Saurashtra language

Saurashtra
ꢱꣃꢬꢵꢰ꣄ꢜ꣄ꢬ ꢩꢵꢰꢵ‎
சௌராட்டிர மொழி
సౌరాష్ట్ర భాష
सौराष्ट्र भाषा
ಸೌರಾಷ್ಟ್ರ ಭಾಷೆ
Word "Saurashtra" in Saurashtra Script
Native toIndia
RegionTamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka
EthnicitySaurashtrians
Native speakers
247,702 (2011 census)[1]
Early form
Dialects
  • Northern Saurashtra
  • Southern Saurashtra
Saurashtra script (Brahmic)
Tamil script
Telugu script
Devanagari script
Latin script
Language codes
ISO 639-3saz
Glottologsaur1248

Saurashtra (Saurashtra script: ꢱꣃꢬꢵꢰ꣄ꢜ꣄ꢬ ꢩꢵꢰꢵ‎, Tamil script: சௌராட்டிர மொழி, Devanagari script: सौराष्ट्र भाषा) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken primarily by the Saurashtrians of Southern India who migrated from the Lata region of present-day Gujarat to south of Vindhyas in the Middle Ages.

Saurashtra, an offshoot of Sauraseni Prakrit,[2] once spoken in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, is now chiefly spoken in various places of Tamil Nadu and are mostly concentrated in Madurai, Thanjavur and Salem Districts.[3]

The language has its own script of the same name, but is also written in the Tamil, Telugu, and Devanagari scripts. The Saurashtra script is of Brahmic origin, although its exact derivation is not known. Unlike most of the surrounding Dravidian languages, Saurashtra is Indo-European. There is some debate amongst speakers of the Saurashtra language as to which script is best suited to the language.[4] Census of India places the language under Gujarati. Official figures show the number of speakers as 247,702 (2011 census).[5]

  1. ^ "Statement 1: Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues – 2011". www.censusindia.gov.in. Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Retrieved 7 July 2018.
  2. ^ Paul John, Vijaysinh Parmar (2016). "Gujaratis who settled in Madurai centuries ago brought with them a unique language – Times of India". The Times of India. Retrieved 15 April 2018.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "Script Description [Saurashtra]". ScriptSource. Retrieved 16 April 2018. Material was copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.
  5. ^ "Statement 1: Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues – 2011". www.censusindia.gov.in. Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Retrieved 7 July 2018.