Juang language

Last updated
Juang
ଜୁଆଙ୍ଗ
A native Juang speaker introducing himself in Juang in 2025
Native to India
Region Odisha
Ethnicity Juang
Native speakers
30,000 (2011 census) [1]
Austroasiatic
Odia
Language codes
ISO 639-3 jun
Glottolog juan1238
ELP Juang
Coordinates: 20°9′0″N85°30′0″E / 20.15000°N 85.50000°E / 20.15000; 85.50000

The Juang language is a Munda language of the Austroasiatic language family spoken primarily by the Juang people of Odisha state, eastern India.

Contents

Classification

The Juang language belongs to the Munda language family, the whole of which is classified as a branch of the greater Austroasiatic language family. Among the Munda languages, Juang is considered to be most closely related to Kharia, although Anderson considers Juang and Kharia to have split off from each other relatively early. [1]

Juang can be roughly divided into the Hill and Plains varieties, both of which are spoken in Odisha (Patnaik 2008:508).

Distribution

Juang is spoken by about 30,875 people according to the 2001 Indian census, 65% of ethnic population [2] In Odisha state, it is spoken in southern Keonjhar district, northern Angul district, and eastern Dhenkanal district (Patnaik 2008:508).

Juang is currently an Endangered language and is considered to vulnerable, or (not spoken by children outside of home).

Juang currently has roughly under 20,000 speakers remaining

Phonology

Vowels

Juang vowels [3]
Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid e o
Open a ɔ

/e/ has a variant of /ɛ/. /a/ is sometimes realized as a schwa. [4]

Glide realization tends to occur when words that have one among two vowels /u/ and /i/, or both, preceded another vowel. [4]

All Juang vowels can be nasalized. There are some attested cases where nasalization may have phonemic status, like in follow minimal pairs: [3]

Consonants

Juang consonants [3]
Bilabial Dental/
Alveolar 		Retroflex Post-alv./
Palatal 		Velar
Plosive/
Affricate 		voiceless p t ʈ tʃ k
voiced b d ɖ dʒ ɡ
Fricative s
Nasal m n ɳ ɲ ŋ
Lateral l ɭ
Trill r
Approximant j

Some minimal pairs listed below demonstrate Juang distinguishment between phonemes: [3]

Retroflex stops are rare in word-final position.

Prosody

Stress in phonological words is always released on the second syllable. [5] In sentence, intonation falls on the last word, usually a verb. [6]

Morphology

Being in state of assimilation into larger Indo-Aryan populations, Juang speakers have borrowed a significant portion of vocabulary from Hindi and Oriya, while the head-marking feature of the language is eroding.

Nominals

Juang differentiates three numbers: singular (unmarked), dual (-kia), and plural (-ki). [7]

The number system is divided into two sets which are used depending on degree of honorificity. For examples, muinʈo ('one') is used to refer something in non-honorific expression, and minog (one.HON) is used to address something in respectful way. [7]

Numeral classifier goʈa is used when numerals occur prenominally. [8]

tini

three

goʈa

CLF

uaɭi-ɖi-ki

child-DEF-PL

tini goʈa uaɭi-ɖi-ki

three CLF child-DEF-PL

'three children'

Juang is a nominative-accusative language; pronouns and noun phrases are unmarked or marked by case markers to indicate syntactic roles. [8]

Gender in Juang is marked by several affixes.

Nominative subject, genitive, non-finite verbs and few finite verbs are suffixed with definiteness markers -ɖe, -re, and -ro. The genitive suffix -ka is sometimes interpreted as marking emphasis type of definiteness. [12]

Juang has a simple set of free pronouns and interrogative pronouns. The free pronouns can be marked by case and possessive suffixes. Interrogatives can take case markers and occur in several case-marked positions. [13]

Juang free pronouns
singulardualplural
1st personaiɲamarɔ
2nd personninbaapaarɔkia
3rd personniɲapearɔki
[13] Interrogatives
biri'what?'
adi-aliŋa'why?'
adi-a'whose?'
adi-te'whom?'
adi'who?'

Juang has complex word derivation processes that involve not only reduplication, prefixation, suffixation, but also ambifixation. [14]

gata "say" → a-gata-e "untold story" ɔːnɔ "saw" → a-ɔn-dʒɔnɔ "unseen things"

Verbs

In Juang a number of roots are clearly exempt from the Transitive verb/Intransitive verb opposition, so that the function of the root can be determined only from its co-occurrence with the particular set of tense markers.

For Example,

pag- Set I 'to break' -Set II 'to be broken1

rag- Set I 'to tear' - Set II 'to be torn1

guj- Set I 'to wash' - Set II 'to be was

Juang verbs are increasingly becoming similar with those of Kharia: object indexing is being lost gradually due to superstratum pressure from Aryan. Nowadays, as it is, Juang object indexing is no longer obligatory or productive as compared to other Munda languages or at the time when Matson (1964) made his observation. [15] [16]

Transitive verb paradigm
patient
1SG1DU1PL2SG2DU2PL3SG3DU3PL
agent
1SGØ-Σ/V/-m [a] Ø-Σ/V/-paØ-Σ/V/-peØ-Σ/V/-Ø(-kia)(-ki)
1DU.INCLba-Σ-mba-Σ-paba-Σ-pe
1PL.EXCLnV-Σ-mnV-Σ-panV-Σ-pe
2SGmV-Σ-ŋmV-Σ-ŋbamV-Σ-ɲeniɲ
2DUa-Σ-ŋa-Σ-ŋbaa-Σ-ɲeniɲ
2PLV-Σ-ŋV-Σ-ŋbaV-Σ-ɲeniɲ
3SGΣ/mV/-ŋΣ/mV/-ŋbaΣ/mV/-ɲeniɲΣ/mV/-mΣ/mV/-paΣ/mV/-pe
3DUΣ-ŋ-kiaΣ-ŋba-kiaΣ-ɲeniɲ-kiaΣ-m-kiaΣ-pa-kiaΣ-pe-kia
3PLΣ-ŋ-kiΣ-ŋba-kiΣ-ɲeniɲ-kiΣ-m-kiΣ-pa-kiΣ-pe-ki

Writing System

The writing system used by people who speak the Juang language is Odia.

Notes

  1. ↑ Ø:unmarked, /V/–infixing a vowel, /mV/–infixing m(vowel of the verb stem).

References

  1. 1 2 Juang at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  2. ↑ "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 2018-07-07.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Patnaik (2008:510)
  4. 1 2 Patnaik (2008:509)
  5. ↑ Patnaik (2008:513)
  6. ↑ Patnaik (2008:512)
  7. 1 2 Patnaik (2008:514)
  8. 1 2 Patnaik (2008:515)
  9. ↑ Patnaik (2008:516)
  10. ↑ Patnaik (2008:517)
  11. ↑ Patnaik (2008:518)
  12. ↑ Patnaik (2008:520)
  13. 1 2 Patnaik (2008:523)
  14. ↑ Patnaik (2008:525)
  15. ↑ Matson, D. M. (1964). PhD Dissertation: A Grammatical Sketch of Juang. University of Wisconsin–Madison.
  16. ↑ Patnaik (2008:529)

Sources


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