LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 15:4 April 2015
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Reduplication in Modern Maithili

Asad, Md. M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. Research Scholar

Abstract

The present paper aims to present a typological study of reduplication, its structures and patterns in the modern Maithili language. The reduplication process is a very common phenomenon and an important morphological process in the grammar of Maithili. From the formal point of view, reduplication is totally reduplicated process of the segments and lexical items in Maithili. From the semantic point of view, the author presents the function of reduplication in terms of emphasis, generality, intensity and pragmatic as well. This paper is also trying to reveal and show the repetition process that is very relevant to African languages but this process is also found in the Maithili language to some extent. In this paper, an attempt is made to examine and exhibit the differences between reduplication and repetition processes. Both reduplication and repetition can be considered as morphological and semi-morphological processes respectively in the modern Maithili language. This paper has also given a brief introduction of Maithili, its genetic ancestor and the source of origin that clearly reveals that Maithili is neither a dialect of Hindi nor Bengali nor other Indian languages.

Key Words: Maithili, reduplication, morphological reduplication, lexical reduplication, expressive, kinship terminology, onomatopoeic, partial, echo-formation, compound, discontinuous, repetition, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic functions, morphological, and phonological process

1. Introduction

Maithili is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is one of the language listed in the Schedule VIII of the Constitution of India. It is spoken widely in the eastern and northern parts of Bihar in India. This language is also spoken in the south-eastern region of the Tarai districts of Nepal. Maithili is well known for its literature, grammar, culture and the melodious songs and poems of Vidyapati. For some time, it was considered and viewed that Maithili language was either a dialect of Bengali language (Beames 1872-79 & 1966, 84-85), or a dialect of Eastern Hindi (Hoernle 1880), or one of the three dialects of a superior Bihari language, a descendant of the Magadhi Praakrit, derived from “Gaudian” language, but a complete, distinct and separate language from Hindi language (Grierson 1883, 87 & 1903, Hoernle 1885 & 1889). Today, the Maithili language is considered and viewed as a separate language of India that has achieved a magnificent, privileged and dignified status of an Eighth Schedule language of the Indian Constitution in 2003 via the 92nd constitutional amendment. This happened only due to mass movement and demonstrations. Maithili is now being used in different contexts of life, namely, in court, education, law, administrations, mass media & communication, radio, T.Vs, and so on.

According to the Census of India (2001), Maithili is spoken by around 12 million (12, 179, 122) native speakers but the Ethnologue report (2013) indicates that Maithili is widely spoken by almost 30 million speakers in India. According to the Nepali Census Report (2011), Maithili is officially the 2nd largest language and spoken by 12% of the total population of Nepal. According to the International P.E.N (Poets, Essayists & Novelists) and the Sahitya Akademy (National Academy of Letters), Maithili is the 16th largest language of India and 40th most spoken language in the world (Yadav 1997). Very recently in 2008, Maithili & Bhojpuri Academy in Delhi was established by the former Hon’ble Chief Minister Shiela Dikshit for the promotion and development of Maithili and Bhojpuri languages. Earlier, Maithili was being written in Trihuta, i.e., Mithilakshar or Kaithi Script. But nowadays it is commonly written in Devanagari script. The ISO has approved the Maithili script Unicode to preserve the Mithilakshar or Trihuta script.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Md. Asad

Md. Asad, Ph.D. Research Scholar
Center for Linguistics
School of Language, Literature & Cultural Studies
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi-110067
India
asadthomas@gmail.com
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