Maithili Academy

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Maithili Academy
Formation1976;47 years ago (1976) [1] [2]
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Maithili Academy is an autonomous organisation of the Government of Bihar dedicated to the promotion of the Maithili language, its literature and culture, [3] founded in 1976 at the urging of chief minister Jagannath Mishra. [4] Its first chairman was Srikant Thakur Vidyalankar. [2]

The academy publishes books in Maithili along with a fortnightly magazine. [5] Its publication Uccatara Maithilī Vyãkaraṇa (Higher Maithili grammar) by G. Jha has been described as "the most noteworthy contribution to the field of Maithili linguistics." [6]

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Bihari languages is a group of the Indo-Aryan languages. The Bihari languages are mainly spoken in the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal, and also in Nepal. The most widely spoken languages of the Bihari group are Bhojpuri, Magahi and Maithili.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mithila (proposed Indian state)</span> Proposed state in India

Mithila is a proposed state in India, comprising the Maithili speaking region of Bihar and Jharkhand. The Maithili language has own traditional script, known as Mithilakshar. It is part of the historical Mithila region. The proposed state will also include Whole Angika and Bajjika speaking districts which are considered to be dialects of Maithili. What will be the capital city of Mithila, India is still to be decided. Historically the capital cities of Mithila have shifted between Janakpur (Nepal), Vaishali, Simraungadh (Nepal), Rajnagar (Madhubani) and Darbhanga to now Begusarai.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bihar</span> State in eastern India

Bihar is a state in eastern India. It is the third largest state by population, the 12th largest by area, and the 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Bengal to the east, and with Jharkhand to the south. The Bihar plain is split by the river Ganges, which flows from west to east.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maithili language</span> Indo-Aryan language spoken in India and Nepal

Maithili is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in parts of India and Nepal. It is native to the Mithila region, which encompasses parts of the Indian states of Bihar and Jharkhand as well as Nepal's eastern Terai. It is one of the 22 officially recognised languages of India and the second most spoken language in Nepal.It was once described by linguist Sir George Abraham Grierson as the "sweetest language".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bhojpuri language</span> Indo-Aryan language native to India and Nepal

Bhojpuri is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Bhojpur-Purvanchal region of India and the Terai region of Nepal. It is chiefly spoken in western Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh and northwestern Jharkhand. It is an eastern Indo Aryan language and as of 2000 is spoken by about 5% of India's population. Bhojpuri is a descendant of Magadhi Prakrit and is closely related to Maithili, Magahi, Bangla, Odia, Assamese, etc. languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magahi language</span> Indo-Aryan language spoken in India

The Magahi language, also known as Magadhi, is a Indo-Aryan language spoken in Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal states of eastern India, and in the Terai of Nepal. Magadhi Prakrit was the ancestor of Magahi, from which the latter's name derives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samastipur district</span> District in Bihar, India

Samastipur is one of the thirty-eight districts of Bihar in India. The district headquarters are located at Samastipur. The district occupies an area of 2904 km² and has a population of 4,261,566.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madhubani district</span> District in Bihar, India

Madhubani district is one of the thirty-eight districts of Bihar, India, and is a part of Darbhanga division. Its administrative headquarters are located in Madhubani. The district has an area of 3,501 square kilometres (1,352 sq mi) and has a population of 4,487,379.

Bihari is a demonym given to the inhabitants of the Indian state of Bihar. Bihari people can be separated into three main Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic groups, Bhojpuris, Maithils and Magadhis. They are also further divided into a variety of hereditary caste groups. In Bihar today, the Bihari identity is seen as secondary to caste/clan, linguistic and religious identity but nonetheless is a subset of the larger Indian identity. Biharis can be found throughout India, and in the neighbouring countries of Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh. During the Partition of India in 1947, many Bihari Muslims migrated to East Bengal. Bihari people are also well represented in the Muhajir people of Pakistan because of Partition.

Maithils, also known as Maithili people, are an Indo-Aryan ethno-linguistic group from the Indian subcontinent, who speak the Maithili language as their native language. They inhabit the Mithila region, which comprises Northern and Eastern Bihar and Northeastern Jharkhand in India and some adjoining districts of Nepal constituting Madhesh Province in addition to some terai districts of Bagmati and Koshi Provinces. The Maithil region forms an important part of Hinduism as it is said to be the birthplace of Sita, the wife of Ram and incarnation of Lakshmi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radha Krishna Choudhary</span> Indian historian

Professor Radha Krishna Choudhary was an Indian historian, thinker, and writer. He contributed to the historical and archaeological studies of Bihar as well as to Maithili literature. He published numerous original researches on the history of Bihar and was acclaimed as a researcher. He was a professor at Ganesh Dutt College, Begusarai, Bihar and was a noted educationist. His languages of choice for academic works were Hindi and English, and for literary work was Maithili.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mithila (region)</span> Cultural region in India and Nepal, Asia

Mithila, also known as Tirhut, Tirabhukti and Mithilanchal is a geographical and cultural region of the Indian subcontinent bounded by the Mahananda River in the east, the Ganges in the south, the Gandaki River in the west and by the foothills of the Himalayas in the north. It comprises certain parts of Bihar and Jharkhand of India and adjoining districts of the Province No. 1, Bagmati Pradesh and Madhesh Province of Nepal. The native language in Mithila is Maithili, and its speakers are referred to as Maithils.

Hindi is one of the official languages of Bihar, whilst the majority of the people speak one of the Bihari languages.

Bajjika is a variety of Maithili spoken in Western parts of Mithila in India and Nepal. It is also called Pachhimaha Maithili.

Most of the languages of Bihar, the third most populous state of India, belong to the Bihari subgroup of the Indo-Aryan family. Chief among them are Bhojpuri, spoken in the west of the state, Maithili in the north, Magahi in center around capital Patna and Angika in the South-Eastern region. Of these, only Maithili has official recognition under the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India. The official language of Bihar is Hindi, with Urdu serving as a second official language in 15 districts.

Jyotishacharya Pandit Baldev Mishra was a prolific writer of Maithili literature in the 20th century who wrote extensively on several topics in his mother language Maithili. Besides Maithili, he also wrote few books in Hindi and Sanskrit covering a range of subjects related to mathematics, astrology, philosophy and history.

Jayakant Mishra was an Indian scholar and author. He was a professor of English at Allahabad University, and an advocate for the Maithili language, where he petitioned the Government of Bihar to make its language instruction available for primary schools in the area., He worked tirelessly for the statehood of Mithila in India carving out from Bihar and Jharkhand from 1994 till his death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angika</span> Bihari language of India and Nepal

Angika is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language spoken in some parts of the Indian states of Bihar and Jharkhand, as well as in parts of Nepal.

Usha Kiran Khan is a writer who works in the Hindi and Maithili languages. She is also a retired academic historian.

This page describes the grammar of Maithili language, which has a complex verbal system, nominal declension with a few inflections, and extensive use of honoroficity. It is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Maithili people and is spoken in the Indian state of Bihar with some speakers in Jharkhand and nearby states.The language has a large number of speakers in Nepal too, which is second in number of speakers after Bihar.

References

  1. "मैथिली अकादमी की वेबसाइट का लोकार्पण".
  2. 1 2 Ojha, P. N. (1987). Bihar, past & present. Kashi Prasad Jayaswal Research Institute. p. 323.
  3. Singh, Kumar Suresh; Roy, S. B.; Ghosh, Asok K. (1993). People of India: bio-cultural dimensions. Inter-India Publications. p. 250. ISBN   9788121003254.
  4. Annamalai, E.; Jernudd, Björn H.; Rubin, Joan (1986). Language Planning. Central Institute of Indian Languages. p. 192.
  5. Davis, Alice Irene (1984). Basic Colloquial Maithili. Motilal Banarsidass. p. xii. ISBN   9780895817624.
  6. Yadav, Ramawatar (2011). A Reference Grammar of Maithili. Walter de Gruyter. p. 8. ISBN   9783110811698.