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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Phonemes of Asuri

S. Ganesh Baskaran, Ph.D.

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to explore the existing phonemes in the Asuri language. The Asuri speakers live in and around the Chota Nagpur area, which falls under Gumla Disrtict of Jharkhand State. Asuri is closely associated with Mundari Language, which falls under the Munda family. The Munda family of languages spoken in India is divided into two groups, namely, North Munda and South Munda. The Asuri belongs to the North Munda group. Asuri has a small number of speakers living in the midst of other major languages like Hindi, Sadri, Mundari and Santali. The Sadri acts as a lingua-franca in the region. All the Asuri speakers are bilingual. They speak Asuri in their home domain and Sadri in all other socio-economic contexts. The modernization process leads to ignoring the Asuri Language. It is found that Asuris are more inclined to use Sadri, which probably may lead their language towards endangerment.

Key Words: Asuri, Phoneme, Allophone and Diphthongs

1. Introduction

Asurs are the early settlers of the Chota Nagpur area of Gumla District which falls under the Jharkhand State. The Asur people are stout, muscular, and medium in height. Traditionally they are the iron smelters. They used to extract iron ore from the rocks around. Asurs are omnivorous, and they eat any animal. Animal and birds are scanty wherever the Asur people live. Due to the introduction of the modern education system, a slow change has appeared among the Asurs. Generally, Asurs live in separate villages. However, due to availability of temporary employment opportunities a few Mundari and Kurux/Orang families also live in Asuri villages. They work as laborers for loading the natural resources.

Asur people speak Sadri which is the lingua franca of ChotaNagpur area which is a mixed form of Hindi, Munda and Dravidian languages. Mundari, Santali. Ho, Kurux/Orang and Hindi language speakers live together in the same area and hence a common language of Chotanagpur called Sadri emerged as a link language. So, losing the original vocabulary of their language and gaining the vocabulary of other languages in the area could not be avoided. Asurs were earlier worshipers of nature around; nowadays they have started worshipping the idols like other Hindus. A few persons and families have converted to Christianity also.

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

S. Ganesh Baskaran, Ph.D.
Rabindranath Tagore School of Languages and Cultural Studies
Department of Linguistics
Assam University
Silchar 788011
Assam
India
baskaranld@gmail.com
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