Korku (also known as Kurku) is a Munda language spoken by the Korku people 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.
Korkus are also closely associated with the Nihali people, many of whom have traditionally lived in special quarters of Korku villages. 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, Buldhana, Akola).
The name Korku comes from Koro-ku (-ku is the animate plural), Koro 'person, member of the Korku community' (Zide 2008).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.
Sociolinguistics The Indian national census of 2011 reported 727,133 people claiming to speak Korku, which contributes to Korku being an unscheduled language according to the Indian system.Sengupta, Papia. "Endangered Languages: Some Concerns." Economic And Political Weekly. no. 32 (2009): 17-19. However, Korku is classified as "vulnerable" by UNESCO, the least concerning of the levels of language endangerment nonetheless. 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.
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.Fuchs, Stephen. "Thirty Korku Dancing Songs." Asian Folklore Studies. no. 1 (2000): 109-140.
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. Western (aka Korku) dialect: spoken in the districts of Melghat, Betul-Narmadapuram, and Narmadapuram. Eastern (aka Muwasi/Mowasi/Mawasi, or Kurku): spoken in the Chhindwara district of southeastern Madhya Pradesh. Glottolog lists four dialects for Korku:
Ruma (Korku) Bondoy Bouriya Mawasi (or Muwasi)
Geographical Distribution Korku is spoken in the following regions (Zide 2008:256): South-central Madhya Pradesh Khandwa district Betul district Narmadapuram district Chhindwara district (Mawasi speakers) Northeastern Maharashtra Amravati district (majority of speakers in Maharashtra) Buldhana district Akola district
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/. FrontCentralBackClose Mid Open
Consonants Korku has a large consonant phoneme inventory, 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.
BilabialAlveolarRetroflexPalatalVelarGlottalStopvoicelessaspiratedvoicedbreathyFricativeNasalApproximantFlap Word-finally, all stops are unreleased.
Tone Korku has two contrastive level tones: low and high. The high tone is unmarked. In many reduplicated verbs, the prefixed element takes the low tone. Only non-initial syllables exhibit tone distinction. In allegro speech, low tone can inject the whole noun phrase, as if there is a low tone in the phrase, every syllable after it will express with low tones. Example iɲ-àʔ sanì kẽᶑe siɽi "my black small goat" → iɲàʔ sànì kẽᶑè sìɽì.
Vowel harmony Verb suffixes and demonstrative derivatives, particularly stems with a final vowel will trigger vowel harmony in morphology: in-èn > enèn ('here'). Initial vowel is harmonised to match with the stressed final syllable. Verb suffixes with -CV structure contract with and are reduced when preceding suffixes with initial vowels. E.g. kul-ki-èʔ-(n)ej (send-INTNS/TLOC-PST.TR-3.OBJ, 'sent him') becomes kulkhèʔnèj when is spelled.
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. +SubjectObjectVerbiɲɟdukanaʈensaːkaɾsasaːbaIstore-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. NumeralAdjectiveNounɖiɟaʔapʰaikenɖesimkuher/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). +SingularDualPluralkonɟe-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. Case MarkerExample Function Nominative -Øɖiɟ ‘s/he’
siʈa
‘the dog’ (subj.) SubjectAccusative-Dative-kʰe(ʔ)/ɖiɟkʰeʔ ‘her/him’
siʈakʰeʔ
‘the dog’ (obj.)(In)Direct object Genitive -à(ʔ) ɖiɟàʔ ‘her/his'
ɟikɽaàʔ
‘of a porcupine’ Possession Locative -ènuɾagèn ‘in the house’
Nagpuɾèn
‘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 -(à)tenuɾagàten ‘from the house’ Source, spatial origin
Other directional and time markers include: Adessive -àʔmera-èn Superessive -àliɲ-èn Postessive -àʔtau-èn Subessive -àʔita-èn Temporal (before) -à-sutuʔ Temporal (after) -à-baadòn
Argument marking Additionally, Korku regularly marks direct object on the verb, as in other Munda languages. In the sentence below, the suffix /eɟ/ on the verb compound /senɖawkʰen/ indicates that it was someone else who was given permission to go.
SubjectObjectVerbiɲɟɖikʰeʔsenɖawkʰen-eɟIher/himallowed.to.go-obj"I allowed her/him to go"
Another example,
Korku has evidence of subject marking in the past, but in modern-day subject indexation has been fossilized and restricted to third persons of locative copulas and nominal predicates in the locative case.
Table below lists pronominal markers in Korku that encode person/number for the object arguments.
SingularDualPlural1st personInclusive-iɲ -laɲ/-lom -buɲExclusive -liɲ -le2nd person -mi -piɲ -pe3rd personAnimate -èj -kiɲ -kuInanimate -e
Tenses/Moods/Aspects/Directionality Given that the general trend in Munda languages is the fusion of tenses with voices, Korku stems are subjected to complex stem alternations in tense/aspect marking in regards to transitivity, animacy, and augmentation. There are two tenses in Korku: Future/Present and Past. Depending on whether the verb is in active or middle voice, its structures may vary. In Future/Present forms, intransitive stems take intransitive marker -ùʔ except some few verbs such as sen ('go'), hej ('come'), and niɽ ('run, go away').
Intransitive Transitive Future/Present Σ-bà Σ-e-bà Σ-Mode-ùʔ-bà Reduplicated-Σ-bà Σ-Mode-Object-bà Past Σ-Mode-en Σ-Mode-Object-èʔ
Korku utilizes partial reduplications of certain monosyllabic stems to create imperfective, habitual, and infinitive forms. In some instances, the reduplicated variant can convey effects and anticipations of an immediate about-to-happen action.
Verb stems can take other markers to express modality/mood/aspects/orientations. Note that many of those suffixes have overlapping functions/fused with other TAM/person categories or assimilated/harmonized with final stressed suffixes. For example, the continuous progressive -lakken that often occurs with reduplicated allomorph to describe unfolding actions contains two elements, the auxiliary -lab and the perfective/unaccomplishment -ken, itself a contracted form of translocative, intensive mode, recent past -ki and intransitive past -en, but are functionally different.
+ TAM/Orientation in Korku (Zide 2008) Affixes Function -ki Intensive Mode, Translocative, Recent Past, Probabilitative -lì Cislocative -ya Translocative, Remote past -ʈʰà Attemptive, Tentative Mode -jom Delayed action -wa Benefactive -ɲ Past transitive -ùʔ Passive-potential -kʰùʔ Durative mood -yùʔ < -ya-ùʔ Potential, ability -lab Continuous aspect -ken Prefective, Unaccomplishness -daːn Past Habitual -da Unaccomplishness -ka Continuative aspect -ye Capabilitive mood wa- Permissive mood
Pronouns
Personal pronouns Sources:
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. SingularDualPlural1st personInclusiveiɲɟalaŋɟabuɲExclusivealiɲɟale2nd personaːmapinɟape3rd personAnimateɖic ~ inɖikinɟɖikuInanimateɖiː
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. The table below illustrates the forms used in Korku. +GenderNumberDistanceProximalDistalVery closeCloseFarVery farPinpointingInanimateSingularniini / noːɟeɖiha / hu / hohuɟɟe AnimateSingularnicinicɖichuc / huɟ / huɟehoːɟeDualniɲɟinkiɲɟ / noːkiɲɟɖikiɲɟhuɟkiɲɟhoːkiɲɟPluralnikuinku / noːkuɖikuhuɟkuhoːku
Derivation In Korku, the infix -nV- is sometimes injected into verbs to derive nouns. This method is no longer productive as compared to the Kherwarian languages and other Munda lects.
kaɽub ('to cover') → kanuɽub ('lid, cover')
jukh(V)rij ('to sweep') → junuʔ ('broom')
Lexicon
Numerals The basic cardinal numbers from 1 to 10 (transcribed in IPA) are: 1 miɲaʔ 2 bari 3 apʰai 4 apʰun 5 monoe 6 tuɾui 7 ei 8 ilaɾ 9 aɾei 10 gel
Numbers after 11 are mainly of Indo-Aryan origin.
Kinship terms