CHAPTER - 4

LINGUISTIC AFFILIATION OF THE MUNDAS

Conceptual Framework

India is one of the most diversified and multilingual

countries of the world in which more than a thousand mother
tongues were recorded by the census of India. All thes languages
of India belong to various families and are found at various
stages of development. Some of them are highly develoved,
possessing a rich literature and have long literary tradition
while others are dilects only and do not have any literature of
their own. Further, there are some languages spoken by a large
number of people distributed over a large and contiguous
geographical region while many of them are sopken by a very small
number living in pockets of the compact linguistic areas
(Mazumdar.1970:l-2).Thecensus of India 1961 reported that there
were 210 mother tongues having not more than one or two speakers
each. Further, a little more than three lakh speakers declared
113 mother tongues classified as foreign languages.

Language change/shift, to geographers, means swithcing over

from own traditional language to non-traditional language. For
example, a section of Santals, whose traditional language is
Santali, declared Hindi as their mother tongue meaning thereby
they have changed their traditional mother tongue and identified
themselves with the regional language. This kind of language

shift takes place not only in the direct-ion of non-tribal

language but also in the favour of other t.!.lbal language. For
example, a large section of Oraons in the Chotanagpur Plateau
have adopted Mundari as their mother tongue.

Today, the Mundas in Chotanagpur region speak not only thelr

traditional dialect but also the language of other tribal and
non-tribal groups. They can at present, be identified as

belonging to the following groups in terms of their linguistic

affiliation.

(a) Mundas speaking a dialect with which they are

traditionally identified;

(b) Mundas speaking a dialect of other tribal group with

whom they have come in contact;

ic) Mundas speaking regional languages; and

id) Mundas speaking non-tribal non-reglonal languages

It is easy to understand the above classitication of the

Mundas into various groups. Group 'a' refers to those who
remained loyal to their traditional language and speak it as
their mother tongue. On the other hand, groups b , 'c' and 'd'
are the cases of language shift. Group 'b'refers to those who
have adopted dialects of different tribal groups. For example the

Mundas declared Santali as their mother tongue. Group 'c' refers

to those who have declared Hindi as their mother tongue instead

of their traditional dialect. Besides these, there are cases at
the peripheries of the tribal areas and along the border areas of

different states where tribals declared non-tr-ibal non-regional

languages as their mother tongue. It was found that the Mundas of
Bihar living along Bihar and West Bengal border, have declared
Bengali, and those living along the Bihar-Orissa border have
registered Oriya as thier mother tongue. Both these languages are
non-regional non-tribal in character and may be classified under
the group d ' The Mundas declaring foreign languages may also
be grouped under the 'd' category.

Some years ago in artical called "The Status of Linguistics

as a Science" (1929) Edward Sapir made an interesting statement

describing language in part as "a guide to social reality". The

statement goes on to say: though language is not ordinarily
though of as of essential interest to the student of social
sciences,it powerfully conditions all our thinking about social
problems and process. Human beings do not live in the objective
world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as
ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the
particular language which has become the medium of expression for
their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one
adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and
that language is mercily and incidental means of solving specific
problems of communication or reflection. The fact. of the matter
is that the 'real world 'is to a large extent unconsciously built
upon the languages are same social reality (Hymes, 1 9 6 4 : 1 4 2 ) .

The problem of dialect distance often arises in areas with

high incidence of bilingualism. In such cases the test will not
permit us to distinguish between intelligibility due to
linguistic proximity alone and intelligibility due to a language
learning process. Finally, the test ylelds lit.tle useful
information, when we are faced with the baffling phenomenon of
'non-reciprocal' intelligibility (Olmsted,1954)

Contact and convergence between two different Languages or

cultures results in a sociological situation where in the same
individual learns elements from a linguistic or cultural system
other than his native system. Linguists refer to this learning
situation as language contact and to the particular learning
process as bilingualisation. The individuals so involved are
called bilingual. Linguistic change resulting from such contact
is called borrowing or interference. Anthropologists refer to the
learning situation as cultural contact and to t:he particular
learning process as acculturation. The locus is again the
individual culture carrier, who, in a situation of culture
contact. is sometime called bicultural change ~n a culture
resulting from acculturation is referred to as borrowing (Hymes,
1964:496).

The Indian subcontinent is inhabited by a very large

population who speak languages belonging to three major families.
Indo-Aryan, Dravidian and Munda. Most of the languages of India,
of no matter which major family, have a set of retroflex,
cerebral, or domal consonants in contrast wit.h dentals. The
retroflexes include stops and nasan certainly, also in some
languages sibilants, lateral tremulant and even others.Indo-

Aryan, Dravidian, Munda and even the far northern Burushaski,

frorn a particularly solid bloc characterized by this phonological

feature; since, however, one of the Munda languages, viz.Soira;
in which there is a good chance of archaic, does not have it, it
is a least possible that it is not proto-Munda (see Burrow, 1955:
55). Even our earliest Sanskrit records already show phonemes of

this class, which are, on the whole, unknown elsewhere in the

Indo-Europan field, and which are certainly not proto-Indo-
European. In Sanskrit, many of the occurences of retroflexes are
conditioned; others are explained historically as reflexes of
certain Indo-European consonants and consonants clusters. But,
infact, in Dravidian it is a matter of the utmost certainty that
retroflexes in contrast with dentals are proto-Dravidian in
origion, not the result of conditioning circumstances (Hymes,
1964:644).

Mundas Speaking Own Traditional Dialect

Mundari is the second most important tribal language of the

Chotanagpur plateau and is the principal language of the Munda
tribes. The principal home of this language is Ranchi district
where it is spoken in its purest form in the Khunti area which
lies in the south-east of Ranchi town. Besides Chotanagpur
plateau, immigrants have further brought this language to
Jalpaiguri, Dinajpur , Tripura and Tea Gardens of Assam.
Altogether it is sopken at least 41 district.^ of Eastern India
with a total population of about 1.1 million persons. Out of
the total Mundari speakers, about 6 lakhs speakers resides in
Bihar only. The second and third places occupied by the states
of Orissa and West Bengal with about 84.5 and 1 . 2 thousand
respectively. Madhya Pradesh has only 635 speakers of Mundari
dialect and occupied fourth place.

Like Santali, ~undariis also a uniform language and every

where in Chotanagpur, the language remains almost identical. The
difference is mainly to be found in the vocabulary borrowed from
the Aryan forms of speech. On the basis of such differences,
Mundari may be classified into four types,

(a) Tamari Mundari: it is spoken in the anchals of Tarnar,

Bundu, Sonahatu, et c .

(b) Hansda Mundari: it is spoken in the anchals of Khunti,

Murhu, etc.

(c) Nagpuri Mundari: it is spoken in the anchals of Torpa,

Gobindpur , etc . and

(d) Kera Mundari: it is spoken around Ranchi town

It is important to mention here that a large number of Oraon

t.ribe in Ranchi districts has adopted Mundari as their mother
tongue and they are known as Kera Mundari.

Out of the total 16 districts in Chotanagpur region, there

is only one district (Singhbhum) in which more than 80 per cent
Mundas have declared Mundari as their mother tongue. In another
two districts (Purulia and Surguja) in which the share of Mundari
is below 10 per cent only. There are 8 districts (Hazaribagh,
palamau, Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar, Sambalpur, Bankura, Raigarh and
Kaipur) in which the share of Mundari ranging from 10 to 40 per
cent. while it is found between 40 and h0 per cent in two
districts (Dhanbad and Sundergarh) only.

Mundas Declaring Regional Language as Mother Tongue

In all the 16 districts of the Chotanagpur, the Mundas

have also declared regional language as their mother tongue.
Out of the total, there are 2 districts (Purulia and Surguja) in
which more than 80 per cent Mundas have declared regional
language as their mother tongue. The percentage share ranging
between 20 and 40 in two districts (Keonjhar and Raipur) . There
are 2 districts (Bankura and Bilaspur) in which the share varies
from 10 to 20 per cent. There are only 3 districts (Ranchi,
Singhbhum and Sundergarh) in which the share ot regional language
is restricted to below 10 per cent only. On the other hand, it
varies between 60 and 80 per cent in another two districts
(Hazaribagh and Palamau), and between 40 drid 60 per cent in 4
districts (Dhanbad, Mayurbhanj, Sarnbalpur and Rairjar-h), Hindi and
it:; regional dialects are considered regional language for t.he
Mundas living in Bihar and Madhya Pradesh while Oriya in Orissa
and Bengali in West Bengal.

Mundas Declaring Other Tribal Dialects as Their Mother Tongue

Out of the total 16 districts, there are 14 districts in

which Mundas have also declared other tribal lanquages as their

mother tongue. Out of which, there are altogether S districts
(Hazaribagh, Dhanbad, Purulia, Bilaspur and Raipur) in which the
share of these languages is confined to 10 per cent only. In
another 5 discticts (Ranchi, Palamau, Mayurbhanj. Sambalpur and
Raigarh) in which the share is ranging from 10 t-o 40 per cent

wl~ile it varies between 40 and 60 per cent in another 3

districts (Keonjhar, Sundergarh and Bankura) . The Mundas

declaring other tribal languages as their mother tongue do not
fall in the category between 60 and 80 per cent. Kurukh,
Santali, Sadari, Kharia, etc. are important languages which may be

classified under this group of languages.

Mundas Declaring Non- Regional Non-Tribal Languages

as Their Mother Tongue

There are 11 districts in which Mundas have declared non-

tribal non-regional languages as their mother tongue. Out of the
total there are 10 districts (Ranchi, Hazaribagh, Dhanbad,

Singhbhum, Sambalpur, Purulia, Bankura, Surgu ja, Raipur and

Bilaspur) in which the share of non-regional non-tribal languages

decleard by the Mundas as their mother tongue is below 10 per
cent while there is only one district (Raipur) in which the
share is 40 per cent.0ver all these districts have very low

share of these languages decleard by the Mundas as their mother

tongue (Table-10).
 TABLE - 10

LANGEUAGE CHANGE AND MAINTENENACE AMONG THE MUNDAS

%tage Own Mother Other Tribe1 Regional NR-NT.

Categories Tongue Language Language Language

-------------------..------.-~---
. -
..........
.- -~.-..... ~

Total 14 13 16 11
 References

Burrow, T. 1955: THE SANSKRIT LANGUAGE, London, Faber and

Feber .

Hymes, D. 1960: "Cultural Implication of Some Navaho

Linguistic Categories", in LANGUAGE IN
CULTURE AND SOCIETY, Allied Pul ishers
Private Limited, Bombay, pp. 143.

Hymes, D . 1960: "Incipient Bilingualism", in LANGUAGE IN

CULTURE AND SOCIETY, Allied Publishers
Private Limited, Bombay, pp. 441.

Hymes, D . 1960: "India as a Linguistic Area'', in LANGUAGE

IN CULTURE AND SOCIETY, Allied Publishers
Priavet Limited, Bombay, pp. 642.

Mazumdar, S. N . 1970: MARIXSM AND LANGUAGE PROBLEM IN INDIA

People's Publishing House, New Delhi.

Olmsted, D. L. 1954: ACHUMAWI - ASTUGEWI NON - RECIPROCAL

INTELLIGIBILITY, IAL. 20, pp. 181 - 184