Marwari language

Marwari (मारवाड़ी, مارواڑی, Mārwāṛī) is a language spoken by many people in the state of Rajasthan in India. It belongs to a group of languages called Western Indo-Aryan, which are part of the larger Indo-European language family. Marwari has several close relatives, such as Dhundhari, Shekhawati, and Mewari, and together they make up what is known as the Rajasthani language family.

People also speak Marwari in nearby states like Gujarat and Haryana, as well as in some parts of Pakistan and among communities in Nepal. There are about two dozen different ways people speak Marwari, each with its own small differences.

Mostly, Marwari is written using the Devanagari script, just like Hindi and Marathi. But in some places in Pakistan, people write it using a different kind of script. Even though Marwari isn’t used in schools or official work in India, it is still widely spoken in cities such as Jodhpur, Pali, and Jaisalmer. It is also one of the common languages spoken by Indians in Kenya.

History

Marwari and the language Gujarati are thought to have come from older languages called Old Western Rajasthani or Dingal. A famous writer named Hemachandra Suri, who was a Jain monk and a Gujarati scholar, wrote the first formal rules for one of these old languages.

Geographical distribution

Marwari is mainly spoken in the Indian state of Rajasthan. People who speak Marwari live in many places, but you can find them especially in the nearby state of Gujarat and in parts of Pakistan. There are also Marwari speakers in Bhopal. In India alone, about 7.9 million people speak Marwari.

Some dialects of Marwari include:

Lexis

Marwari spoken in India shares about half to two-thirds of its words with Hindi. Many words in Marwari sound similar to those in Hindi, though some sounds change. For example, the word for "gold" in Hindi is "sona," but in Marwari it is "hono."

In Pakistan, Marwari dialects share many words with each other but are becoming harder to understand with Indian Marwari because many people in Pakistan now mainly speak Urdu. Marwari in Pakistan still remains strong, even though some people also know Hindi.

Phonology

Marwari has special sounds where vowels can change their tone, which helps tell words apart. It also uses special combinations of vowel sounds called diphthongs.

Some sounds in Marwari, called implosives, mostly appear at the start of words because of influences from nearby languages. One sound, /w/, changes its shape depending on the vowel that follows it. A language expert named Younis Kashali talked about special sounds including aspirated implosives, fricatives, and sonorants.

Morphology

Marwari languages have a structure similar to Hindustani, which includes Hindi or Urdu. The main way words are put together in sentences follows the pattern of subject, then object, and finally verb. Many of the words for pronouns and questions in Marwari are different from those in Hindi. For example, Marwari and Harauti have special ways to show "we" that include or exclude the person being spoken to.

Vocabulary

Marwari has a vocabulary that looks similar to other Western Indo-Aryan languages, like Rajasthani and Gujarati. But there are enough differences in grammar and basic words that people speaking these languages might have trouble understanding each other.

Word List

Here is a list of 100 common words in Marwari, shown with their translations and sounds, to help compare and study the language.

Writing system

Marwari is usually written using the Devanagari script, but it has a special script called Mahajani that is often used for business records. In Pakistan, people write Marwari using a modified version of the Perso-Arabic script.

Mahajani Script

Main article: Mahajani script

The Mahajani script is mainly used for keeping financial records. It is written from left to right and has fewer vowel signs than other scripts used in North India. Readers often figure out the vowel sounds based on the words around them.

Perso-Arabic Script

Sample Texts

Here is an example of the Marwari language written in the Devanagari script, with a version written using Latin letters as described in a special rule called ISO 15919.