Magahi speakers claim that George Grierson classified Khortha as a dialect of the Magahi language in his linguistic survey [5] while Khortha speakers do not associate themselves with Magahi and also protest to remove Magahi from Jharkhand as they think it can extinct their native Khortha language. Also a recent study demonstrates that Khortha is more similar to other Bihari languages of Jharkhand called Sadani languages.[12]
Literature
In 1950, Sriniwas Panuri translated Kalidasa's Meghadutam in Khortha. In 1956, he composed two works Balkiran and Divyajyoti. Bhubaneswar Dutta Sharma, Sriniwas Panuri, Viswanath Dasaundhi and Viswanath Nagar were among first people who started literature in Khortha. Some prominent writers in Khortha language are A.K Jha, Shivnath Pramanik, B.N Ohdar.[5] For the first time, efforts were made to reach Khortha language and literature to the People of Jharkhand through the Internet by the founder of the Sarkari Library, Mr Mananjay Mahato. Khortha literature became available online for the first time due to the efforts of Mr. Mananjay Mahato.
Aspirated plosives /pʰ/, /dʱ/, /ɖʱ/, and /kʰ/ rarely appear in word-final position.[14] /ɖ/ and /ɖʱ/ never stay on the same word with their allophones /ɽ/ and /ɽʱ/.[15]
Four affricates /t͡ʃ/, /t͡ʃʰ/, /d͡ʒ/, /d͡ʒʱ/ can be found in initial, medial, and final positions. When articulating these phonemes, the blade of the tongue touches the back of the teeth-ridge. When a stop consonant is articulated, the touch continues longer, and the separation of the tongue is slower than it is for the affricates.[16]
/s/ occurs with all positions, while /h/ is mostly found in word-initial. In rapid conversation, there seems to be a case for h-elision between vowels. Eg. /d͡ʒohɛk/ 'to wait' is realized as [d͡ʒoɛk], and /mohor/ 'old coin' as /moːr/.[17]
/ŋ/ is restricted to the word-final position. Breathy nasals [mʱ] [nʱ] [ŋʱ], lateral [lʱ], and flap [ɾʱ] are only attested in word-medial and word-final positions.[18]
Glides mostly occur in intervocalic positions; however, they are also found in word-final position in a few lexical items.[19] Inserting glides in intervocalic positions, which is common in Indo-Aryan, is not favored in Khortha.[20]
Aspirated consonants cannot be geminated.[21] Gemination of /ɾ/ will yield the first consonant as /r/, and the second as /ɾ/. Eg. barɾa 'banyan tree'.[22]
Nasalization consistently occur with all vowels and positions in Khortha, although it is noted that /a/ is the most nasalized vowel in all accounts,[24] and there is a tendency that phonemic contrast between nasalized and oral vowels is likely to be the strongest in word-medial and final positions.[25] Some minimal and near-minimal pairs found in the corpus are listed in the table below:
Oral
Nasal
kʰaʈ ('a rope bed')
kʰãʈ ('small')
bʱagɛk ('to run away')
bʱãgɛk ('to break')
pakʰa ('cubbyholes')
pãkʰa ('feather')
ɖoɽa ('rope')
ɖõɽa ('a black ant')
kʌɾʌdʒ ('credit')
kʌɾʌ̃dʒ ('tropical tree' (Millettia pinnata)
pʊtʃʰ ('to ask')
pʊ̃tʃʰ ('tail')
bɛg ('speed, force')
bɛ̃g ('frog')
iʈa ('this one')
ĩʈa ('brick')
Vowel rules
When a word root is bound with an affix that contains a vowel, the internal open central vowel /a/ of the first syllable is replaced by the mid-close central vowel. Eg. gʱaɾ ('house') + wʌin (plural) → gʱʌɾwʌin 'houses'. This process is pretty common, but it is not related to vowel harmony and is more likely due to intonation. It also does not apply to compounds and reduplicated nouns. Eg. gatʃʰ-palha 'greenery' (lit. "tree-leave").[26]
Final-vowel stem, when is marked with plural suffix -wʌin, the final vowel is dropped. Eg. kaɽa + wʌin → kʌɽwʌin 'buffalos'. Root with /a/ final merges with the initial /a/ of the following element. Eg. kʰa-a (eat-2PL.IMP.HON) → kʰa 'you eat!' (plural and honorific).[27]
The long open vowel is dropped when it is followed by the mid-close central vowel. In some verbs, the open central vowel is dropped in imperative constructions due to the addition of the suffix -o. Eg. kʰa-o (eat-2SG.IMP) → kʰo 'you eat!'[27]
The nominalizing suffix -bɛ assimilates with additive clitic =o, producing the contracted version -bo 'NMLZ.ADD'.[28]
Morphology
Nominal morphology
Pronouns
Khortha pronouns can distinguish the honorific status of the addressee and certain deictics of the third-person addressees.[29]
The Nominative subject of an intransitive clause, transitive agent in non-past tenses, non-human and non-specific objects receive no overt marking.[30]
ham/hamin
I/We
kãdʌ-l-i
cry-PST-1
ham/hamin kãdʌ-l-i
I/We cry-PST-1
'I/We cried.'
Restricted in past tense constructions, the Ergative agent is marked by =ẽ, which is homophonous with the instrumental and locatives.[31]
ham=ẽ
I=ERG
petʃʰu
last
mʌhina
month
e=go
one=CLF
kʌmidʒ
shirt
ʈip-au-l-i=e
stitch-CAUS-PST-1=FOC
ham=ẽ petʃʰu mʌhina e=go kʌmidʒ ʈip-au-l-i=e
I=ERG last month one=CLF shirt stitch-CAUS-PST-1=FOC
'I have someone stitch a shirt last month.'
It seems that ergative marking is not obligatory in the Parnadiya dialect (spoken in the districts of Hazaribagh, Chatra, Koderma, and Giridih) even though transitivity is prominent and the sentences are in past tenses.[32]
Ram
Ram
hʌmra
me.OBL
kʌlʌm
pen
de-l-kʌi
give-PST-3SG
Ram hʌmra kʌlʌm de-l-kʌi
Ram me.OBL pen give-PST-3SG
'Ram gave me a pen.'
ham/hamin
I/We
piʈʰa
rice.bread
kʰa-i-l-i-ʌi
eat-LNK-PST-1-3SG
ham/hamin piʈʰa kʰa-i-l-i-ʌi
I/We rice.bread eat-LNK-PST-1-3SG
'I/We ate the chapati.'
In extremely rare contexts, =ẽ can occur in the present tense, but likely to express emphasis rather than ergativity.[33]
ham=ẽ
I=FOC
kʌma=h-i
earn=AUX.PRES-1
tʌ
TOP
daru
alcohol
piʌ=h-i
drink=AUX.PRES-1
ham=ẽ kʌma=h-i tʌ daru piʌ=h-i
I=FOC earn=AUX.PRES-1 TOP alcohol drink=AUX.PRES-1
'I am the one who earns, so I (can) drink.' (The speakers focus on themselves)
Patient, object, indirect object (mostly animate and definite indirect objects) arguments are indicated their syntactic roles by the Oblique case marker =ke. There is a clear preference for object marking for human indirect objects over non-humans, animate over inanimate.[34] The hierarchy is animate human > animate nonhuman > inanimate nonhuman. Likewise, when two objects appear in the same noun phrase, then the animate/human object is obligatorily marked while the inanimate/non-human object usually remains unmarked.[35] Consider the following example:
↑Shekhar Dash, Niladri. "Language Attitude of Khortha Speakers in Giridih: A Survey Report". Linguistic Research Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.
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