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| Gujarati ગુજરાતી Gujǎrātī | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pronunciation: | /gudʒ.(ə)\'ɾɑ̈t̪i/ | |||
| Spoken in: | India, Pakistan, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, U.S., UK, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Canada, Zambia, Zimbabwe | |||
| Total speakers: | 46.1 millionGordon 2005 | |||
| Ranking: | 26 | |||
| Language family: | Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Western Indo-Aryan Gujarati | |||
| Writing system: | Gujarati script | |||
| Official status | ||||
| Official language in: | Gujarat (India)Dwyer 1995, p. 5 | |||
| Regulated by: | no official regulation | |||
| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-1: | gu | |||
| ISO 639-2: | guj | |||
| ISO 639-3: | guj | |||
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Gujarati (ગુજરાતી Gujǎrātī?) is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is native to the Indian state of Gujarat, and is its chief language, as well as of the adjacent union territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
There are about 46 million speakers of Gujarati worldwide, making it the 26th most spoken native language in the world. Along with Romany and Sindhi, it is among the most western of Indo-Aryan languages. Gujarati was the first language of Mohandas K. Gandhi, the "father of India", Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the "father of Pakistan" and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the "iron man of India".
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Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Mahatma Gandhi sharing a laugh together in Bombay, 1944, for (what would end up as failed) political talks. These two prime political figures of the Indian subcontinent in the 20th century were Gujaratis and thus native speakers of the Gujarati language. For Jinnah, Gujarati did not factor beyond that of a mother tongue. He was neither born nor raised in GujaratTimeline: Personalities, Story of Pakistan. "Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948)". Retrieved on 2007-05-12., and Gujarat did not end up a part of Pakistan, the state he espoused. He went on to advocate for solely Urdu in his politics. For Gandhi, Gujarati served as a medium of literary expression. He helped to inspire a renewal in its literature, and in 1936 he introduced the current spelling convention at the Gujarati Literary Society\'s 12th meetingMistry 1997, p. 654.
Gujarati (also having been variously spelled as Gujerati, Gujarathi, Guzratee, Guujaratee, Gujrathi, and GujerathiMistry 2001, pp. 274) is a modern Indo-Aryan language evolved from Sanskrit. The traditional practice is to differentiate the IA languages on the basis of three historical stages:
Another view accords successive family, tree splits, in which Gujarati is assumed to have separated from other IA languages in four stagesMistry 2003, p. 115:
The principal changes from Sanskrit are the following:
Gujarati is then customarily divided into the following three historical stages:
Old Gujarati (1100 — 1500 AD), ancestor of Gujarati and Rajasthani,Dalby 1998, p. 237 was spoken by the Gurjars in northern Gujarat and western Rajasthan. Texts of this era display characteristic Gujarati features such as direct/oblique noun forms, postpositions, and auxiliary verbs. It had 3 genders as Gujarati does today, and by around the time of 1300 CE a fairly standardized form of this language emerged. While generally known as Old Gujarati, some scholars prefer the name of Old Western Rajasthani, based on the argument that Gujarati and Rajasthani were not yet distinct at the time. Also factoring into this preference was the belief that modern Rajasthani sporadically expressed a neuter gender, based on the incorrect conclusion that the [ũ] that came to be pronounced in some areas for masculine [o] after a nasal consonant was analogous to Gujarati\'s neuter [ũ].Smith, J.D. (2001) "Rajasthani." Facts about the world\'s languages: An encyclopedia of the world\'s major languages, past and present. Ed. Jane Garry, and Carl Rubino: New England Publishing Associates. pp. 591-593. A formal grammar of the precursor to this language was written by Jain monk and eminent scholar Hemachandra Suri in the reign of Rajput king Siddharaj Jayasinh of Anhilwara (Patan).
Major works were written in various genres, for the most part in verse form, such as:
Narasimha Mehta (c. 1414 — 1480) is traditionally viewed as the father of modern Gujarati poetry. By virtue of its early age and good editing, an important prose work is the fourteenth-century commentary of Taruṇaprabha, the Ṣaḍāvaśyakabālabodhavr̥tti.
Middle Gujarati (1500 — 1800 AD), split off from Rajasthani, and developed the phonemes ɛ and ɔ, the auxiliary stem ch-, and the possessive marker -n-.Mistry 2003, pp. 115-116 Major phonological changes characteristic of the transition between Old and Middle Gujarati are:
These developments would have grammatical consequences. For example, Old Gujarati\'s instrumental-locative singular in -i was leveled and eliminated, having become the same as Old Gujarati\'s nominative-accusative singular in -ə.
Modern Gujarati (1800 AD — ). A major phonological change was the deletion of final ə\'s, such that the modern language has consonant-final words. Grammatically, a new plural marker of -o developed. In literature, the third quarter of the 19th century saw a series of milestones for Gujarati, which previously had had verse as its dominant mode of literary composition.Yashaschandra, S. (1995) "Towards Hind Svaraj: An Interpretation of the Rise of Prose in Nineteenth-Century Gujarati Literature." Social Scientist. Vol. 23, No. 10/12. pp. 41-55.
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Of the approximately 46 million speakers of Gujarati, roughly 45.5 million reside in India, 150 000 in Uganda, 250 000 in Tanzania, 50 000 in Kenya and roughly 100 000 in Pakistan. There is also a large Gujarati community in Mumbai, India.
The United Kingdom has 300 000 speakers, many of them situated in the London areas of Wembley, Harrow and Newham and in Leicester, Coventry and Bradford. A considerable population exists in North America as well. A portion of these numbers consists of East African Gujaratis who, under increasing discrimination and policies of Africanisation in their newly-independent resident countries (especially Uganda, where Idi Amin expelled 50 000 Asians), were left with uncertain futures and citizenships. Most, with British passports, settled in the UK.Dwyer 1995, p. 273
Besides being spoken by the Gujarati people, non-Gujarati residents of and migrants to the state of Gujarat also count as speakers, among them the Kutchis (as a literary language), the Parsis (adopted as a mother tongue), and Hindu Sindhi refugees from Pakistan.
Gujarati is one of the 22 official languages and 14 regional languages of India. It is officially recognized in the state of Gujarat, India.
The accepted standard dialect is the speech of the area from Baroda to Ahmedabad and north.Cardona & Suthar 2003, p. 661 Ethnologue lists the following dialects and subdivisions.
Kutchi, also known as Khojki, is often referred to as a dialect of Gujarati, but most linguists consider it closer to Sindhi.
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Similar to other Nāgarī writing systems, the Gujarati script is an abugida. It is used to write the Gujarati and Kutchi languages. It is a variant of Devanāgarī script differentiated by the loss of the characteristic horizontal line running above the letters and by a small number of modifications in the remaining characters.
Gujarati and closely related languages, including Kutchi, can be written in the Arabic or Persian scripts. This is traditionally done by many in Gujarat\'s Kutch district.
These are the three general categories of words in modern Indo-Aryan: tatsam, tadbhav, and loanwords.Snell, R. (2000) Teach Yourself Beginner\'s Hindi Script. Hodder & Stoughton. pp. 83-86.
તદ્ભવ્ tadbhav, "of the nature of that". Gujarati is a modern Indo-Aryan language descended from Sanskrit (old Indo-Aryan), and this category pertains exactly to that: words of Sanskritic origin that have demonstratively undergone change over the ages, ending up characteristic of modern Indo-Aryan languages specifically as well as in general. Thus the "that" in "of the nature of that" refers to Sanskrit. They tend to be non-technical, everday, crucial words; part of the spoken vernacular. Below is a table of a few Gujarati tadbhav words and their Old Indo-Aryan sources:
તત્સમ્ tatsam, "same as that". While Sanskrit eventually stopped being spoken vernacularly, in that it changed into Middle Indo-Aryan, it was nonetheless standardized and retained as a literary and liturgical language for long after. This category consists of these borrowed words of (more or less) pure Sanskrit character. They serve to enrich Gujarati and modern Indo-Aryan in its formal, technical, and religious vocabulary. They are recognizable by their Sanskrit inflections and markings; they are thus often treated as a separate grammatical category unto themselves.
| Tatsam | English | Gujarati |
|---|---|---|
| lekhak | writer | lakhnār |
| vijetā | winner | jītnār |
| vikǎsit | developed | vikǎselũ |
| jāgǎraṇ | awakening | jāgvānũ |
Many old tatsam words have changed their meanings or have had their meanings adopted for modern times. પ્રસારણ prasāraṇ means "spreading", but now it\'s used for "broadcasting". In addition to this are neologisms, often being calques. An example is telephone, which is Greek for "far talk", translated as દુરભાષ durbhāṣ. Though most people just use ફોન phon and thus neo-Sanskrit has varying degrees of acceptance.
So, while having unique tadbhav sets, modern IA languages have a common, higher tatsam pool. Also, tatsams and their derived tadbhavs can also co-exist in a language; sometimes of no consequence: dharma-dharam, other times with differences in meaning, with the former holding a "higher" one:
| Tatsam | Tadbhav | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| karma | Work — Dharmic religious concept of works or deeds whose divine consequences are experienced in this life or the next. | kām | Simply... work. |
| kṣetra | Field — Abstract sense, such as a field of knowledge or activity; khāngī kṣetra → private sector. Physical sense, but of higher or special importance; raṇǎkṣetra → battlefield. | khetar | Regular old field, such as to farm on. |
What remains are words of foreign origin (videśī), as well as words of local origin that cannot be pegged as belonging to any of the three prior categories (deśaj). The former consists mainly of Persian, Arabic, and English, with trace elements of Portuguese and Turkish. While the phenomenon of English loanwords is relatively new, Perso-Arabic has a longer history behind it. Both English and Perso-Arabic influences are quite nation-wide phenomena, in a way paralleling tatsam as a common vocabulary set or bank. What\'s more is how, beyond a transposition into general Indo-Aryan, the Perso-Arabic set has also been assimilated in a manner characteristic and relevant to the specific Indo-Aryan language it\'s being used in, bringing to mind tadbhav.
India was ruled for many a century by Persian-speaking Muslims. As a consequence Indian languages were changed greatly, with the large scale entry of Persian and its many Arabic loans into the Gujarati lexicon. One fundamental adoption was Persian\'s conjunction "that", ke. Also, while tatsam or Sanskrit is etymologically continuous to Gujarati, it is essentially of a differing grammar (or language), and that in comparison while Perso-Arabic is etymologically foreign, it has been in certain instances and to varying degrees grammatically indigenized. Owing to centuries of situation and the end of Persian education and power, (1) Perso-Arabic loans are quite unlikely to be thought of or known as loans, and (2) more importantly, these loans have often been Gujarati-ized. dāvo - claim, fāydo - benefit, natījo - result, and humlo - attack, all carry Gujarati\'s masculine gender marker, o. khānũ - compartment, has the neuter ũ. Aside from easy slotting with the auxiliary karvũ, a few words have made a complete transition of verbification: kabūlvũ - to admit (fault), kharīdvũ - to buy, kharǎcvũ - to spend (money), gujarvũ - to pass. The last three are definite part and parcel.
Thus, while Indo-Aryan languages like Marathi, Nepali, and Bengali are conservative in their lexicons, central and western/northwestern tongues like Punjabi, Hindustani, Sindhi, and Gujarati have been Persianized. The most resounding occurrence of this was that of the Delhi dialect of Hindustani; Delhi being the seat of Muslim power. Its Persianization and subsequent dePersianization and Sanskritization lead to the reality of the two registers if not languages of Urdu and Hindi, which became the national languages of Pakistan and India. Gujarati is not split in this way, but nonetheless its loaning is to be noted.
Below is a table displaying a number of these loans. Currently some of the etymologies are being referenced to an Urdu dictionary, so it should be noted that Gujarati\'s singular masculine o corresponds to Urdu ā, neuter ũ groups into ā as Urdu has no neuter gender, and Urdu\'s Persian z is not upheld in Gujarati and corresponds to j or jh. In contrast to modern Persian, the pronunciation of these loans into Gujarati and other Indo-Aryan languages, as well as that of Indian-recited Persian, seems to be in line with Persian spoken in Afghanistan and Central Asia, perhaps 500 years agoMasica 1991, p. 75.
Lastly, Persian, being part of the Indo-Iranian language family as Sanskrit and Gujarati are, met up in some instances with its cognatesMasica 1991, p. 71:
| Persian | INDO-ARYAN | English |
|---|---|---|
| marǎd | martya | man, mortal |
| stān | sthān | place, land |
| ī | īya | |
| band | bandh | closed, fastened |
Zoroastrian Persian refugees known as Parsis also speak an accordingly Persianized form of Gujarati.Tisdall 1892, p. 15
śrī sarasvatī fruṭ jyuś sɛnṭar - "Shri Saraswati Fruit Juice Centre". Note that "Fruit Juice Centre" are in English. A Sanskritic alternative would be phaḷ ras kendra, or phaḷnā rasno kendra. It (kendra in particular) would however sound quite pedantic and out of place.
With the end of Perso-Arabic inflow, English became the current foreign source of new vocabulary. English had and continues to have a considerable influence over Indian languages. Loanwords include new innovations and concepts, first introduced directly through British colonialism, and then streaming in on the basis of continued Anglosphere dominance in the post-colonial period. Besides the category of new ideas is the category of English words that already have Gujarati counterparts which end up replaced or existed alongside with. The major driving force behind this latter category has to be the continuing role of English in modern India as a language of education, prestige, and mobility. In this way, Indian speech can be sprinkled with English words and expressions, even switches to whole sentences.Masica 1991, pp. 49-50 See Hinglish, Code-switching.
In matters of sound, English alveolar consonants map as retroflexes rather than dentals. Two new characters were created in Gujarati to represent English /æ/\'s and /ɔ/\'s. Levels of Gujarati-ization in sound vary. Some words don\'t go far beyond this basic transpositional rule, and sound much like their English source, while others differ in ways, one of those ways being the carrying of dentals. See Indian English.
As English loanwards are a relatively new phenomenon, they adhere to English grammar, as tatsam words adhere to Sanskrit. Though that isn\'t to say that the most basic changes have been underway: many English words are pluralized with Gujarati o over English "s". Also, with Gujarati having 3 genders, genderless English words must take one. Though often inexplicable, gender assignment may follow the same basis as it is expressed in Gujarati: vowel type, and the nature of word meaning.
| bâṅk | bank | phon | phone | ṭebal | table | bas | bus | rabbar | eraser | ṭorc | flashlight | dôkṭar | doctor | rasīd | receipt |
| helo halo hālo | hello | hôspiṭal aspitāl ispitāl | hospital | sṭeśan ṭeśan | station | sāykal | (bi)cycle | rum | room | āis krīm | ice cream | rôbaṭ | robot | ṭāym | time |
| aṅkal1 | uncle | āṇṭī1 | auntie | pākīṭ | wallet | kavar | envelope | noṭ | banknote | skūl | school | ṭyuśan | tuitoring | esī | AC |
| minaṭ miniṭ | minute | ṭikiṭ ṭikaṭ | ticket | sleṭ | slate | hoṭal | hotel | pārṭī | party | ṭren | train | kalekṭar | collector | reḍīyo | radio |
The smaller foothold the Portuguese had in wider India had linguistic effects. Gujarati took up a number of words, while elsewhere the influence was great enough to the extent that creole languages came to be (see Portuguese India, Portuguese-based creole languages#India and Sri Lanka). Comparatively, the impact of Portuguese has been greater on coastal languagesMasica 1991, p. 49 and their loans tend to be closer to the Portuguese originalsMasica 1991, p. 73. The source dialect of these loans imparts an earlier pronunciation of ch as an affricate instead of the current standard of [ʃ].
| Gujarati | Meaning | Portuguese |
|---|---|---|
| istrī | iron(ing) | estirar1 |
| mistrī ² | carpenter | mestre³ |
| sābu | soap | sabão |
| cāvī | key | chave |
| tamāku | tobacco | tabaco |
| kobī | cabbage | couve |
| kāju | cashew | caju |
| pāũ | bread | pão |
| baṭāko | potato | batata |
| anānas | pineapple | ananás |
| pādrī | \'father\' | padre |
| aṅgrej(ī) | English | inglês |
| nātāl | christmas | natal |
| “ | Insert the text of the quote here, without quotation marks. | ” |
| “ | Insert the text of the quote here, without quotation marks. | ” |
Tank—
| “ | Insert the text of the quote here, without quotation marks. | ” |
Gujarati is a head-final, or left-branching language. Adjectives precede nouns, direct objects come before verbs, and there are postpositions. The word order of Gujarati is SOV, and there are three genders and two numbers. There are no definite or indefinite articles. A verb is expressed with its verbal root followed by suffixes marking aspect and agreement in what is called a main form, with a possible proceeding auxiliary form derived from to be, marking tense and mood, and also showing agreement. Causatives (up to double) and passives have morphological basis\'.Mistry 2001, pp. 276-277
Gujarati sample (Sign about Gandhi\'s hut)
Transcription (IPA) —
Simple gloss —
Transliteration and detailed gloss —
| gāndhījī-n-ī | jhū̃pṛ-ī-Ø | Karāṛī |
| gandhiji–GEN–FEM | hut–FEM–SG | karadi |
| jag | prasiddh | dāṇḍī | kūc | pachī | gāndhījī-e | ahī̃ | āmb-ā-Ø-n-ā | vṛkṣ | nīce |
| world | famous | dandi | march | after | gandhiji–ERG | here | mango–MASC.OBL–SG–GEN–MASC.OBL | tree | under |
| khajūr-ī-Ø-n-ā̃ | chaṭiy-ā̃-n-ī | ek | jhū̃pṛ-ī-Ø-mā̃ | tā. | 14 4 1930thī | tā. | 4 5 1930 | sudhī |
| palmdate–FEM–SG–GEN–NEUT.OBL | bark–NEUT.PL.OBL–GEN–FEM.OBL | one | hut–FEM–SG–in | date | 14 4 1930–from | date | until |
| nivās | kar-y-o | ha-t-o | . | dāṇḍī-mā̃ | chaṭhṭhī | epril-e | śarū | kar-el-ī | nimak |
| residence.MASC.SG.OBJ.NOM | do–PERF–MASC.SG | be–PAST–MASC.SG | dandi–in | sixth | April–at | started | do–PAST.PTCP–FEM | salt |
| kānūn | bhaṅg-n-ī | laṛat-Ø-ne | te-m-ṇe | ahī̃-thī | veg | āp-ī | deś | vyāpī |
| law | break–GEN–FEM.OBL | fight.FEM.OBJ–SG–ACC | 3.DIST–HONORIFIC–ERG | here–from | speed–OBJ | give–CONJUNCTIVE | country | wide |
| ban-āv-Ø-ī | ha-t-ī | . | ahī̃-thī-j | te-m-ṇe | dharāsaṇā-n-ā |
| become–CAUS–PERF–FEM | be–PAST–FEM | here–from–INTENSIFIER | 3.DIST–HONORIFIC–ERG | dharasana–GEN–MASC.PL |
| mīṭh-ā-n-ā | agar-o | taraph | kūc | kar-v-ā-n-o | potā-n-o |
| salt–NEUT.SG.OBL–GEN–MASC.PL | mound.MASC–PL | towards | march.MASC.SG | do–INF–OBL–GEN–MASC.SG | REFL–GEN–MASC.SG |
| saṅkalp | briṭiś | vāīsarôy-Ø-ne | patra | lakh-īne | jaṇ-āv-y-o | ha-t-o | . | tā. |
| resolve.MASC.SG.OBJ.ACC | British | viceroy.OBJ–SG–DAT | letter | write–CONJUNCTIVE | know–CAUS–PERF–MASC.SG | be–PAST–MASC.SG | date |
| 4-thī | me | 1930-n-ī | rāt-Ø-n-ā | bār | vāg-y-ā | pachī | ā | sthaḷ-e-thī | briṭiś |
| 4-from | may | 1930–GEN–FEM.OBL | night.FEM–SG–GEN–MASC.OBL | twelve | strike–PERF–OBL | after | 3.PROX | place–at–from | British |
| sarkār-e | te-m-n-ī | dharpakaṛ | kar-Ø-ī | ha-t-ī | . |
| government–ERG | 3.DIST–HONORIFIC–GEN–FEM | arrest.FEM.SG.OBJ.ACC | do–PERF–FEM | be–PAST–FEM |
Translation (by Wikipedia) —
Translation (provided at location) —
| Gujarati | Transliteration | English | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| કેમ છો? | kem cho? | How are you? | The Gujarati greeting. |
| નમસ્તે, નમસ્કાર | namaste, namaskār | Greetings | Formal pan-Indian (or rather perhaps, pan-Hindu) greetings. |
| તમે ગુજરાતી બોલો છો? | tame gujarātī bolo cho? | Do you speak Gujarati? | The pronoun tame and the os following bol and ch are honorific. cf. French\'s vous parlez. |
| હું ગુજરાતી બોલું છું | hũ gujarātī bolũ chũ | I speak Gujarati | |
| મને ગુજરાતી (બોલતા) આવડે છે | mane gujarātī (boltā) āvṛe che | I know (how to speak) Gujarati | |
| અંગ્રેજી | aṅgrejī | English | Traditional Portuguese loan; ઇંગ્લિશ iṅgliś is also well understood. |
| સારું | sārũ | Good | The end vowel ũ signifies that this adjective is variable. It agrees with what it describes. The root is sār and the appropriate agreement vowel is slotted in behind it. Right now that vowel is singular neuter ũ, default for when the variable is alone and not describing (agreeing with) something. |
| ખરાબ | kharāb | Bad | Arabic loan. |
| તમારું નામ શું છે? | tamārũ nām śũ che? | What is your name? | tamārũ "Your" is honorific. cf. French\'s votre. |
| મારું નામ ___ છે | mārũ nām ___ che | My name is ___ | Name is a neuter noun. |
| ગુજરાતીમાં ___(ને) શું કેવાય? | gujarātīmā̃ ___(ne) śũ kevāy? | What is ___ called in Gujarati? | |
| હા, હાંજી | hā, hā̃jī | Yes | In increasing formality. |
| ના, નાજી | nā, nājī | No | |
| આવજો | āvjo | Bye | lit. Do come |
| ને? | ne? | Eh?, Right?, Isn\'t it? | |
| બસ | bas | That\'s it!, Enough!, Just... | Persian loan. |
| શું થયું? | śũ thayũ? | What happened? | |
| મને ___ ગમે છે | mane ___ game che | I like ___ | lit. to me ___ is (being) likeable. |
| કેટલાં વાગ્યાં? | keṭlā̃ vāgyā̃? | What time is it? | lit. How many did it strike? |
| સંભાળજો | sambhāḷjo | Take care | |
| મારું માથું ન ખા | mārũ māthũ na khā | Don\'t bother me | lit. Do not eat my head |
| ... કે ન પૂછવાની વાત | ke na pūchvānī vāt | ... that you wouldn\'t believe it | lit. an un-ask-able talk or a talk not to (be) ask(ed) |
Wikibooks\' [[wikibooks:|]] has more about this subject:
Gujarati language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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