Korku language

Last updated
Korku
कोरकू
RegionCentral India (Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra)
Ethnicity Korku
Native speakers
730,000 (2011 census) [1]
Austroasiatic
Devanagari script (Balbodh style) [2]
Language codes
ISO 639-3 kfq
Glottolog kork1243
ELP Korku
Lang Status 80-VU.svg
Korku is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
Distribution of the Munda languages in India, with Korku the leftmost in central India Munda-Sprachen.png
Distribution of the Munda languages in India, with Korku the leftmost in central India

Korku (also known as Kurku, or Muwasi [3] ) is an Austroasiatic language spoken by the Korku tribe of central India, in the states of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. It is isolated in the midst of the Gondi people, who are Dravidian, while its closest relatives are in eastern India. It is the westernmost Austroasiatic language.

Contents

Korkus are also closely associated with the Nihali people, many of whom have traditionally lived in special quarters of Korku villages. [4] Korku is spoken by around 700,000 people, mainly in four districts of southern Madhya Pradesh (Khandwa, Harda, Betul, Narmadapuram) and three districts of northern Maharashtra (Rajura and Korpana tahsils of Chandrapur district, Manikgarh pahad area near Gadchandur in Chandrapur district) (Amravati, Buldana, Akola).

The name Korku comes from Koro-ku (-ku is the animate plural), Koro 'person, member of the Korku community' (Zide 2008). [5]

Sociolinguistics

The Indian national census of 2011 reported 727,133 people claiming to speak Korku, which is an unscheduled language according to the Indian system. [6] However, Korku is classified as “vulnerable” by UNESCO, the least concerning of the levels of language endangerment nonetheless. [7] Most adult men are bilingual in Hindi, or multilingual in Hindi and the local Dravidian languages (Zide 2008: 156). Literacy in the language is low. [1]

Throughout recent history, the use of the Korku language has been heavily influenced by larger hegemonic languages, especially Hindi. A few Korku-speaking groups have had relative success in increasing the viability of their dialect, specifically the Potharia Korku from the Vindhya Mountains. [8]

Dialects

Zide (2008:256) lists two dialects for Korku, a Western and an Eastern one. The Western Dialect, which has a handful of subdialects is also called Korku. Among the Western varieties, the one spoken in Lahi is notable for its loss of the dual number.

Glottolog lists four dialects for Korku: [9]

Geographical Distribution

Korku is spoken in the following regions (Zide 2008:256):

Phonology

Vowels

Korku has 10 phonemic vowels, which can occur short or long (e.g. /aː/), plus one mid vowel that only occurs as a short segment /ə/. [10]

Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid e ə o
Open a

Consonants

Korku has a large consonant phoneme inventory, [10] in which stops occur in several places of articulation. Like many languages of India, Korku stops distinguish between voiced, plain voiceless, and voiceless aspirated consonants.

Bilabial Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal
Stop voiceless p t ʈ c k ʔ
aspirated ʈʰ
voiced b d ɖ ɟ ɡ
breathy ɖʱ ɟʱ ɡʱ
Fricative s h
Nasal m n ɲ
Approximant l ɭ j
Flap ɾ ɽ

Word-finally, all stops are unreleased. [10]

Morphosyntax

Korku is a highly agglutinating, suffixing language. It has postpositions, a case system, a two-gender system, and three numbers. The verb phrase can be complex in Korku; functions that in English and other languages may be encoded in by the use of auxiliary verbs and of prepositions may be expressed in Korku through suffixation.

Word order

Korku, as all Munda languages, shows a strict Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) word order. [11]

SubjectObjectVerb
iɲɟdukanaʈensaːkaɾsasaːba
Istore-fromsugarbring.will
“I will bring sugar from the store”

Adjectives are expressed verbally - as intransitive verbs - with the exception of a few cases in which a separate word occurs before the noun they are modifying. [3]

NumeralAdjectiveNoun
ɖiɟaʔapʰaikenɖesimku
her/histhreeblackchickens
“Her/His three black chickens”

Morphology

Nouns in Korku are assigned one of two grammatical genders: animate, and inanimate, and inflect for several different grammatical cases.

Grammatical number

Korku distinguishes three grammatical numbers: singular, dual (two of X), and plural (three or more of X) for nouns in the animate class. Nouns in the inanimate class are rarely marked for number. Final vowels are sometimes deleted before dual or plural endings (see the example at koɾo). [10] [2]

SingularDualPlural
konɟe-Ø

‘daughter’

konɟe-kiɲ

‘two daughters’

konɟe-ku

‘daughters’

koɾo

‘man’

koɾkiɲ

‘two men’

koɾku

‘men’

siʈa

‘dog’

siʈakiɲ

‘two dogs’

siʈaku

‘dogs’

Case system

In Korku, the function of participants in a sentence (e.g. agent, patient, etc.) is expressed through grammatical case markings on nouns. Additionally, ideas that are expressed via prepositions in English (e.g. towards, from, with, etc.) are also expressed via case markings in Korku. The table below illustrates the different cases and the suffixes used to express them. [10] [3]

CaseMarkerExample [3] Function
Nominative ɖiɟ

‘s/he’

siʈa

‘the dog’ (subj.)

Subject
Accusative-Dative -kʰe(ʔ)ɖiɟkʰeʔ

‘her/him’

siʈakʰeʔ

‘the dog’ (obj.)

(In)Direct object
Genitive -a(ʔ)ɖiɟ

‘her/his'

ɟikɽa

‘of a porcupine’

Possession
Locative -enuɾagen

‘in the house’

Nagpuɾen

‘in Nagpur’

Spatio-temporal location
Comitative -gon/-gellakonɟegon

‘with a daughter’

Company, togetherness
Instrumental -tenkolomten

‘by/in pen’

Means
Allative -ʈaeAcalpurʈae

‘towards Achalpur'

Direction at/towards
Ablative -(a)tenuɾagaten

‘from the house’

Source, spatial origin

Additionally, Korku regularly marks direct object on the verb, as in other Munda languages. [3] In the sentence below, the suffix /eɟ/ on the verb compound /senɖawkʰen/ indicates that it was someone else who was given permission to go.

SubjectObjectVerb
iɲɟɖikʰeʔsenɖawkʰen-eɟ
Iher/himallowed.to.go-obj
“I allowed her/him to go”

Pronouns

Personal pronouns [12] [10]

Personal pronouns in Korku show different number and gender patterns depending on the person. The first person (“I, we”) distinguishes not only the three numbers but also whether the hearer is included (“all of us”) or excluded (“us, but not you”) in the communicative context. The second person (“you, you all”) only encodes number, whereas the third person (“s/he, they”) distinguishes gender, and number for animate nouns.

 SingularDualPlural
1st personInclusiveiɲɟalaŋɟabuɲ
Exclusivealiɲɟale
2nd personaːmapinɟape
3rd personAnimateɖic ~ inɖikinɟɖiku
Inanimateɖiː

Demonstratives

In Korku, demonstratives (e.g. “this, that, those”) encode not only distance (e.g. “here and there”) but also gender and number. Unlike English, which only distinguishes between a single proximal (this) and distal (that) spatial references, Korku demonstratives encode four levels of proximity to the speaker (i.e. ‘very close’ vs. ‘close’ vs. ‘far’ vs. ‘very far’), plus a fifth distinction, when one is pinpointing. [10] The table below illustrates the forms used in Korku.

GenderNumberDistance
ProximalDistal
Very closeCloseFarVery farPinpointing
InanimateSingularniini / noːɟeɖiha / hu / hohuɟɟe
AnimateSingularnicinicɖichuc / huɟ / huɟehoːɟe
Dualniɲɟinkiɲɟ / noːkiɲɟɖikiɲɟhuɟkiɲɟhoːkiɲɟ
Pluralnikuinku / noːkuɖikuhuɟkuhoːku

Lexicon

Numerals

The basic cardinal numbers from 1 to 10 (transcribed in IPA) are:

1miɲaʔ
2bari
3apʰai
4apʰun
5monoe
6tuɾui
7ei
8ilaɾ
9aɾei
10gel

Numbers after 11 are mainly of Indo-Aryan origin. [13]

Kinship terms

As with many Austroasiatic languages, Korku has several words to refer to members of one's family, including the extended family and in-laws. There are often separate terms for people depending on their gender and seniority, for instance /bawan/ “wife's older brother” and /kosɾeʈ/ “elder brother's son”. In the tables below, words that include the suffix -/ʈe/ refer to someone else's family member, so that /kon/ means “my son”, whereas /konʈe/ is used when talking about someone else's son, for instance /ɖukriaʔ konʈe/ “the old woman's son”. [10]

Immediate family [10]
motheranʈe / maːj
fatherbaːʈe / aba
daughterkonɟaj / konɟeʈe
sonkon / konʈe
younger sisterbokoɟe / bokoɟeʈe
older brotherɖaj / ɖajʈe
younger brotherboko

Korku has words to refer to pairs or groups of people in the family.

Pairs or groups of family members
parentsanʈebaːʈe
childrenbaːlbacca
children and wifekonkuɟapaj
mother and sonajomkokoɲa
father and sonbaːkokoɲa
siblingsbombuku
In-laws (Wife's side) [10]
wifeɟapaj
wife's elder sisterɟiɟikaɲkaɾ(ʈe)
wife's younger sisterbewanɟe(ʈe)
wife's sister's husbandsaɽgi(ʈe)
wife's elder brotherbaːw(ʈe)
wife's younger brotherbawan(ʈe)

Writing system

The Korku language uses the Balbodh style of the Devanagari script, which is also used to write the Marathi language. [2]

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References

  1. 1 2 Korku at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  2. 1 2 3 Sebeok, Thomas Albert, ed. (1971). Current Trends in Linguistics. Walter de Gruyter. p. 425. Archived from the original on 7 December 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2015). Munda Languages. Taylor and Francis. ISBN   978-1-317-82886-0. OCLC   907525916.
  4. Nihali at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  5. Cust, R. N. "Grammatical Note and Vocabulary of the Language of the Kor-ku, a Kolarian Tribe in Central India." The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. no. 2 (1884): 164 - 179. JSTOR   25196986
  6. Sengupta, Papia. "Endangered Languages: Some Concerns." Economic And Political Weekly. no. 32 (2009): 17-19. JSTOR   25663414
  7. "Korku". UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in danger. UNESCO . Retrieved 2018-03-18.
  8. Fuchs, Stephen. "Thirty Korku Dancing Songs." Asian Folklore Studies. no. 1 (2000): 109-140. JSTOR   1179030
  9. "Glottolog" . Retrieved 2021-03-24.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Nagaraja, K.S. (1999). Korku language : grammar, texts, and vocabulary. Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. ISBN   4872977459. OCLC   1035920730.
  11. Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2007). The Munda verb : typological perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. p. 19. ISBN   978-3-11-092425-1. OCLC   607263871.
  12. Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2017-03-29). Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics: Munda Languages. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.37. ISBN   978-0-19-938465-5 . Retrieved 2021-03-23.
  13. Paul., Sidwell (8 December 2014). The handbook of Austroasiatic languages. ISBN   978-90-04-28357-2. OCLC   1058188885.

Further reading