Nihali language

This article is about a language isolate spoken in central India, known as Nihali or Nahali. For the unrelated Indo-Aryan language also called Nahali, see Kalto language.
Nihali
Native toIndia
RegionJalgaon Jamod, on the border of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh
Ethnicity5,000 Nihali
Native speakers
Less than 2000 speakers (2024)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3nll
Glottologniha1238
ELPNihali
Nihali-speaking area spanning the border between Maharashtra to the south and Madhya Pradesh to the north
Nihali is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Nihali, also known as Nahali or erroneously as Kalto, is an endangered language isolate that is spoken in west-central India (in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra), with approximately 2,000 people in 1991 out of an ethnic population of 5,000.[2] The Nihali tribal area is just south of the Tapti River, around the village of Tembi in Burhanpur district of Madhya Pradesh.[3] Speakers of the Nihali language are also present in several villages of the Buldhana district in Maharashtra such as Jamod, Sonbardi, Kuvardev, Chalthana, Ambavara, Wasali, and Cicari. There are dialectal differences between the Kuvardev-Chalthana and the Jamod-Sonbardi varieties.[4]

The language has a very large number of words adopted from neighboring languages, with 60–70% apparently taken from Korku (25% of vocabulary and much of its morphology), from Dravidian languages, and from Marathi, but much of its core vocabulary cannot be related to them or other languages, such as the numerals and words for "blood" and "egg". Scholars state that less than 25% of the language's original vocabulary is used today.[4] There are no longer any surviving monolingual speakers of the language. Those well-versed in modern Nihali are likely to speak varieties of Marathi, Hindi or Korku as well.[5]

For centuries, most Nihali have often worked as agricultural labourers, for speakers of languages other than their own. In particular, Nihali labourers have often worked for members of the Korku people, and are often bilingual in the Korku language. Because of this history, Nihali is sometimes used by its speakers only to prevent native Korku speakers and other outsiders from understanding them.[6]

  1. ^ Seidel, Frank (2015-10-09), "Describing endangered languages", Language Documentation and Endangerment in Africa, Culture and Language Use, vol. 17, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 277–312, doi:10.1075/clu.17.12sei, ISBN 978-90-272-4452-9, retrieved 2020-12-14
  2. ^ "Did you know Nihali is threatened?". Endangered Languages. Retrieved 2016-05-04.
  3. ^ Franciscus Bernardus Jacobus Kuiper, "Nahali: a comparative study", Mededeelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandsche Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde (5, Pt 25), N.V. Noord-Hollandsche Uitg. Mij., 1962
  4. ^ a b Nagaraja, K.S. (2014). The Nihali Language. Manasagangotri, Mysore-570 006, India: Central Institute of Indian Languages. p. 7. ISBN 978-81-7343-144-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  5. ^ Nagaraja, K.S. (2014). The Nihali Language. Central Institute of Indian Languages. p. 3. ISBN 978-81-7343-144-9.
  6. ^ Nagaraja, K.S (2014). The Nihali Language. Manasagangotri, Mysore-570 006: Central Institute of Indian Languages. p. 250. ISBN 978-81-7343-144-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)