Ahirwati

Ahirwati
Native toIndia
RegionAhirwal
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Approximate location where Ahirwati is spoken
Approximate location where Ahirwati is spoken
Ahirwati
Coordinates: 28°18′N 76°30′E / 28.3°N 76.5°E / 28.3; 76.5

Ahirwati (Ahīrvāṭī, sometimes also known as Hīrwāṭī)[1] is an Indo-Aryan dialect of India. It is spoken within the Ahirwal region located to the south-west of the capital Delhi. It belongs to the Rajasthani language group and is commonly taken to be a dialect of Mewati,[2] but in many respects it is intermediate with the neighbouring varieties of Bangru and Bagri, and is especially close to Shekhawati.[3]

There are no reliable census figures for the number of speakers.[4] In the past it was variously written in either Devanagari, Gurmukhi, or the Perso-Arabic script.[5]

A peculiar feature of the grammar of Ahirwati is the use of the same postposition to mark both the agent (in certain tenses) and the object.[6]

  1. ^ Grierson (1908), p. 49.
  2. ^ Masica (1991), p. 422; Grierson (1908), p. 49; Yadav (c. 1979).
  3. ^ Yadav (c. 1979), pp. 199–200; Grierson (1908); Sharma (c. 1979), p. 274.
  4. ^ Yadav (c. 1979), p. 202.
  5. ^ Yadav (c. 1979), p. 200.
  6. ^ Yadav (c. 1979), pp. 208–9.