Kanjari language

Kanjari
कंजरी
Native to	India, Pakistan
Native speakers	210,000 (2011) [1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan (unclassified) Kanjari
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kft
Glottolog	kanj1259

Kanjari (also known as Kangar Bhat, Kangri, Kuchbandhi or "the Gypsy language" ^[2] ) is an unclassified Indic tribal language of Pakistan and India, associated with the Kanjar tribe. Kanjari is spoken in Punjab in Pakistan and in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan in India. ^{[2] [3]} UNESCO classifies Kanjari as an endangered language. Some may use the word to describe Karina. ^[4]

Syntax

George Abraham Grierson noted several grammatical features for Kanjari in the first Linguistic Survey of India: ^[5]

• The final "ō" of adjectives is usually kept before an inflected noun, which suggests that adjectives are not inflected and that gender is weak. For example, tēro naukrī ("thy service").
• Some pronouns are similar to Rajasthani languages, such as the demonstrative pronouns jō and jī. However, other pronouns are similar to the Dravidian languages, such as ūr ("he") compared to Tamil īr and Gondi ōr.
• Overall, verb conjugations and words "broadly agree" with the patterns of Eastern Rajasthani languages, but some characteristics point to a "certain Dravidian element" being present in Kanjari.

Vocabulary

Selected Kanjari Vocabulary ^[5]

Kanjari	English	Cognate
lug	die
lugai	beat
chūbkō	son
rib	house
tig	see
pāḍō	bull	māḍu (Tamil)
tiūr	give	tara (Tamil)
ghamēlā	sun	kham (Romani)
jhūkal	dog	jukel (Romani)

References

1. Kanjari at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
2. Mhaiske, Vinod M.; Patil, Vinayak K.; Narkhede, S. S. (2016). Forest Tribology And Anthropology. p. 185. ISBN   9789386102089.
3. Frawley, William J. (2003). International Encyclopedia of Linguistics (2 ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 267. ISBN   0199771782.
4. "Kanjari". World Atlas of Languages. UNESCO. Retrieved 3 January 2023.
5. Grierson, George Abraham (1903–1928). Linguistic survey of India. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing. pp. 96–101. Retrieved 3 January 2023.