LANGUAGE IN INDIA

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Volume 22:12 December 2022
ISSN 1930-2940

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Morphological Processes in Indo-Aryan Languages:
A Case of Magahi

Vinod Kumar, PhD Scholar and Dr. Sweta Sinha, PhD

Abstract

The morphology of the Bihari languages is highly complex and rich. One of the most complex paradigms in Indo-Aryan languages, verb agreement paradigms co-refer to a large number of participants. The verb agreement enables the simultaneous encoding of numerous referents in various case relations (Bickel et al., 1999; Kashyap, 2012). There are only a few affixes for number and gender in Magahi morphology. This paper attempts to study the morphological processes found in Magahi, an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Indian states of Bihar, Northern Jharkhand, some pockets of West Bengal, as well as in certain parts of Nepal. The data have been obtained from recorded speech samples from twenty native speakers of the language, both - males and females. Findings suggest that affixation, mainly suffixation and prefixation, plays an essential role in the morphological processes in Magahi.

Keywords: Indo-Aryan language, Magahi, morphological processes, word formation

Introduction

The morphological process is the process that occurs to change the meaning and/or part of speech (derivational), while others reveal grammatical relations between words. It serves many functions. One morpheme attaches to another in order to form a word and thus functions as the smallest element in the structure of the word. Due to the morphological process, two morphemes combine into a new morpheme or, in some cases, a word. There are many different processes, although not all of them are prevalent in each and every language. Some of these are non-concatenative, involving the alternation of internal morpheme features, while others are concatenative, involving the linear combination of morphemes (affixation, for instance). Some of the morphological processes are affixation, concatenation, reduplication, and suppletion. This study, however, only focuses on the morphological processes of Magahi.

Magahi, one of the Bihari languages, is also often referred to as Magadhi. Since Magahi is intimately related to the name Magadhi Prakrit, educated Magahi speakers often prefer to use the term Magadhi instead of Magahi when referring to their language. Grierson (1903) classified Magahi into Indo-Aryan languages. It is spoken in the Indian states of Bihar, Northern Jharkhand, and certain pockets of West Bengal, as well as the Southern Nepal that shares its border with Northern Bihar. Magahi descended from Prakrit, and it is believed to be the court language of the ancient Kingdom of Magadha. The preachings of Budha and the edicts of Ashoka, King of the Mauryan Empire, were inscribed in Magahi and served as the official language of the Mauryan court (Prasad & Mukherjee, 2020). Prominent three of the Bihari languages, Magahi, Bhojpuri, and Maithili, are closely related (Comrie, 2001). There are around 18 million native speakers of the Magahi language. Kaithi and Devanagari are two of its most widely used scripts (Verma, 2007). According to Chatterji (1926), Magahi is a descendant of the Magadhan language along with Bengali, Assamese, and Oriya and is very close to Eastern Indo-Aryan languages. However, the Indian government has not yet acknowledged it as a distinct language. The language has a vast and rich history of folk songs and narratives, despite having little to no historical records.

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

Vinod Kumar, PhD Scholar
PhD Scholar, Linguistics
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Patna
Bihta, Patna – 801106
vinodkrz100@gmail.com

Dr. Sweta Sinha, PhD
Assistant Professor, Linguistics
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Patna
Bihta, Patna – 801106
apna1982@gmail.com
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