Mundari (Mundari Bani: , romanised: Muṇḍārī, IPA: ) is a Munda language of the Austroasiatic language family spoken by the Munda tribes native to the Chota Nagpur Plateau region in India with over 1.5 million native speakers. It is closely related to Ho and Santali, and along with Bhumij, is one of the four major Munda languages. Mundari is an additional official language in the state of Jharkhand, and has significant speakers in eastern Indian states of Odisha and West Bengal and northern Rangpur Division of Bangladesh. In India, Mundari is recognised as a significant minority language. However, its speakers are often bilingual in Hindi or the local state language.
Mundari is an agglutinative language characterised by its complex morphology, where multiple affixes are added to roots to convey grammatical relationships. While historically transmitted through oral tradition, Mundari is now written using several scripts, most notably Mundari Bani, invented by Rohidas Singh Nag specifically to write Mundari."Adivasi. Volume 52. Number 1&2. June&December 2012". Page 22 It has also been written in the Devanagari, Odia, Bengali, and Latin writing systems.
Mundari has been classified as a vulnerable language according to the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. It remains a subject of extensive linguistic study due to its unique grammatical structure and its role in understanding the migration patterns of Austroasiatic speakers in South Asia.
History The term Muɳɖa means "village headman" in Mundari. Neighboring communities of the Mundas referred to their language as Muɳɖārī, and the Mundas themselves call it hoɽo dʒagar ("human language"; hoɽo–"man", dʒagar–"to speak, speech") or muɳɖa dʒagar ("Munda language"). Studies on Mundari started in the nineteenth century, pioneered by the works of Haldar (1871), Whitley (1873), and Nottrott (1882), though most of them were brief sketches and documentations. Then in 1903, German missionary/linguist John Hoffmann initiated two massive and influential projects on Mundari: Mundari Grammar (1903–1905) and Encyclopaedia Mundarica (1903–1978), the latter was completed long after his death and was published posthumously.
Geographical distribution Historical speaker of Mundari language variety Census Munda () Mundari ()Total () 1971 309,293 771,253 1,080,546 1981 377,492 (+22) 742,739 (-4) 1,120,231 (+3.6) 1991 413,894 (+9.6) 861,378 (+16) 1,275,272 (+13.8) 2001 469,357 (+13.5) 1,061,352 (+23) 1,530,709 (+20.0) 2011 505,922 (+7.8) 1,128,228 (+6) 1,634,150 (+6.7)Source: Census of India
Mundari is spoken in the Khunti, Ranchi, Seraikela Kharsawan and West Singhbhum, East Singhbhum district of Jharkhand, and in the Mayurbhanj, Kendujhar, Sundargarh district of Odisha by at least 1.1 million people. Another 500,000, mainly in Odisha and Assam, are recorded in the census as speaking "Munda," potentially another name for Mundari.
Status In 2011, Mundari was recognised as an additional official language of Jharkhand under the Jharkhand Official Language (Amendment) Act, 2011. This status allows for the language to be used in administrative and cultural contexts alongside Hindi, the state's primary official language.
Dialects Mundari has the following dialects which are spoken mostly in Jharkhand state: Hasada (, ): east of the Ranchi-Chaibasa Road Naguri (, ): west of the Ranchi-Chaibasa Road Tamaria (, ) or Latar (, ): Panchpargana area (Tamar, Bundu, Rahe, Sonahatu, Silli) Kera (, ): ethnic Oraon who live in the Ranchi city area.
Phonology The phonology of Mundari is similar to the surrounding closely related Austroasiatic languages but considerably different from either Indo-Aryan or Dravidian. Perhaps the most foreign phonological influence has been on the vowels. Whereas the branches of Austroasiatic in Southeast Asia are rich in vowel phonemes, Mundari has only five. The consonant inventory of Mundari is similar to other Austroasiatic languages with the exception of retroflex consonants, which seem to appear only in loanwords. (Osada 2008)
Vowels Mundari has five vowel phonemes. All vowels have long and short as well as nasalized allophones, but neither length nor nasality are contrastive. All vowels in open monosyllables are quantitatively longer than those in closed syllables, and those following nasal consonants or are nasalized. Vowels preceding or following are also nasalized.
Front Central Back Close Mid Open
Consonants Mundari's consonant inventory consists of 23 basic phonemes. The Naguri and Kera dialects include aspirated stops as additional phonemes, here enclosed in parentheses.
Labial Dental Retroflex Palatal Velar GlottalNasal Plosive () () () () () Fricative Approximant Trill
Counting S.No. Mundari Transliteration Translation 1 मियद Miyad One 2 बारिया Baria Two 3 आपिया Apia Three 4 उपनिआ Upnia four 5 मोड़ेया Modea Five 6 तुरिया Turia Six 7 एया Are Seven 8 इरलिया Erlia Eight 9 आरेया Area Nine 10 गेलेया Galea Ten 11 Gel Miyad Eleven 12 Gel BariyaTwelve 13 Apiya Thirteen 14 Upuna Fourteen15 ModeyaFifteen16 TuriyaSixteen17 Eya Seventeen18 IriliyaEighteen19 Areya Nineteen20 Mid Hisi Twenty21 Hisi MiyadTwenty-one30 Mid hisi GelThirty31 Hisi Gel MiyadThirty-one40 Bar Hisi Forty41 Bar Hisi MiyadForty-one50 Bar Hisi GelFifty60 Aapi Hisi Sixty70 Aapi Hisi GelSeventy80 Upun Hisi Eighty90 Upun Hisi GelNinety100 Mid SaayeOne hundred200 Bar SaayeTwo hundred1000 Mid HazarOne thousand1,00,000 Mid LakOne lakh
Relations The table below shows familial relations in Mundari: Mundari Transliteration Translation Odia Devanagari Bengali Eṅga Mother Apu Father Hagā Brother Misi Sister Sakiṅ Eṅga Paternal Grand Mother Sakiṅ Apu Paternal Grand Father Mamuolaḥ Sakiṅ Eṅga Maternal Grand Mother Mamuolaḥ Sakiṅ Apu Maternal Grand Father Huḍiṅ Eṅga Aunt Huḍiṅ Apu Uncle Maraṅ Eṅga Elder Mother Maraṅ Apu Elder Father Hon Kuṛi Daughter Hon koṛa Son
Verb
Mundari Transliteration Translation रिकाएआ Rikā'ē'ā Does ओलेआ Ol'ē'ā Write जगरेआ Jagor'ē'ā Talk पढ़वएआ Padv'ē'ā Read लेलेआ Lel'ē'ā Look / see सेनेआ Sen'ē'ā Come along with नमेआ Nem'ē'ā Found निरेआ Nir'ē'ā Run सबेआ Sab'ē'ā Hold लेका एआ Leka'ē'ā Count मुकाएआ Muka'ē'ā Measure रिका एआ Rika'ē'ā Cut হেড়েম Hedem Sweet Kete-e Hard Lebe-e Soft Singi Sun Chandu-u Moon Ipil Stars Sirma Sky Ote Dishum Earth Rimil cloud Hoyo Air/Wind Gitil Sands Dhudi Dust Losod Muddy Hodomo Body Tasad Grass Daru Tree Sakam Leaf Dayir Branches of Tree
Grammar In 1903, Hoffmann noted something abnormal with the Mundari lexicon: the lack of discrete lexical distinction. Mundari lexemes are not inherently specified for lexical categories. He made several following impressions:
Similar issues with word class distinction have been also reported in other Munda languages, especially North Munda (Santali (Bodding 1929, Ghosh 1994, Neukom 2001), Ho (Deeney 1978), Korku (Drake 1903, Zide (undated)), Kharia (Pinnow 1960, Peterson 2003), Juang. Grierson (1906) summarized the issue in his Linguistic Survey of India:
Modern typologist interest in Mundari lexical categories was revitalized by Cook (1965), Langendoen (1967), Sinha (1975), Osada (1992), Bhat (1994), and most famously Evans & Osada (2005). Evans & Osada challenged the flexible analysis, contending instead that Mundari exhibits distinct yet exceptionally fluid grammatical categories (nouns, verbs, and adjectives). Their argument rests upon three specific criteria for assessing flexibility: (i) explicit semantic compositionality across both argument and predicate functions, (ii) bidirectionality, and (iii) exhaustiveness. This research prompted an extensive series of peer reviews and criticism within the same volume of Linguistic Typology. Notwithstanding these debates, Osada (1992), Badenoch & Osada (2019), and Badenoch et al. (2019) identify expressives as a further open lexical class in Mundari, encompassing a minimum of 1,500 lemmas. Mark Dingemanse comments: "yet the status of this considerable lexical stratum in the language has not featured in any word-class debates."
This section will leave out the discussions on Mundari & North Munda flexibility and focus on the morphological differences between two main dialects, Hasadaʔ and Keraʔ, specifically in relation to their respective approaches to lexical flexibility.
In Hasadaʔ Mundari, entity-denoting lexemes and structures or "noun"-like, "noun phrase"-like, and "adjective"-like all can be used as semantic bases of predicates (i.e. "verbs") without derivation. The "verbal" constructions' semantic results are often compositional (predictable), but sometimes they can be idiosyncratic.
In contrast, Keraʔ Mundari does not allow such blatant uses of "zero-derivation" (i.e. conversion) like in Hasadaʔ and other dialects. Nouns can only used as verbs with the sense of performing the semantical action with the presence of verbalizing suffix -o/-u. For examples:
1. aɽandi "wedding"
1. sindri "vermillion"
Regarding the limit of flexibility, there is an infix -n- that can be inserted into certain Mundari lexemes, which "transforms the verb root into an abstract inanimate noun stem, which is no longer capable of verb inflection". Per Hengeveld & Rijkhoff (2005), citing Cook (1965)'s data:
dal "strike" → da-n-al "a blow"
dub "sit" → du-n-ub "a meeting"
ol "to write" → o-n-ol "the writing"
Writing system
Mandari is written in native Mundari Bani (), invented in the 1980s by Rohidas Singh Nag, which has since seen limited but increasing use in literature, education, and computing. It is a true alphabet that consists of 27 distinct letters and 5 diacritical marks, the forms of which are intended to evoke natural shapes. The script is unicameral, written from left to right, and consonants do not possess an inherent vowel. They are organised into five clusters, each led by a primary vowel. The first letter of the consonant's name matches the primary vowel. Their names follow traditional naming schemes. + Mundari consonants( ) + Mundari Diacritics( ) Mundari is also written in Odia, Devanagari and Bengali scripts.
Sample text The following text is Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, written in Mundari: Mundari Script
Odia Script
Devanagari Script
Bengali Script
Romanisation
IPA transcription
English
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading Evans, Nicholas & Toshki Osada. 2005b. Mundari and argumentation in word-class analysis. In Linguistic Typology 9.3, pp. 442–457 Newberry, J. (2000). North Munda dialects: Mundari, Santali, Bhumia. Victoria, B.C.: J. Newberry.
Texts
External links Mundari Bibliography at Department of Linguistics, University of Osnabrueck, Germany Detailed language map of eastern Nepal, see language #68 in green along eastern border http://projekt.ht.lu.se/rwaai RWAAI (Repository and Workspace for Austroasiatic Intangible Heritage) http://hdl.handle.net/10050/00-0000-0000-0003-A6AA-C@view Mundari language in RWAAI Digital Archive https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2021/21031r-mundari.pdf https://omniglot.com/writing/mundaribani.htm https://omniglot.com/writing/mundari.htm
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