua
Loren Maggard
Chacko Mathew
M. S. Rajeev
SIL International
®2015
SIL Electronic Survey Reports 2015-026, November 2015 © 2015 SIL International®
This sociolinguistic survey of the Bhumij people in the states of Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal had as a goal to determine whether language development would be feasible in the languages of Bhumij and Mundari. Preliminary sociolinguistic research was carried out, and data collection took place between September and mid-December 1996.
Language use patterns among the Bhumij were found to vary from region to region. In Bihar, the Bhumij speak Bhumij primarily in the home and family domains. In Orissa, it appears that in the
northern part of Mayurbhanj district, the Bhumij are in the process of shifting to Oriya, while the Bhumij in the southern part of the district continue to speak Bhumij as the vernacular. In West Bengal, in only a few isolated spots do the people retain Bhumij as their mother tongue.
The researchers found no indication of negative attitudes toward the Mundari people or language which might prevent the Bhumij from accepting Mundari literature. Consequently, it is recommended that a dialect adaptation for the Bhumij be considered low priority, and proposed that Mundari literature be utilised for the Bhumij-speaking community. Literacy rates among the Bhumij population are quite low (15%), although responses to the survey questionnaires appear to indicate a favourable attitude toward literacy. The choice of script is an important issue to be addressed.
The maps in this report were created by author Troy Bailey.
iii
Preface
1 Introduction
1.1 People
1.1.1 Geography and population 1.1.2 Historical background 1.1.3 Society and culture 1.2 Language
1.2.1 Classification 1.2.2 Nomenclature 1.2.3 Key sources
1.2.4 Sociolinguistic aspects of Bhumij speech 1.2.5 Linguistic aspects of Bhumij speech 1.2.6 Relationship between Bhumij and Mundari 1.3 Previous survey
1.4 Purpose and goals
2 Linguistic aspects of Bhumij speech found in this survey
2.1 Lexical similarity comparison 2.1.1 Procedures
2.1.2 Site selection 2.1.3 Results and analysis 2.2 Intelligibility testing
2.2.1 Procedures 2.2.2 Site selection 2.2.3 Results and analysis
3 Social aspects of Bhumij speech found in this survey
3.1 Language use
3.1.1 Language use in Bihar 3.1.2 Language use in Orissa 3.1.3 Language use in West Bengal 3.2 Language attitudes
3.2.1 Attitudes toward the mother tongue 3.2.2 Attitudes toward Mundari
3.2.3 Receptivity toward language development 3.3 Bilingualism
4 Recommendations Appendix A
Preface
This sociolinguistic survey of the Bhumij people in the states of Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal was sponsored by the Indian Institute for Cross Cultural Communication (IICCC). The primary interest of IICCC is in developing mother tongue literature and promoting literacy among the minority groups of India. To determine whether this type of work would be feasible in a particular language, preliminary sociolinguistic research is supported by the organisation. Data collection for this project took place between September and mid-December 1996.
We are appreciative of the many Bhumij people who shared information about their society and language, answered questions, and participated in comprehension testing. The survey team trusts this sociolinguistic report accurately reflects our brief investigation and study among them.
1
1.1 People
1.1.1 Geography and population
The Bhumij people inhabit a three-state region in India – Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal. The group is classified as a scheduled tribe in all three states (Singh 1993). According to the 1981 census, the Bhumij population in Bihar is 136,109, located primarily in the Ranchi, Paschim Singhbhum and Purba
Singhbhum districts. In Orissa, the census returns give 157,614 Bhumij people (Singh 1994:170). About half of this total resides in Mayurbhanj district with smaller numbers in Balasore, Keonjhar and
Sundargarh districts (Das Patnaik 1990:55). In West Bengal, 233,906 Bhumij individuals inhabit the districts of Medinapur, Purulia, Bankura and Twenty-four Parganas (Singh 1994:168). Adding these state-wide figures, the total Bhumij population amounts to approximately 528,000 people.
It was found through previous documented research, as well as during the course of this
investigation, that not all people who call themselves Bhumij speak Bhumij as their mother tongue, since language shift has occurred in several areas.1 Thus, no accurate information could be obtained for the number of Bhumij speakers, so the survey team gives the following estimated range of percentages in each state for Bhumij tribal people who speak Bhumij as their primary means of communication: Bihar, 80–90%; Orissa, 75–85%; and West Bengal, 15–25%.
Much of the area that the Bhumij community inhabits is located in the Chotanagpur plateau, which rises an average of 2,000 feet above sea level (Dalton 1872:163). The region is home to several
scheduled tribes such as the Munda, Ho and Santali. Maps 1 and 2 show the areas the Bhumij inhabit, and Map 3 indicates sites where data utilised for this survey was obtained.
1.1.2 Historical background
The term Bhumij means ‘children of the soil’ (Dalton 1872:173), which likely was given to the community by Hindu immigrants who found them occupying the land in what is today West Bengal (Risley 1891, reprinted in 1981:118). Roy (1929:96) writes that Bhumijes in Mayurbhanj district of Orissa maintain are not the original settlers of that area, but instead came from Tamar Pargana in Ranchi district of Bihar, and are thus known as Tamarias, Tamaria Mundas or Tamaria Bhumijes.
A verbal account given by a person in West Bengal, which seems plausible, though not confirmed by any written sources available to the researchers, explains the history of the Bhumij during the period of the British occupation. While the British held power in east India, they imposed a system of collecting taxes from settlers of the land. At first, Brahmins were appointed to collect these taxes, but this did not prove to be effective. The British then appointed people who could secure taxes by force. At that time, the Bhumij were the most assertive out of all other groups, and were therefore commissioned by the British to this role.
To obtain respect and compliance from other tribal and caste groups, the Bhumij began to adopt the culture and language of the higher caste Brahmin Bengalis as well as the British. As they related with these classes of people, it had an impact on their society, culture and language with the result that the Bhumij in several areas gave up their traditional mother tongue for Bengali.
1.1.3 Society and culture
The Bhumij are mostly agricultural workers and cultivators. If they possess their own land, they grow rice as well as oil seeds, pulses and vegetables. After harvest in November and December, when there is no other work, the males labour in the mining quarries of southern Bihar and northern Orissa, as well as in the tea gardens of Assam. Hunting used to be a profitable profession, but due to deforestation and government restrictions this is no longer followed.
Bhumij families are patrilineal, and most of them are nuclear, though extended families also exist. Polygyny occurs occasionally, particularly among the wealthier families, with the main reason being the barrenness of the first wife. Divorce is permitted only in cases of adultery by the woman (Das Patnaik 1990:57–58).
The Bhumij are essentially animistic in their religious outlook, and the sun is their primary object of worship. They also serve a number of minor gods and spirits to which they sacrifice animals. In addition, the Bhumij believe in the power of white and black magic, consulting witch doctors found in the village. In addition, the community in various places has adopted Hindu beliefs and practices into their religion. People offer coconuts, plantains and sweetmeats to the gods, and visit Kali and Shiva temples during Hindu festivals (Das Patnaik 1990:59–60).
The total literacy rate among the Bhumij population is about 15%, ranging from 12% in Orissa, to 15% in West Bengal, and 16% in Bihar. For males, the literacy rate is about one-quarter and for females only 4% (Singh 1994:169–171).
1.2 Language
The Munda languages have received a great deal of attention by linguists over the past two centuries, particularly with regard to their status in the Austro-Asiatic language family, as well as to the historical relationships within the various Munda language groups. Mundari and Santali in particular have been analysed by historical linguists, lexicographers and grammarians. Bhumij speech as a distinct subject, however, has received little attention.
1.2.1 Classification
languages. Capital letters at the nodes indicate the proposed proto-languages: Munda (M), Proto-South Munda (SM), Proto-Koraput Munda (KM), Proto-Sora-Gorum (SG), Proto-Gutob-Remo-Gta’ (GRG), Proto-Gutob-Remo (GR), Proto-Central Munda (CM), Proto-North Munda (NM), and Proto-Mundari-Ho (MH).
Figure 1. Zide’s taxonomy of Munda languages.
Nigam and Dasgupta (1964:182) assess the position of Bhumij by writing, “It should be considered reasonable to suggest that the name Bhumij language as such should have no place in the inventory of speeches of the Munda group of languages, while the Mundari form of speech as preserved by a section of the Bhumij community should be known as ‘Bhumij Thar.’”
1.2.2 Nomenclature
As is often the case in minority languages that have not undergone standardisation, the Bhumij have no clear term for their indigenous speech variety. At times it is referred to by the occupational title of the speaker (i.e., “Sardar” or “Singh”). Other times it is referred to as “Thar”, an Indo-Aryan word which is sometimes used to refer to the speech of non-Indo-Aryan groups. “Thar” appears to be derived from the Bengali verb ‘to hint’, giving the idea that people use these non-Indo-Aryan languages to communicate things that others will not understand (Nigam and Dasgupta 1964:181). This term has been used for many groups including Kharia, Biraratis and Kurmalis. Varenkamp (1989:3) notes that the Bhumij refer to themselves as “Munda, Bhumij Munda, Sadar Bhumij, or just Bhumij.” This lack of specificity was also encountered during the course of this investigation. However, in this report, the term Bhumij will be used to refer to the speech of the Bhumij people.
1.2.3 Key sources
Though there is a general lack of linguistic information on the speech of the Bhumij community, two helpful sources were utilised for this study – Nigam and Dasgupta (1964) and Bhattacharya (1975). Beyond these works, the researchers could find no other sources pertaining to linguistic characteristics of Bhumij, either in various libraries or through interviews with local Munda scholars.
and Dasgupta 1964:10). During their two-month study in 1959, Nigam and Dasgupta made recordings from which speech samples were taken, which they later analysed linguistically, and then carried out field interviews. At that time they did not feel the problem of Hindi influence on Bhumij/Mundari speech was as pertinent as the issue of their assimilation to Bengali forms.
Bhattacharya endeavoured to make a descriptive account of the various Mundari languages, giving data from sixteen speeches (ten of which he calls “languages”, six “dialects”). However, his work was cut short before completion due to his unfortunate demise. The posthumously compiled work (Bhattacharya 1975) focuses mainly on the commonalties between the speeches, noting characteristic features of the various members, but it is not an attempt to delineate hard and fast distinguishing features that would be necessarily unique to one variety and not another.
1.2.4 Sociolinguistic aspects of Bhumij speech
Nigam and Dasgupta focused their work on three Bhumij regions: Bundu/Tamar in Ranchi district of Bihar; Balarampur in Purulia district, West Bengal; and Ichagarh Thana in Singhbhum district.
Essentially, Nigam and Dasgupta characterised the area as three points on a triangle with Bundu/Tamar representing the most conservative corner (maintaining their mother tongue), Balarampur the most assimilated corner, and Ichagarh Thana representing elements of both conservatism and shift. A look at each of these locations follows.
Map 4. Regions investigated by Nigam and Dasgupta
Bundu/Tamar, Ranchi
It is not surprising that this region was considered to have the “purest” Bhumij, since it is closest to the Mundari heartland. Here the name “Bhumij Thar” was used more frequently than any other in referring to the Munda-form of their speech. Bhumij men in Purulia, where there is more assimilation to Bengali, get their wives from Bundu/Tamar. According to Nigam and Dasgupta’s analysis, Bhumij speech from this region is closer to Standard Mundari (as spoken in the area south of Ranchi) than is the Bhumij variety in Ichagarh. Here they also speak Tamaria (also known as Panch Pargania), an LWC of the region, and some speak “Khari Boli”, a Hindi derivative.
Balarampur, Purulia
Ichagarh, Singhbhum
The Bhumij of this region were said to speak their mother tongue at home and within the community, as well as a form of Bengali which the people called “Manbhum Bengali.” They were reported to use more borrowing from Bengali (state language of the area until only a few years before the study), when speaking their mother tongue compared to the Bhumij of Bundu and Tamar. However, at that time, they still maintained strong attitudes toward their mother tongue by declaring, “When we use Thar we use Thar only and cannot afford to be laughing stock of others by practising indiscriminate mixture of Bengali into our Thar” (Nigam and Dasgupta 1964:188). In addition, the authors report that nowhere was the shift toward Bengali in adopting forms so prevalent as to make Bhumij Thar imperceptible from Bengali. Elements of “purism” in terms of Bhumij pronunciation persist, especially with regard to the checked (unreleased) consonants word finally (d̚, b̚).
Yet while the data seemed to indicate relative stability of the mother tongue, other signs indicative of shift were observed, such as the tendency of school children to avoid speaking their mother tongue in the schools for fear of ostracism by other children. It was not clear based on Nigam and Dasgupta’s evidence whether a stable diglossia or a tendency toward language shift was occurring. (The latter can truly only be addressed in a diachronic study.)
1.2.5 Linguistic aspects of Bhumij speech
In their research, Nigam and Dasgupta observed certain structural differences between the speech of the Bhumij and that of Standard Mundari with respect to 1) phonetics and phonology, 2) grammar and morphology, and 3) the lexicon. The following section contains a summary of their findings:
1. Phonetics and phonology
• [e] and [o] are articulated higher than in Standard Mundari in a manner that resembles Bengali.
• [ɔ] as a phoneme seems to be adopted by the Bhumij. In some cases it has replaced the Mundari [o].
• The Mundari phoneme [ʔ] is often dropped in Bhumij speech while the preceding vowel is lengthened.
• Checked stops (unreleased stops [d̚] and [b̚]) are used less often.
2. Grammar and morphology
• The animate vs. inanimate distinction prevalent in Munda languages seems to be relaxed in Bhumij.
• Bhumij tends to use personal pronouns as free morphemes (in the manner of Indo-Aryan languages) rather than as a verbal affix (characteristic of Munda languages).
• Bhumij tends to omit the dual marking (a Munda family feature) and uses the word for “two” instead.
• Bhumij includes the use of the Hindi -ko postposition for accusative case and also uses the definite article ta.
• Bhumij appears to make greater use of the Bengali number system than other Munda groups.
• Bhumij uses -abu/bu suffix for future tense (borrowed from Oriya).
3. Lexicon
The researchers observed many borrowings from the neighbouring Indo-Aryan languages, more than what occurs in Standard Mundari.
subjective analysis that, since the Bhumij seem more willing to spread out and live among various groups, their speech has borrowed more heavily from regional languages (especially Bengali at the time of their study) than have other Mundari speeches.
1.2.6 Relationship between Bhumij and Mundari
The relationship between Bhumij and Mundari has been addressed progressively, since the time of Risley (1891, reprinted in 1981:117), who wrote, “There can be no doubt that the Bhumij are closely allied to, if not identical with, the Mundas; but there is little to show that they ever had a distinct language of their own.” In 1927 Grierson reported that the Bhumij tend to speak whatever Munda language is dominant in the area, and that his survey yielded no information to suggest the existence of a separate dialect: “The obvious reason is that Bhumij is not the name of a dialect but of a tribe” (Grierson 1927, reprinted in 1967:95). Evidence from more recent linguistic studies by Bhattacharya (1975) and Nigam and Dasgupta (1964) described dialectal differences between the two. It was the recommendation of Nigam and Dasgupta that further studies be done among the Bhumij from a triangular approach of the three major disciplines of “linguistics, psychology and anthropology” (1964:196) in order to round out understanding of Bhumij speech patterns.
One such aspect, which the survey team felt was lacking, is an investigation of intelligibility. The subjective analysis that one group of people understand another group can have a range of
interpretations that often have more to do with social issues than with linguistic or psychological issues. In addition, often linguistic descriptions alone give a false impression that two groups can understand each other, when actually the complexities of the spoken language make understanding difficult. As a result, it was felt necessary to test the hypothesis that Bhumij and Munda are mutually intelligible. Due to time constraints, only one direction of intelligibility was investigated: the intelligibility of Mundari by the Bhumij.
1.3 Previous survey
A sociolinguistic survey, similar in type to this current study, was carried out primarily among the Ho people between February and April of 1989. Additional research among various groups was conducted in Mayurbhanj district, Orissa, during September 1989. Reports were compiled by Bryan Varenkamp (1989, 1990). During the course of these investigations, researchers collected data from several Bhumij-speaking locations, including questionnaires, wordlists, a narrative story to test intelligibility, and other
information that was of value to this project. Conclusions formulated as a result of those surveys recommended that it would be profitable to conduct an extensive survey among the Bhumij as soon as possible.
1.4 Purpose and goals
The purpose of this sociolinguistic survey among the Bhumij community was to assess the need for literature development and literacy in the vernacular. A secondary purpose of the project originally, but subsequently not pursued, was to ascertain the relationship between the languages of the Khewari sub-branch of the Northern Munda language family.
In order to guide the course of the investigation, the following goals were devised. They are stated below as originally formulated and are listed in general order of importance to the project:
• To evaluate comprehension of Mundari speech by Bhumij speakers.
• To determine the number of Bhumij speakers and the geographical areas they inhabit.
• To identify the domains of language use and ascertain the vitality of the Bhumij language.
• To study the differences, if any, among the various speech varieties spoken by the Bhumij population; and to determine if any particular variety is considered standard, central or pure.
• To investigate the degree of intelligibility between Ho, Santali, Mundari and Bhumij.
• To look into the extent and level of community bilingualism in Oriya, Hindi and Bengali.
2 Linguistic aspects of Bhumij speech found in this survey
2.1 Lexical similarity comparison
One method of gauging the relationship among speech varieties is to compare the degree of similarity in their vocabularies. This is referred to as lexical similarity. And logically, communities that communicate in a speech variety that has more terms in common with another—thus a higher percentage of lexical similarity—understand one another better than do those communities that speak a variety that has fewer terms in common with another. However, lexical similarity alone cannot indicate how well certain speech communities will understand one other, but it does help in gaining an initial view of relationships between languages, and often provides direction for further study.
2.1.1 Procedures
The tool used in determining lexical similarity in this survey was a 210-item2 wordlist, consisting of items of basic vocabulary, which has been standardised and contextualised for use in surveys of this type in South Asia. These wordlists were transcribed using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which is given in Appendix A, and the words collected are presented in Appendix B.3.
Every wordlist was compared with each other wordlist, item by item, to determine whether each item was phonetically similar or not. Those words that were judged similar were grouped together. Once the entire wordlist was evaluated, the total number of word pair similarities was tallied. This amount was then divided by the total number of items compared, producing what is called the lexical similarity percentage. For example, if between two wordlist sites a total of 207 items were compared and 176 of these word pairs were deemed similar, then the lexical similarity percentage would be 176 ÷ 207 (x 100) = 85%.
This process of evaluation was carried out according to standards set forth in Blair 1990:30–33 and facilitated through the use of a computer program called Wordsurv (Wimbish 1989). This program is designed to quickly perform the counting of word pair similarities and to calculate the lexical similarity percentage between each pair of wordlist sites (the geographical locations where the words were gathered). For a fuller description of counting procedures used in determining lexical similarity, refer to Appendix B.1.
2.1.2 Site selection
Many of the wordlists utilised in this survey were obtained from Varenkamp’s work (1989, 1990). This included seven Bhumij, two Mundari, a Bhumij Mundari wordlist, a Santali wordlist from a dictionary and an Oriya wordlist. One Bhumij, one Mundari, one Ho and a Santali wordlist were collected a couple of months before this project commenced. Finally, a Bhumij and a Mundari wordlist were elicited during the investigation. The sites of the wordlists used in the analysis are shown below in table 1, and can be located on map 3.
Table 1. Sites from which wordlists were obtained
Language State District Village
Bhumij Bihar Singhbhum Champi
Bhumij Bihar Singhbhum Ladhiramsai
Bhumij Bihar Singhbhum Munduy
Bhumij Orissa Balasore Baigodia
Bhumij Orissa Mayurbhanj Dighinuasahi
Bhumij Orissa Mayurbhanj Dumadie
Bhumij Orissa Mayurbhanj Madhupur
Bhumij Orissa Mayurbhanj Mohuldiha
Bhumij Orissa Mayurbhanj Podadiha
Mundari Bihar Ranchi Chalagi
Mundari Orissa Mayurbhanj Dhungarisai
Mundari Orissa Sundargarh Jharmunda
Mundari (Dictionary)
Bihar Ranchi ——
Bhumij Mundari Orissa Mayurbhanj Udala
Ho Orissa Mayurbhanj Dillisore
Santali Orissa Mayurbhanj Nayarangamot
ia Santali
(Dictionary)
Bihar Santal Parganas (?)
——
Oriya Orissa Cuttack ——
2.1.3 Results and analysis
Table 2. Lexical similarity organised by percentages within each speech variety
B – Podadiha, Mayurbhanj 96 B – Madhupur, Mayurbhanj 94 91 B – Dumadie, Mayurbhanj 92 86 86 B – Champi, Singhbhum
86 83 83 82 B – Mohuldiha, Mayurbhanj Bhumij speech varieties 85 80 82 85 79 B – Munduy, Singhbhum
85 83 81 81 78 75 B/M – Udala, Mayurbhanj 84 82 81 81 80 76 89 B – Baigodia, Balasore
84 78 79 79 76 77 82 81 B – Ladhiramsai, Singhbhum 77 73 74 75 77 73 83 81 77 B – Dighinuasahi, Mayurbhanj 83 81 80 79 76 74 94 87 80 79 M – Dhungarisai, Mayurbhanj
78 72 76 74 72 73 78 74 83 73 75 M – Dictionary, Mundari speech variety 78 72 76 73 74 77 69 71 74 68 67 79 M – Jharmunda, Sundargarh 77 70 72 72 71 71 74 72 82 74 72 84 74 M – Chalagi, Ranchi
75 71 71 71 69 72 71 70 80 66 69 75 74 77 H – Dillisore, Mayurbhanj Ho 71 69 72 68 72 66 67 71 65 72 66 65 68 65 61 S – Nayarangamotia, Mayurbhanj 73 69 70 66 66 63 67 70 73 64 67 76 66 68 69 79 S – Dictionary Santali 20 20 17 20 20 19 18 21 13 18 21 13 12 10 15 18 17 Oriya (Cuttack)
The lexical similarity chart in table 3 is organised by geographic location, roughly from north to south, except in the case of Jharmunda (since it is further west) and the non-Bhumij and Mundari sites.
Table 3. Lexical similarity organised by geography within each speech variety
B – Ladhiramsai, Singhbhum 79 B – Champi, Singhbhum
76 82 B – Mohuldiha, Mayurbhanj 78 86 83 B – Madhupur, Mayurbhanj
79 86 83 91 B – Dumadie, Mayurbhanj Bhumij speech varieties 84 92 86 96 94 B – Podadiha, Mayurbhanj
77 85 79 80 82 85 B – Munduy, Singhbhum
77 75 77 73 74 77 73 B – Dighinuasahi, Mayurbhanj 82 81 78 83 81 85 75 83 B/M – Udala, Mayurbhanj 81 81 80 82 81 84 76 81 89 B – Baigodia, Balasore 82 72 71 70 72 77 71 74 74 72 M – Chalagi, Ranchi
83 74 72 72 76 78 73 73 78 74 84 M – Dictionary, Mundari speech varieties 80 79 76 81 80 83 74 79 94 87 72 75 M – Dhungarisai, Mayurbhanj 74 73 74 72 76 78 77 68 69 71 74 79 67 M – Jharmunda, Sundargarh 80 71 69 71 71 75 72 66 71 70 77 75 69 74 H – Dillisore, Mayurbhanj Ho 73 66 66 69 70 73 63 64 67 70 68 76 67 66 69 S – Dictionary Santali
65 68 72 69 72 71 66 72 67 71 65 65 66 68 61 79 S – Nayarangamotia, Mayurbhanj 13 20 20 20 17 20 19 18 18 21 10 13 21 12 15 17 18 Oriya (Cuttack)
Bhumij and Mundari vocabulary
some difference exists, but not sufficient enough to warrant a separate language classification, especially since Mundari wordlist sites in comparison with one other only average 77% similar (10 comparisons, including the Bhumij Mundari wordlist). Because of this, it is not possible to say from the data that Bhumij and Mundari are separate languages.
One issue that should be investigated is the relative homogeneity of Mundari, especially in
comparison with Bhumij. One might expect to find the Mundari sites to show higher scores when making Mundari-internal comparisons than the Bhumij sites in Bhumij-internal comparisons. This would be based on various descriptions of Bhumij, particularly of Risley (1891, reprinted in 1981), who says the Bhumij tend to adopt the speech forms of whatever place they are living. Many Bhumij communities in West Bengal have cut ties with the tribal groups and have assimilated to Bengali language and culture.
If this view of the Bhumij as a non-conservative group is accurate, much greater variation would be expected between their wordlist sites than found in the more conservative Mundari locations. This question cannot be adequately addressed due to the lack of sufficient Mundari data (one of the wordlists is from a dictionary, and is therefore not strictly comparable). Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that the Bhumij wordlist points appear to show more homogeneity than the Mundari wordlist points. This might be evidence for a set of distinctly “Bhumij” vocabulary within Mundari (not separate since the Bhumij-Mundari comparisons are high). As it stands, however, it cannot be concluded whether the lower in-group scores for Mundari are a reflection of the wider geographic spread of the sites (bringing down the in-group average), or if indeed Mundari is a macro language subsuming Bhumij (as early research suggests). Additional Mundari wordlists could help clarify this issue.
There is a large degree of variation (73–96%) when comparing Bhumij wordlists with each other, which does not seem explainable by geographical location. Both the southern Mayurbhanj district sites (Udala & Baigodia) have scores in the mid-70s to mid-80s when comparing with the sites clustered around the Bihar-Orissa border. The only exception to this may be Dighinuasahi which shows less similarity (mid-70s) with the border sites to the north. The Bhumij wordlist percentages appear to indicate no clear dialect groupings.
One question raised in the Varenkamp report (1989) was whether the people of Udala considered their speech Bhumij or Mundari. As it turns out, this issue of ambiguous language identity became one of the motivating questions for this project. The lexical similarity percentages in the previous charts seem to indicate that the Udala wordlist is slightly closer to the vocabulary of Bhumij sites than to that of Mundari sites—if such a distinction can be made.
Comparison with neighbouring languages
While not central to the team’s research goals, two Santali wordlists and a Ho wordlist from Varenkamp’s reports were used in the lexical similarity comparison. If these lists can be taken as representing their respective languages, the lexical similarity percentages confirm the belief that Santali is more distinct (68% similar on average) from Bhumij and Mundari. Ho seems to share slightly more resemblance (72% average) with the Bhumij and Mundari wordlists. Oriya, the Indo-Aryan state language of Orissa, not surprisingly shares very little in common (10–21%) with the Munda family wordlists.
2.2 Intelligibility testing
Since only elicited words are being analysed (and in this survey, just 210), lexical similarity yields tentative results as to the relationship between various speech varieties. Lexical similarity comparisons cannot predict how well people in different areas understand the speech of one another. An intelligibility study is needed to obtain this type of information, which allows a look into the approximate
2.2.1 Procedures
Intelligibility of Mundari speech among Bhumij speakers was studied with the help of Recorded Text Tests (RTT). Mundari stories were recorded on cassette and were taken to various Bhumij-speaking sites for testing. Mother tongue Bhumij speakers listened to the recorded stories and were asked questions interspersed in the story to test their comprehension. Ten people were considered the minimum number to be given this test, and subjects’ responses to the story questions were noted down and scored. A person’s score is considered a reflection of his comprehension of the text, and the average score of all the subjects is indicative of the community’s intelligibility of the speech variety spoken in the location from where the story originated. Included with the test point’s average score is a calculation for the variation between individual subjects’ scores, or standard deviation, which helps in interpreting how
representative those scores are.
After each story, subjects were asked questions such as how different they felt the speech was and how much they could understand of it. These subjective post-RTT responses give an additional
perspective in interpreting the objective test data. If a subject’s answers to these questions are comparable with his or her score, it gives more certainty to the results. If, however, the post-RTT responses and test score show some dissimilarity, then this discrepancy can be investigated.
Bhumij speakers were permitted to take tests of the Mundari stories only if they could perform well on a test developed in their own dialect. This preliminary test, called a hometown test (HTT), eliminates people who essentially cannot understand the test-taking procedure. Hometown testing with mother tongue speakers of the same speech variety as that on the cassette also validates the text for use at other sites. Questions which appear to have not been adequately understood by hometown test subjects are eliminated from the final test version.
For a fuller description of recorded text testing, refer to Appendix C.1 as well as to Casad 1974. Demographic profiles of the subjects at each site, their test scores on the HTT and RTTs, and post-RTT responses are presented in Appendix C.2. The stories and questions used in the testing appear in Appendix C.3.
2.2.2 Site selection
The Mundari speech spoken in Ranchi district of Bihar is considered to be the standard variety of that language. It is the variety in which radio programmes are broadcast and books are written. For testing, two forms of the speech were obtained. One was a personal-experience narrative, such as that described in Appendix C.1. The other was a passage read from the Mundari Bible, published in 1911. The text was the story of the lost son, taken from Luke 15:11–32, and selected because of its simplicity. The personal-experience story was given by a Mundari speaker living about 30 kilometres south of Ranchi, and the Lost Son text was read by a man living now in Ranchi who has been involved in Mundari radio broadcasts for about ten years.
The Bhumij sites chosen for testing were areas that were reported to have a concentration of Bhumij speakers. It was also considered important to test in areas where there were few Mundari-speaking communities, so that theoretically, intelligibility acquired through contact would not overly influence subjects’ performance. The three sites that were selected were Dighinuasahi village in Mayurbhanj district of Orissa, Munduy village in Paschim Singhbhum district of Bihar, and Heseldipa village in Bihar’s Purba Singhbhum district.
2.2.3 Results and analysis
The results of intelligibility testing of Mundari speech among Bhumij speakers in various sites are given in table 4. The columns of the table are the stories which were used for testing, called the reference point. The rows consist of the subjects at each site who took the tests, called the test point. The scores of each hometown test are shown with a double border.
Key:
avg average score for all subjects sd standard deviation
num number of subjects
Hometown test scores
Table 4. Results of Recorded Text Testing among Mundari and Bhumij-speaking sites
Reference Point
no testing done no testing done
Results of the Mundari “Ghost” story
The Mundari Ghost story received high averages at the three Bhumij-speaking sites. The percentages of 88, 90 and 91 show good comprehension and understanding of the Mundari colloquial story. The low variation of scores between sites also gives indication that subjects in the three locations understood the narrative equally well.
In Dighinuasahi, one subject scored 61 percent on the Ghost story, which increased the standard deviation significantly and decreased the average score slightly.3 The total number of vocabulary items compared is sometimes less than 210 for certain wordlists, usually because a particular item is not familiar to the language assistants or the proper word cannot be obtained. The fact that the subject was a 50 year old male with an undermatric education was not cause for his lower score, as there were other subjects, male and female, older and younger, educated and uneducated who performed well on the test.
In addition, this subject passed the hometown test, demonstrating he was basically familiar with the testing procedure, and scored above the test average on the subsequent Lost Son story.
In response to post-RTT questions, some subjects in Dighinuasahi either did not know, or were not sure where the Ghost story originated. Two subjects thought it was from Bihar, and a few felt the story was from a nearby place. While two subjects commented that the speech in the story “is our language,” most said it was slightly different, generally mentioning that it was mixed with Ho. Nine of the thirteen subjects said they understood the story fully, and the subject who scored 61 acknowledged that he understood about half. Interestingly, three subjects who said the speech of the story was “different” and “not same” and “understood only 50 percent” scored 89, 93, and 100 respectively.
In Munduy, much the same situation as in Dighinuasahi occurred, as one subject scored 64 and another scored 75.4 Though both of these subjects were uneducated older females, two other subjects who were also uneducated older females each scored 93. These subjects not only passed the hometown test, but performed well on the Lost Son story. Why these subjects did relatively poorly on the Ghost story is not clear.
In response to post-RTT questions in Munduy, four of the eleven subjects correctly identified the story as Mundari. All four of these subjects (including the subject who scored 75 percent) noted that the language in the story was a little different, but that everything was understandable. A few other subjects gave similar reviews. The subject who scored 64 percent said the speech on the recording was “very different” and that she could not understand everything.
In Heseldipa, three subjects identified the narrative as Mundari, and said it was a little different. Several subjects thought it was Ho language from the Chaibasa area. More people at Heseldipa
acknowledged a difference between the speech of the narrative and their speech, even though Heseldipa is closer to the story’s origin than the other two RTT sites. Four of the twelve5 subjects admitted they could not understand the story fully. It was at this village that a few subjects said they were confused during the testing since the speech was different between that of the story and that of the test questions (which were recorded in the subjects’ dialect).
Results of the Mundari “Lost Son” story
The “Lost Son” story from the Mundari New Testament averaged between 73 and 82 in the three Bhumij-speaking sites. The scores are lower than for the Ghost story, which probably reflects the fact that the text is a more archaic variety of speech. Even so, the averages indicate that the story was understandable to most Bhumij speakers.
In Dighinuasahi, subjects had mixed impressions from listening to the recording regarding where they thought the story originated. Many believed it was from nearby areas, possibly because they felt the text was mixed with the Ho language. Most of the thirteen subjects said that the speech was a little different than theirs, though only five people reported that they fully understood the story. Three people identified the story as being from the Bible. Their scores – 75, 84, and 86 – were not significantly different from the average of 76 percent6 to make a difference in the overall score.
In Munduy, many subjects had no idea where the story was from or precisely what language it was. Subjects gave varying reviews to the speech of the text, saying it was mixed with one or more of the following languages: Bhumij, Ho, Mundari and Santali. Almost all of the eleven subjects thought the
4Eliminating these subjects from the scoring, the results would be: avg = 96, sd = 4.3.
5Table 6 for the Ghost story at Heseldipa shows only 10 subjects taking the test. This is because one subject failed the hometown test and another did not complete the test. Both subjects, however, responded to the post-RTT questions.
speech was only a little different than theirs, and everyone remarked that they understood everything of the story.
In Heseldipa, as with the Ghost story, a few subjects said that they were confused with the change in languages during the testing, saying in effect, “the story is in a different language and the questions are in my language.” Three of nine7 subjects thought the story was Ho, while four subjects identified the speech in the story as Mundari, since they had heard the language before. Out of these four subjects, three remarked that they understood everything in the story in addition to two others. The remainder of the subjects commented they could not fully understand the story.
3 Social aspects of Bhumij speech found in this survey
This chapter describes more social aspects of the Bhumij people and their speech, exploring the topics of language use, language attitudes and bilingualism. A sociolinguistic questionnaire (SLQ) composed primarily of open-ended questions was used, along with observations of the researchers. The
questionnaire was administered in only seven sites, usually to a small group. Needless to say, results and conclusions must be taken lightly and tentatively. The questionnaire is shown in Appendix D.1, while subjects’ responses to the questionnaire are presented in Appendix D.2.
3.1 Language use
A study of language use patterns attempts to describe which languages or speech varieties members of a community use in different social situations, referred to as domains. Domains are social contexts in which the choice to use a certain language variety is more apt to be appropriate than the use of another language variety (Fasold 1984:183). A look into language use patterns can indicate the language(s) used in certain domains and reveal the current status and strength of a language. Since language use patterns vary significantly among the Bhumij community in the three states where they reside, the discussion will describe the situation state by state.
3.1.1 Language use in Bihar
In the state of Bihar, it appears that the Bhumij are usually continuing to speak Bhumij. The questionnaire was asked in the RTT sites of Munduy and Heseldipa, in addition to a village near
Heseldipa. Language assistants in all three sites responded that they speak Bhumij with family members in the home. Bhumij was reported by these respondents to be used with friends, children and leaders in the village, as well as for private prayer and religious discussions. Children are growing up speaking Bhumij as their first language.
Respondents from Heseldipa, in particular, had quite strong feelings in continuing to speak Bhumij. The village headman stated, “We want to keep our language alive. That is why we are not mixing so much with other groups, and why there is a cultural office nearby.” It was asked what would happen if a Bengali-speaking family moved nearby – would his children be influenced to learn Bengali? The response was, “Our children will not do that.” Although this might appear to be more of a wish than reality, it does indicate strong attitudes in that village to maintain their language. During intelligibility testing in Heseldipa, time was taken out to record a group of men singing several Bhumij songs.
The area around Nimdih, 20 kilometres north of Jamshedpur and near the West Bengal border, is an interesting area in terms of language use among the Bhumij. This location is near Ichagarh, site of linguistic studies carried out by Nigam and Dasgupta as discussed earlier, who found a situation of both language conservatism and shift. Nimdih was visited by two members of the survey team, who
interviewed an educational worker who is running more than 100 schools and literacy programmes among tribals in West Singhbhum and adjacent districts. He stated that the Bhumij people in the area speak Bengali language as their mother tongue. Children who go to school are studying in Bengali medium, as the parents desired their children to learn in Bengali (though this area is in Bihar, Bengali is the LWC and medium of education). The team also talked with several Bhumij people from surrounding villages who were at his office for meetings. They all stated that their families and respective villages are not speaking Bhumij, but Bengali, and that is the language being passed along to the children.
3.1.2 Language use in Orissa
The use of the Bhumij language appeared to be strong in Dighinuasahi. In this site, the main language assistant for the questionnaire stated he uses Bhumij with members of the family, with fellow villagers, and for private prayer and religious discussions. The researchers believe that the language assistant’s viewpoint also extended to the rest of the village.
In the northern part of Mayurbhanj district, a different and somewhat surprising situation was encountered. In an area approximately 30 kilometres south of Rairangpur, the team talked briefly with a Bhumij man who related that he speaks Oriya in his home and it is the language spoken within his village. He also mentioned that people in the village have changed their titles to Nayak, an Oriya caste title.
The survey team then met Bhumij people at a brick-making factory. Most of the people working there were from Podadiha village, around four kilometres away. A young man of about 25 said he speaks Oriya in the home with his parents as well as inside the village. He said they have always spoken Oriya, though it is a local version of Oriya – not a pure or standard variety. Another man remarked that he does not know any area where Bhumij people are speaking their original language. Another individual
commented that though they still consider themselves a tribe, they have adopted the Nayak caste title. What is interesting is that information collected on the Mayurbhanj and Ho surveys (Varenkamp 1989, 1990) found the presence of Bhumij speakers in this area. A Bhumij wordlist was collected from Podadiha. Dumadie village, the origin of a Bhumij RTT story, appears from maps in Varenkamp’s reports to be only a short distance from Podadiha. Field notes about Dumadie record that the people claim to speak a mixture of Ho, Bhumij, and Oriya and are losing their language. However, no one with whom the team spoke had heard of the village nor of a nearby town, so it was not possible to visit the site to assess the actual situation.
3.1.3 Language use in West Bengal
In West Bengal, the situation appears to be a shift to Bengali as the mother tongue in nearly every section of the state. This phenomenon was documented over 100 years ago by Risley (1891, reprinted in 1981:117) who writes about the Bhumij living in what is now much of West Bengal. He states, “On the eastern side of the Ajodhya range, which forms a complete barrier to ordinary communication, all is changed. Both the Mundari language and the title of Munda have dropped out of use, and they… talk Bengali.”
To confirm this occurrence, Bhumij villages in Purulia and Medinapur districts of the state were visited. In Purulia district, two villages declared they were speaking Bengali as their mother tongue, and it was the language the children were learning and speaking in the home. The people in these sites mentioned they had made this language shift two or three generations previously. Recorded texts of the Mundari Ghost story and Bhumij story from Dumadie were played for a few individuals. No one could understand any of the speech except for two older ladies who knew “Bhumij Thar.” However, they had grown up in the Bundu/Tamar area and had moved to Purulia district when they were married, and as a result learned Bengali.
are, however, census reports of Bhumij people in Bankura, North and South Twenty-four Parganas, Hooghly and Nadia districts. The survey team did not visit these areas, partly because of time constraints and lack of contacts, and also because there did not appear to be convincing evidence that the Bhumij in those areas are speaking anything other than Bengali as their mother tongue. The numbers of Bhumij in those districts are relatively small and the areas are generally more urbanised and developed than the districts of Medinapur and Purulia.
At a site near Keshiary, questionnaire language assistants called their language “diverted Bengali,” claiming their language is not Bengali, nor Oriya—at least the pure, standard varieties of those languages (Oriya was mentioned because their location is near the border of Orissa). Originally, their mother tongue was “Thar bhasha.” They still have marriage relationships with the Bhumij of Bundu/Tamar area, and will intermarry even if spouces don’t speak Bengali. When the Bhumij people of West Bengal travel to Bihar, they communicate in Hindi with the Bhumij people there.
An interesting conversation with a Bhumij school administrator working near Keshiary revealed that his mother tongue is Bengali, but that he is actually trying to learn his traditional mother tongue, which he termed Mundari. He did not learn Mundari from his parents, and is now learning from older people, when he goes to their village and meets them in the market. He stated there are a couple of villages in the area where people are still speaking Bhumij/Mundari. He lamented that today children are becoming more modernised and are adopting new customs, “They are still speaking Bhumij in the home, but…the Munda are losing their mother tongue.” The reason given for this was because their language does not have a script. This gentleman went on to comment that nowhere are there any Bhumij people trying to preserve and hold on to their language like the Santalis, and that there has been no one to uplift and develop the Bhumij community.
Again near Keshiary, the group met a Bhumij school teacher who related that when he was a university student in Medinapur district, he and nine other Bhumij students decided they wanted to preserve their language—just like the Santali people. So in 1989, they spent 2,500 rupees to produce a booklet in the Bhumij language (in Bengali script), and held meetings in various Bhumij locations to promote their language and literacy. These meetings failed, though, as the people said they could not understand the script. This teacher says he is speaking Mundari in the home, though his children are growing up speaking Bengali, since his wife does not speak Mundari well. However, he does encourage people in his village to continue to speak their language, but most of them are reluctant to do so. And when they do try to speak, they make mistakes and cannot speak at deep levels of conversation.
In summary, language use patterns among the Bhumij vary from region to region. In Bihar, except for a section near the West Bengal border that has shifted to Bengali, the Bhumij are speaking Bhumij in the home and family domains. In Orissa, it appears that in the northern part of Mayurbhanj district, the Bhumij have either already shifted or are in the process of shifting to Oriya, while the Bhumij in the southern part of the district are continuing to speak Bhumij as the vernacular. In West Bengal, there are several areas where Bengali is used as the mother tongue, other areas in the state where the shift to Bengali is almost complete, and a few isolated spots where the people are retaining Bhumij as their mother tongue.
3.2 Language attitudes
A study of language attitudes in this particular survey attempts to describe people’s feelings and preferences towards their own language and other speech varieties around them, what value they place on those languages, and the impressions they have of the relative “purity” of their speech with regard to some nearby respected form of speech. Ultimately, these views, whether explicit or unexpressed, will influence the results of efforts toward literacy and the acceptability of literature development.
questionnaire used in this survey tend to also correspond with the responses to the questionnaire used among Bhumij people during Varenkamp’s investigation.
3.2.1 Attitudes toward the mother tongue
While other indicators of vitality may not have seemed favourable (total language shift in much of West Bengal and partial shift in Orissa), the Bhumij generally responded positively when asked about the value of their mother tongue. (The true assessment of what value they place on its maintenance can only be measured through observations of language use.) This can be seen in the responses to questionnaires probing such issues as language purity and desirability of using Bhumij in the home. Responses to all of these questions were favourable with respect to the vitality of Bhumij speech. In none of the Bhumij-speaking places the team visited were negative attitudes toward their mother tongue found.
Three additional attitudinal factors seem to be positive indicators of mother tongue vitality: 1) all subjects from the seven sites said they would not allow their children to marry someone who spoke another language, 2) all of the Bhumij-speaking people responded that they felt Bhumij was better than either Hindi or Oriya, and 3) most subjects commented that if found in conversation with fellow Bhumij-speakers, and an Oriya (or other LWC) speaker joins the group, they would not necessarily change to speaking the LWC for them.
3.2.2 Attitudes toward Mundari
Many people were asked whether they felt that Bhumij and Mundari were the same or different.
Responses varied from place to place. For example, in Dighinuasahi people said Bhumij and Mundari are the same language, whereas those in Munduy responded that Bhumij and Mundari are very different, mainly with regard to word use, style of speech, and pronunciation. What may seem clear is that Bhumij and Mundari are not exactly the same and not exactly different.
The variations in people’s responses might have to do with the level of specificity with which each was addressing the question (i.e., if respondents were thinking about intelligibility, they might respond that two speech varieties are the same, whereas if they were thinking of accent or regional
characteristics, they might respond that the speech varieties are different). Many times Bhumij
individuals responded that their mother tongue was Mundari, but, as is sometimes the case among non-standard languages throughout South Asia, people are accustomed to referring to their speech with the same title they use to describe their particular social group, i.e., “Bhumij.”
Also, it is interesting that in response to the post-RTT questions, many people felt the stories were good but also mixed (with Ho or Santali, usually depending on which group was more dominant in the area). The stories that were chosen were from the “heart” of the Mundari-speaking area. The colloquial story came from villages where only Mundaris were living. The literary story also was based out of Ranchi district. That the various respondents from all of the sites were not able to agree that it was “pure” Mundari (they were not told what language was on the recording; some thought the speech was Bhumij) raises questions as to whether it is possible to actually find a Mundari speech sample which a group of Bhumij people could consider “pure.”
Also, there were several Bhumij RTT subjects who thought or knew the stories they had listened to were Mundari, so it is profitable to look at their responses to the post-RTT questions. The responses of these individuals were generally similar to those subjects who could not identify the texts as Mundari, giving some indication of no negative attitudes toward Mundari simply because they knew it was the language on the recording.
3.2.3 Receptivity toward language development
purposes, especially when religion dictates that certain languages are more suited for writing than others. It is vital to learn of such attitudes prior to beginning any kind of language development project. No such negative attitudes towards writing Bhumij were found among the people the team surveyed. Most respondents expressed interest in a Bhumij literacy program. Many said they would read Mundari texts if given a chance, although some commented they would read it but not take interest. Some felt their pronunciation would not be good.
Another issue revolves around the “script and ethnic identity” belief discussed in K. S. Singh 1993. The Jharkhand region, where many Bhumij reside, has been a site of much argumentation over script issues. Some tribal political leaders feel that indigenous scripts are necessary for the preservation of their tribal identity. In an interview with Ram Dayal Munda, leading Munda scholar associated with Ranchi University, it was learned that up to nine indigenous scripts have been developed for writing Mundari, yet none of them has received widespread acceptance. The choice to use existing state language scripts, on the other hand, raises the issue as to which one, since the Bhumij people are distributed throughout three states. This is an important issue to be addressed should any literature development or literacy be undertaken.
3.3 Bilingualism
Bilingualism can be defined as the ability to speak two languages without regard to the level of fluency in the second language. Multilingualism refers to the ability to speak more than two languages. This process occurs either through formal learning and/or as a result of informal interaction with speakers of other languages.
In this survey, since intelligibility testing was carried out using a language that already has
literature, bilingualism of the Bhumij in the LWCs of the area (Hindi, Oriya and Bengali) was considered to be a secondary factor to investigate. More relevant in this situation would be to evaluate bilingualism of the Bhumij in other Munda languages, such as Ho and Santali. We already know that there is a foundation of linguistic similarity among these languages, and a significant amount of contact in certain places. Thus, due to the seemingly adaptive nature of the Bhumij people to different environments, it is speculated whether some Bhumij communities might show a high degree of proficiency in at least one other Munda language to comprehend literture in that language, possibly more so than in Mundari.
4 Recommendations
If anything certain emerges from this sociolinguistic survey, it is that from the point of view of this author a separate new language development project for the Bhumij is not necessary. Intelligibility testing indicates that most Bhumij understand colloquial Mundari speech well. Bhumij individuals had more difficulty comprehending The Lost Son story read from the Mundari literature. The older style of speech in this story likely contributed to the lower scores. Whether the averages on that story at the three sites tested are low enough so that adaptation from the Mundari literature is needed for the Bhumij, the numbers do not give full clarity.
From a sociological perspective, the researchers feel that a separate language development project —albeit an adaptation—could codify linguistic differences that might not be significant. In addition, this could have the effect of creating unwanted distinctions between the two communities. Though
acknowledging a degree of difference between the Bhumij and Mundari both in terms of their speech and identity as people groups, the researchers believe there seems to be no clear, marked difference between their speech varieties. It may be that a distinct or standard variety of Bhumij speech does not exist, and the language spoken by the Bhumij in different areas is simply various varieties of Mundari.
Furthermore, the researchers found no indication of negative attitudes toward the Mundari people or language that might prevent the Bhumij from accepting Mundari literature.
23
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
Consonants
Bilabial Labio-dental
Dental Alveo-lar
Postal-veolar
Alveo-palatal
Retro-flex
Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn-geal
Glottal
Plosive p b t̪ d̪ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k g q ɢ ʔ
Nasal m ɱ n̪ n ɳ ɲ ŋ ɴ
Fricative ɸ β f v θ ð s z ʃ ʒ ɕ ʑ ʂ ʐ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ h ɦ
Affricate pɸ bβ t̪s d̪z ts dz tʃ dʒ tɕ dʑ
Lateral l ɭ ʎ ʟ
Lateral
fric. ɬ ɮ
Flap ɾ ɽ
Trill ʙ r ʀ
Approxi mant
w ʋ ɹ ɻ j ɰ
Consonant Diacritics
Aspirated h tʃh Labialised w bw Ejective ' p' Voiced ̬ k̬
Velar/ Pharyngeal ised
̴ l̴ Palatalised j nj Unreleased ̚ ʈ̚ Voiceless ̥ d̥
Vowels8
Front Central Back
Unrounded Rounded Unrounded Rounded Unrounded Rounded
Close i y ɨ ʉ ɯ u
Near-close ɪ ʏ ʊ
Close-mid e ø ɤ o
Mid ə ɵ
Open-mid ɛ œ ɜ ʌ ɔ
Near-open æ ɐ
Open a ɶ ɑ ɒ
Vowel Diacritics
Nasalisation ̃ ẽ
Long ː iː
Centralised ̈ ö
8Wordlists and recorded text tests were transcribed using different phonetic systems, particularly in regard to vowels. For the purposes of the data in this report and its appendices, the symbols /ə/, /ɐ/, /ʌ/, and /ɑ/ are
Appendix B1
Lexical Similarity Counting Procedures9
A standardised list of 210 vocabulary items was collected from speakers at key locations for each of the language varieties studied in this survey. In standard procedure, the 210 words are elicited from a person who has grown up in the target locality. Ideally, the list is then collected a second time from another speaker at the same site. Any differences in responses are examined in order to identify (1) inaccurate responses due to misunderstanding of the elicitation cue, (2) loan words offered in response to the language of elicitation, when indigenous terms are actually still in use; and (3) terms which are at different places along the generic-specific lexical scale. Normally, a single term is recorded for each item of the wordlist. However, more than one term is recorded for a single item when more than one specific term occupies the semantic area of a more generic item on the wordlist.
The wordlists are compared to determine the extent to which the vocabulary of each pair of speech forms is similar. No attempt is made to identify genuine cognates based on a network of sound
correspondences. Rather, two items are judged to be phonetically similar, if at least half of the segments compared are the same (category 1), and of the remaining segments at least half are similar (category 2). For example, if two items of eight segments in length are compared, these words are judged to be
similar, if at least four segments are virtually the same and at least two more are similar. The criteria applied are as follows:
Category 1
• Contoid (consonant-like) segments which match exactly.
• Vocoid (vowel-like) segments which match exactly or differ by only one articulatory feature.
• Phonetically similar segments (of the sort which frequently are found as allophones) which are seen to correspond in at least three pairs of words.
Category 2
• All other phonetically similar non-vocalic pairs of segments which are not supported by at least three pairs of words.
• Vowels which differ by two or more articulatory features.
Category 3
• Pairs of segments which are not phonetically similar.
• A segment which is matched by no segment in the corresponding item and position.
Blair (1990:32) writes, “In contextualizing these rules to specific surveys in South Asia, the following differences between two items are ignored: (a) interconsonantal [ə], (b) word initial, word final, or intervocalic [h, ɦ], (c) any deletion which is shown to be the result of a regularly occurring process in a specific environment.”
The following table summarises lower threshold limits for considering words as phonetically similar with a specified length (number of segments or phones):
Word Length
Category One
Category Two
Category Three
2 2 0 0
3 2 1 0
4 2 1 1
5 3 1 1
6 3 2 1
7 4 2 1
8 4 2 2
9 5 2 2
10 5 3 2
11 6 3 2
12 6 3 3
After pairs of items on two wordlists had been determined to be phonetically similar or dissimilar according to the criteria stated above, the percentage of items judged similar was calculated. This procedure was repeated for all linguistic varieties under consideration in the survey. The pair by pair counting procedure was greatly facilitated by use of the Wordsurv computer program.
Appendix B2
Wordlist information and language assistant biodata
Title: B – Baigodia, Balasore Language: Bhumij
Village: Baigodia Tahsil: Opada District: Balasore State: Orissa
Date elicited: 1 April 1989 Recorded by: PKD
Language Assistant: SS Sex: M Age: 60
Title: B – Champi, Singhbhum Language: Bhumij
Village: Champi Tahsil: Ghatsila District: Singhbhum State: Bihar
Date elicited: 17 April 1989 Recorded by: PKD
Language Assistant: NS Sex: M Age: 50
Title: B – Dighinuasahi, Mayurbhanj Date elicited: 20 July 1996
Language Assistant: PS Mother tongue (MT): Bhumij Father’s MT: Bhumij
Mother’s MT: Bhumij Name of tribe: Bhumij Birthplace: Dighinuasahi Current residence: Dighinuasahi Sex: M Age: 61
Education: 3rd standard Occupation: Farmer Marital status: Married
Other languages spoken: Oriya, Santali
Travel to other locations: Ranchi, near Calcutta, Cuttack for working
Transcribed by: MJ Elicited by: SR
Language of elicitation: Oriya
Title: B – Dumadie, Mayurbhanj Language: Bhumij
Village: Dumadie Tahsil: Rairangpur District: Mayurbhanj State: Orissa
Date elicited: 8 March 1989 Recorded by: PKD
Language Assistant: US Sex: M Age: 30
Title: B – Ladhiramsai, Singhbhum Language: Bhumij
Village: Ladhiramsai Tahsil: Bandgaon District: Singhbhum State: Bihar
Date elicited: 16 March 1989 Recorded by: Bruce Cain Language Assistant: SS Sex: M Age: 27
Title: B – Madhupur, Mayurbhanj Language: (Sardar) Bhumij Village: Madhupur
Tahsil: Rairangpur District: Mayurbhanj State: Orissa
Date elicited: 21 September 1989 Recorded by: PKD
Title: B – Mohuldiha, Mayurbhanj Date elicited: 26 July 1996 Language Assistant: NS Mother tongue (MT): Bhumij Father’s MT: Bhumij
Mother’s MT: Bhumij Name of tribe: Bhumij Birthplace: Mohuldiha
Other languages spoken: Oriya, Hindi, Bengali Travel to other locations: Baripada, Karanjia Transcribed by: MJ
Elicited by: SB
Language of elicitation: Oriya
Title: B – Munduy, W Singhbhum Language: Bhumij
Village: Munduy
Tahsil: Kulhani (Jaganathapur P.S.) District: West Singhbhum
State: Bihar
Date elicited: 22 October 1996 Elicited by: SS
Transcribed by: MJ Language Assistant: LS Sex: M Age: 45
Title: B – Podadiha, Mayurbhanj Language: Bhumij
Village: Podadiha Tahsil: Rairangpur District: Mayurbhanj State: Orissa
Date elicited: 19 April 1989 Recorded by: DB
Language Assistant: SS Sex: M Age: 35
Title: M/B – Udala, Mayurbhanj Language: Mundari? Bhumij? Village: Joranota, Kisandai, Khaladi Taluk: Udala
District: Mayurbhanj State: Orissa
Date elicited: 11 Sept, 1989 at Baripada Ashram Elicited by: BV and PD
Lg. of elicitation: Hindi & Oriya, some Mundari
Title: M – Chalagi, Ranchi Date elicited: 30 September 1996 Language Assistant: CKS
Mother tongue (MT): Mundari Father’s MT: Mundari
Mother’s MT: Mundari Spouse’s MT: Mundari Name of tribe: Munda Birthplace: Chalagi Current residence: Chalagi Sex: M Age: 36
Education: Non-matric Occupation: Agriculture
Other languages spoken: Mundari and Hindi Transcribed by: MSR, MJ
Elicited by: MSR, MJ, Troy Bailey Recorded by: Troy Bailey
Language of elicitation: Hindi and English
Title: M – Dictionary Language: Mundari Location: Ranchi, Bihar (?) From: Mundari-English Dictionary Recorded by: B and B
Date elicited: published 1928
Title: M – Dhungarisai, Mayurbhanj Village name: Dhungarisai
Taluk: Baldia District: Mayurbhanj State: Orissa
Date elicited: 14 September 1989 Recorded by: BV
Elicited by: mostly PD
Language of elicitation: Oriya, some Mundari
Title: M – Jharmunda, Sundargarh Date elicited: 25 August 1996 Language Assistant: JK Mother tongue (MT): Munda Father’s MT: Munda
Mother’s MT: Munda
Name of tribe: Santali Munda Birthplace: Jharmunda
Other languages spoken: Oriya, Hindi, Sadri Travel to other locations: Cuttack, Delhi, Bihar Transcribed by: MJ
Title: H – Dillisore, Mayurbhanj Date elicited: 8 August 1996 Language Assistant: GT Mother tongue (MT): Ho Father’s MT: Ho
Mother’s MT: Ho
Name of tribe: Ho (Tiria clan) Birthplace: Dillisore
Current residence: Baripada (Leprosy Ashram) How long: 2 years, 6 months
Sex: M Age: 16 Education: 4th class Marital status: Single
Other languages spoken: Oriya, Santali Travel to other locations: No
Transcribed by: MJ Elicited by: JM
Language of elicitation: Oriya
Title: S – Dictionary Language: Santali
Location: Santal Parganas (?), (Standard Santali) From: Santali-English Dictionary
Recorded by: RMM
Date elicited: published 1933
Title: S – Nayarangamotia, Mayurbhanj Date elicited: 18 July 1996
Language Assistant: DMS Mother tongue (MT): Santali Father’s MT: Santali
Mother’s MT: Santali Name of tribe: Santali Birthplace: Nayarangamotia Current residence: Belpal village How long: 20 years
Sex: F Age: 35 Education: 7th
Occupation: Housewife Marital status: Married
Other languages spoken: Oriya
Travel to other locations: Baripada, Cuttack Transcribed by: MJ
Elicited by: SR
Language of elicitation: Oriya
Title: Oriya (Cuttack) Language: Oriya
Location: Cuttack, Orissa
Date elicited: 3 and 29 March 1989 Language Assistant: PKD (M, 28)
Appendix B3
2 lɛʔje M – Chalagi
3 pet̪t̪o Oriya (Cuttack)
1 t̪i t̪ɑlkɑ B/M – Udala 3 noːkho Oriya (Cuttack)
1 dʒɑŋ M – Jharmunda 5 mut̪t̪o Oriya (Cuttack)
