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1.1 HISTORICAL
BACKGROUND
The Agarias constitute a very small community in
Western Orissa and parts of Madhya Pradesh. 'The District Gazetteer of Sambalpur'
and the 'People of India Vol. IX (Language & Scripts)' by K.S. Singh &
S. Manoharan have recorded their language as Laria.
Agharias
belong to Sambalpur and adjoining districts of Sundargarh an Bolangir in Orissa
and their main occupation is agriculture. They are also found in the neighbouring
districts of Raigarh and Bilaspur in Madhya Pradesh.
According
to the traditional folklore, Agharias were Rajputs who lived near Agra. They came
and settled in Orissa and Madhya Pradesh in around the middle of the sixteenth
century (in 1550's). It is maintained that unable to bear the torture of Sikandar
Lodhi, the King of Delhi, they had to flee the place. The Agharias, being haughty
Somvanshi Rajputs, saluted the King with one hand without bowing their heads.
The king decided to punish them for the contumacy. A sword was fixed at the height
of a man's neck at the door through which they were to pass. The haughty Agharias
did not see the sword and were de-capitated as they passed through. One Agharias
stayed back and sent his 'Chamar' servant instead. He then escaped south with
some of his community men. The caste is said to have 84 gotras or exogamous sections,
of which 60 bear the title of Patel, 18 that of Naik, and 6 of Chaudhary. Out
of the 84 gotras, 40 gotras made their way to Puri. The ruler of Puri, Gajpati
King Mukund Dev, sent them to Patnagarh (now Balangir) where they settled as cultivators
under the king. Impressed by their industrious nature, the king of Patnagarh gave
them the Zamindari of Laida. From Laida, in the district of Sambalpur, they started
branching out to other places like Sundargarh, Raipur and Bilaspur.
The
local inhabitants of western Orissa initially interacted with the Agharias with
doubt and restraint. So much so, that they had to bring Brahmins from Uttar Pradesh
(Kanyakubjya Brahmins) to perform their regular ceremonies. The Agharias do not
admit outsiders into their caste. They will not take cooked food from any caste,
and water but only from a Gaur or Rawat. They refuse to take water from an Uriya
Brahman, probably in retaliation for the refusal of Uriya Brahmans to accept water
from an Agharia, through taking it from a Kolta. Both the Uriya Brahmans and Agharias
are of doubtful origin, and both are therefore probably concerned about the social
position to which they lay claim1.
The mother tongue of
the Agharias is Laria. But it is to be noted that Laria is spoken by the Agharias
only in their homes i.e., Laria is used only for in-group communication. They
interact with the local populace in the local dialect, viz., Sambalpuri. Hence,
all Agharias are compound bilinguals. They acquire both Laria and Sambalpuri as
their 1st language. With the spread of education and literacy, the Agharias have
had to learn Oriya, the medium of instruction at primary and secondary levels
and English at higher levels.
Laria does not have a script. Therefore, most
of the cultural and religious functions like marriages, rituals, puja and prayers
are performed in Oriya. Nowadays, with modernization and industrialization most
of the paper works in organizations and institutions are done in Oriya and/or
English.
As mentioned above, the Agharias being outsiders
were treated with doubt and restraint by the local populace. Therefore, they had
to acquire the lingua-franca of that place i.e., Sambalpuri. Furthermore, as they
became the landowners and cultivators, they had to interact with the workers they
employed, in the local dialect.
1.2 SCOPE AND OBJECTIVE
The
Agharias of Orissa have been in contact with the local populace for over a period
of 400 years. As they are a minority community found in only 311 villages of western
Orissa, Laria, their language, is subject to influence by dominant languages Sambalpuri
and Oriya. This makes Laria an interesting case of language contact and a probable
case of language death. Till date no linguistic research has been undertaken on
Laria in general and the influence of Sambalpuri and Oriya and Laria in particular.
As Laria might be facing gradual death, linguistic research on Laria is warranted.
A
synchronic description of the language facilitates the identification of the changes
brought about by the intense contact situation of Laria and the dominant languages
Sampalpuri and Oriya. This thesis also aims to study the level of interference
of Sampalpuri and Oriya on the various aspects of Laria. viz., Lexicon, Syntax,
Phonology, Morphology, etc., within the framework proposed by Weinreich (1953),
Thomason, et al. (1991), Dorian (1989) and others for language contact, change
and obsolescence. Such research would help us not only to record the structure
of the language before it becomes obsolete, but also reveal the processes of language
change in contact situation. As a native speaker of the language I have tried
my best to unravel the linguistic structure of Laria.
1.3
EXISTING RESEARCH
Grierson's 'Linguistic Survey of India',
Vol. VI, (1904), has classified Chattisgarhi and Laria as the same language. Chattisgarhi
is the language spoken in Chattisgarh (eastern M.P., bordering Orissa). To the
east of Chattisgarh plains lies the Oriya - country of east Sambalpur and the
Oriya Feudatory states. To the people of those parts, the Chattisgarh country
to the west is known as Laria country, hence Chattisgarhi of this area is called
Laria2.
Grierson has given a skeletal grammar of Chattisgarhi.
Plurals are formed by adding man which can compared with Oriya plural marker mane.
All forms of pronoun inflection; number (singular, plural), case marking (Nominative,
Oblique and Genitive), Honourific, Interrogative and Reflexive pronouns are studied.
Auxiliary verbs, Substantive verbs and Finite verbs have also been given in a
tabular form with all the inflections of Tense and Aspect (Present, Past, Future,
Definite, Imperfect, Perfect, Conditional). The participle form of verbs (Present,
Past and Conjunctive) have also been recorded.
Grierson
has also transcribed short stories of Chattisgarhi and its dialects. The Laria
spoken in western Orissa by Agharias is similar to Binghwari or Binjhwali, the
language of the Binjhwar tribe in Orissa. However, the Laria of Agharias has lesser
Oriya lexical terms than Binjhwali.
Colin P. Masic*s 'The
Indo-Aryan Languages' also cites Laria as an alternative name of Chattisgarhi.
Chattisgarhi is a distinctive eastern Hindi dialect spoken in Raipur, Bilaspur,
Eastern Balaghat and North Baster. Massica also gives a brief grammar of Chattisgarhi.
The
District Gazetteer of Raigarh has classified Chattisgarhi into the following sub-dialects.
1.
Standard Chattisgarhi
2. Laria
3.
Sadri
4. Surgujia
Chattisgarhi prevalent
in the eastern parts of Raigarh District (eastern parts of Sarangarh and Raigarh
Tahsils), neighbouring the Sambalpur district of Orissa, is linguistically speaking
neither pure (sic!) Oriya nor pure (sic!) Chattisgarhi but a mixture of the two.
This cross speech between Chattisgarhi and Oriya may be treated as subdialect
of Chattisgarhi like Surgujia or Khaloti3.
It is true that
to the people of those parts (Oriya country of Sambalpur and the Oriya feudatory
states), the Chattisgarh country to the west is known as the Laria country, but
this observation does not warrant our treating Chattisgarhi as an equivalent to
Laria4.
Compared to Oriya and Chattisgarhi, this cocktail
speech is natural imperfect, undeveloped and of lower order. Hence, the name Laria5.
People
of India (National Series, Vol. IX - Language and Scripts) by K.S.Singh and S.Manoharan
accounts these two languages as different. According to Singh and Manoharan, Agharias
of M.P use Chattisgarhi in in-group communication whereas the
Agharias
of Orissa use Laria. Both Chattisgarhi and Laria belong to the Indo-Aryan Sub-Group
(Central group).
1.4 THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE
CONTACT CHANGE
AND LANGUAGE OBSOLESCENCE.
Every normal
human being learns at least one language. Second language is learned either simultaneously
or later in life which duplicates in many ways the functions of the former. When
the bilingual is not able to keep the two languages apart there is linguistic
interference defined as "deviations from the norm of either language which
occur in the speech of bilinguals as a result of their familiarity with more than
one language" (Weinreich 1953). The linguists task is to identify and describe
all cases of interference and tabulate their frequency. This can be done from
small samples of bilinguals' speech. The linguist is also concerned with the problem
whether some language structures are more resistant to interference than others6.
Sarah
G. Thomason and T. Kaufman in attempting to provide for a framework for contact
induced language change say, the starting point for our theory of linguistic interference
is this : it is the socio-linguistic history of the speakers and not the structures
of their languages, that is the primary determinant of the linguistic outcome
of language contact. Purely linguistic considerations are relevant but strictly
secondary overall7.
Intensity of contact in a borrowing
situation crucially involves factors of time and levels of bilingualism. All the
Agharias are bilingual speakers of Laria and the dominant language in contact
situation, i.e., Sambalpuri. If there is extensive bilingualism on the part of
the borrowing language speakers, and if this bilingualism persists over a long
period of time, then sustainable structural borrowing is a probability8.
In
a comparably intense borrowing situation whole sub-system or even entire grammar
may be borrowed along with a large number of words; or alternatively the phenomenon
known as language death might occur9.
Language death can
also be of various types :
'Sudden Death' : The case where a language abruptly
disappears because almost all its speakers suddenly die or are killed10.
'Radical
Death' : The language loss is rapid and usually due to severe political repression,
often with genocide to the extent that the speakers stop speaking the language11.
'Gradual
Death' : It is the loss of a language due to gradual shift to the dominant language
in language contact situations. Such situations have an intermediate stage of
bilingualism in which the dominant language comes to employed by an ever increasing
number of individuals in a growing number of contexts where the subordinate language
was formerly used. This situations has a proficiency continuum determined principally
by age12 .
"Bottom-to-top Death" : The language
is lost first in contexts of family intimacy and hangs on only in elevated ritual
contexts (Hill, 1980)13.
Language death of Laria can be
categorized in the third category, i.e., Gradual Death.
The
most obvious prediction one can make about dying languages is that their structures
undergo a certain amount of change in all components of grammar : Phonological,
morphological, syntactic, semantic and lexical.
Cultural
pressure so intense that all the pressured speakers must learn the dominant language
of the community usually leads to one of three linguistics outcomes. First, a
subordinate population may shift fairly rapidly to the dominant language, abandoning
its native language so that the abandoned language (at least spoken by that group)
dies a sudden death. Second, a shift may take place over many generations, in
which case the language of the shifting population may (as long as it is maintained)
undergo the slow attrition known as language death. The third possibility is that,
for reasons of stubborn language and cultural loyalty, the pressured is that,
for reasons of stubborn language and cultural loyalty, the pressured group may
maintain what it can of its native language while borrowing such large portions
of the dominant language's grammar that they replace all, or at least sizeable
portion of, the original grammar14.
Interference in literature
is defined as deviations from the norms of either language that occurs in the
speech of bilinguals as a result of their familiarity with more than one language.
Interference can be found at all levels: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax,
semantics and lexis15.
The problem of phonic interference
concerns the manner in which a speaker perceives and reproduces the sounds of
one language, which might be designated secondary in terms of another to be called
primary. Interference arises when a bilingual identifies a phoneme of the secondary
system with one in the primary system and, in reproducing it, subjects it to the
phonetic rules of the primary languages16.
For phonology,
Andersen (1982) proposes three hypotheses for language - contact situation:
(1)
The bilingual speaker of a threatened language will make fewer phonological
distinctions in his or her use of the language than a fully competent (dominant
or
monolingual) speaker of the same language would.
(2)
However, he or she will preserve distinctions common to both his/her language
even
while making fewer of the distinctions found only in the threatened
language.
(3) Distinctions with a functional load which
is high (in terms of phonology and
morphology) will survive longer in speakers
use of his/her weaker language than
distinctions which have a low functional
load.
Grammatical Interference: Interference takes place
when elements of language B enter language A and are gradually grammatically integrated,
or when a speaker of language A starts to speak language B and carries over element
of A into B17. Interference in the case studied here i.e. contact between Laria
and Sambalpuri/Oriya is that of the first type where elements of Sambalpuri/Oriya
have entered Laria.
Given the contact of two languages,
A and B the following types of grammatical interference of A with B are to be
expected:
(1) The use of A - morphemes in speaking (or working)
language B
(2) The application of a grammatical relation
of language A to B - morphemes in B, or
the neglect of a relation of B which
has no prototype in A
(3) Through the identification of
a specific B - morpheme with a specific A - morpheme,
a change (extension,
reduction) in the functions of the B- morphemes on the model of
the grammar
of language A18.
Interference has also taken place in morphology
of Laria but this interference is much less compared to the ones found in other
areas. Since inflectional systems in particular trend to be highly structured
and thus relatively closed, the integration of borrowed features into such systems
may be difficult. We, therefore, find more cases of syntactic borrowing to replace
functionally congruent morphological features than the reverse. We would agree
with the general view that an elaborate inflectional morphology is more highly
marked than corresponding syntactic strutcures19.
The transfer
of morphemes is facilitated between highly congruent structures; for a highly
bound morpheme is so dependent on its grammatical function (as opposed to its
designative value) that it is useless in an alien system unless there is a ready
function for it20. Other things being equal, and cultural consideration apart,
morphemes with complex grammatical functions seem to be less likely to be transferred
by the bilingual than those with simpler functions21.
Linguists
have provided a hierarchy as to which categories can be borrowed easily than others.
William
Dwight Whitney (1881):-
High Nouns
Ease
of Borrowing Other parts of speech
Inflections
Low
Sound
Einar Haugen (1959):-
High
Nouns
High Verbs
Ease of Borrowing
Adjectives
Adverbs
Prepositions
Low
Interjections
Muysken (1981):-
High
Nouns
High Verbs
Ease of Borrowing
Co-ordinating conjuctions
Quanifiers
Determiners
Free pronouns
Clitic
pronouns
Low Subordinating
Many
linguists have accepted this hierarchy of borrowing shown below:
High
Lexical items
Ease of Borrowing Derivational
Morphology
Inflectional
Low Syntax
It can be
observed that most of the linguists give the cline of classification on the basis
of grammatical categories than the areas of levels of grammar, i.e. phonetics,
morphology, syntax, semantics etc.
Interference in Laria can be studied and
checked against these proposals to determine which of the above models it falls
into. The option for the extreme situation i.e. it does not fall into any of these
models will be left open.
Veltman (1991) has proposed a
scale to measure the degree of shift and disruption which a community has experienced
in the use of its language. He established four basic language use categories
from monoligualism in the mothertongue (which of course does not exist in the
case of Laria) to monolinguialism in a host language for a multi-/bilingual community.
Dessler
(1991) and others have shown that a proficiency continuum may develop between
languages in contact, which resembles in some respects a creole continuum. Individuals
can be located at various points along it depending on the level of dominance
and/or proficiency in one or other of the languages. They will show, to differing
extent, the effect of contact.
Dorain (1981) has stressed
that there is nothing unsual about the types changes which occur in a dying language
(though the amount and rate of change may be atypical). The same kinds of changes
occur in "healthy" languages. Nevertheless, in many cases these changes
have been described as simplification. In other words, they result in elimination
of one or more competing structures on reanalysis of structures, and thus make
the language more regular and/or transparent. Abbi (1992) has challenged this
view. On the one hand, the sociolinguistic factors force the language to have
gratuitous borrowing, on the other, language contact situation exerts pressure
on the language to acquire complex and not simple structure22.
Andersen
(1982) has proposed the hypothesis that speakers of a language under going attrition
will tend to preserve and overuse syntactic construction that reflect underlying
semantic and syntactic relationship more transparently23.
Language
death may be accompanied by some degree of morphological reduction24.
This
has been challenged by Abbi (1992). In languages like Kurux and Kharia, the contraction
in morphological structuration, contrary to general belief, has given rise to
complex syntactic structures akin to Aryan languages25.
Dying
languages also exhibit modification of syntactic resources, a point well established
in language death literature26.
Dying languages exhibit
"Stylistic Shrinkage27.
Abbi (1995) says that converged
languages have known to expand their semantic domains and thus a large number
of borrowed lexicon is incorporated into the language. Along with the borrowed
lexicon the borrowed morphosyntactic rules make the existing grammar a complex
one. Thus, it may not be necessary that a converged language in an intense language
contact situation of hierarchical type is simplistic in structure. Complexity
and not simplicity, elaboration and not reduction, redundancy and not economicity,
become the hallmark of the language that is converged.28
The
appropriate methodology, then, requires examination of a contact situation as
a forest than as a collection of isolated trees. In order to support a claim that
feature x arose in language A under the influence of language B, we need to show
that features a,b,c,y,z - at least some of which belong to a sub-system different
from the one x belong to - also arose in A under the influence of B29.
The
syntactic, phonological, morphological and lexical change in Laria can be studied
with the dominant language as reference and the speakers can be placed on Veltman's(1991)
multi-/bilingualism scale to judge whether Lariais a dying language or not.
Languages
are seldom learned in vacuum. They are learned along with other cultural factors
and constantly interwined with these. Among the external factors cited as significant
in various studies of language maintainance, shift and death are: numerical strength
of the group in relation to other minorities and majorities, social class, religious
and educational group in relation to other minorities and majorities, social and
educational group in relation to other minorities and majorities, social class,
religious and educational background. settlement patterns, ties with homeland
in case of migrant language, extent of exogamous marriage and education of minorities
and patterns of language use.
Edwards (1992) proposes to
formulate a typology of minority language settings to study language maintenance
and shift taking into consideration variables such as geographical, historical,
political, sociological, psychological, educational and linguistic.
Haugen
was one of the first to provide such a model. In his introduction to the model
he makes the following useful observations: Most language descriptions are prefaced
by a brief and perfunctory statement concerning the number and location of its
speakers and something of their history. Rarely does such a description really
tell the reader what he
ought to know about the social status and functions
of the language in question. Linguists have generally been too eager to get on
with the phonology, grammar, and lexicon to pay more than superficial attention
to what I would like to call the ecology of language30.
Haugen
has posited ten ecological questions for a given language situation to find answers
to the questions posed above.
Edwards (1992) has also tried
to enlarge upon the language ecology motif in a methodical and systematic manner
by providing two kinds of categorization.
In categorization
B, he has three variables: speaker, language and setting. The categorisation A
has 11 perspectives: (a) demography; (b) sociology; (c) linguistics; (d) psychology;
(e) history; (f) politics/law/government; (g) geography; (h) education; (i) religion;
(j) economics (including the business world); (k) the media.
These
two categories are combined, to produce a framework of 33 questions.
In
the present research work, these ecological models will be used to test the status
of Laria as a dying minority language.
1.5 METHODOLOGY
Laria,
does not have a script. So the only source of data was primary data collected
by intensive field work. For the descriptive part, a questionnaire based on the
Comrie and Smith's Questionnaire for descriptive grammars (1977) with modifications
was prepared. The informants were drawn from a large cross-section of the community
so that the representative sample of Laria could be studied. Data was collected
from 10 villages (Kinjerma, Subdega, Kaintra, Bhasma, Sahaspur, Damkuda, Kirmira,
Karamdihi, Darlipali and Boilanga) in 2 districts, 2 towns (Sundargarh and Jharsuguda)
and 2 cities (Rourkela and Delhi). The various kinds of settings were taken to
study the changing attitude, if any, of the informants towards their language
after they migrated from rural areas to urban areas. Data was also collected from
the Laria speaking Agharias of Madhy Pradesh (Raigarh) in Kaurkela (a village
on Orissa border) and Rourkela to facilitate a comparative study of contact and
change. Most of the earlier authors like Grierson, S.D.Guru etc. have claimed
the language of the area where the Agharias live to be Laria. In the field work
conducted, the Agharias of M.P. returned their language as Chattisgarhi and the
language of Agharias of Orissa as Laria. This has also been cited in the People
of India Series. Therefore, the data collected from the Agharias of M.P. has been
written as Chattisgarhi/Laria (M.P.). A detailed map of the area has been given
in following page.
As the language is in a flux, we were
faced with the Observer's Paradox i.e. we want to observe how people talk when
they are not being observed. As secret recording is unwise and unethical, this
problem was overcome by involving the informants emotionally so that they stopped
being conscious, for example, older people were asked about the present day situation
of the community and young children were asked to tell stories in their mother
tongue, Laria.
The data was then analysed, in view of the
theoretical perspectives on language contact, change and absolescence and the
various socio-linguistic ecological parameters stated in the section above.
1.6
CHAPTERISATION
The thesis is divided into six chapters.
The history of the people and their language, existing research, theoretical perspectives
about the nature of the problem and the methodology adopted for this research
have been dealt with in the current chapter.
The three chapters
on Syntax, Morphology and Phonology are basically a synchronic description of
the language. Chapter II deals with Syntax. It starts with the typological characteristics
of Laria which is a verb final language. Then it deals with the structure of the
language in detail under the various heads of Co-ordination (Conjunction and Disjunction),
Sub-ordination (Relative Clause, Complements, Participles and Adverbials), Interrogative
(WH - questions, Yes/No questions, Echo questions), Negation, Anaphora (Reflexives,
Reciprocals, Pronominals, Emphatic Particles), Explicator Compound Verbs, etc.
The
third chapter deals with Morphology. It does with Inflectional Morphology of Nouns
(Number, Person, Gender, Case), Verbs (Tense, Aspects, Mood, Voice and Causatives),
Adjectives (Number, Person, Gender, Case and Comparison). Pronouns (Number, Person,
Gender and Case), Adverbs (Comparison and Degree of Quality); Derivational Morphology
of Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives and Adverbs; Quantifiers, Numerals; Compounds and
Reduplication.
The chapter on Phonology deals with Segmental
Phonemes (Syllabics, Non-Syllabics, Contrast of minimal pairs), Diphthongs, Nasalisation,
Phonotactics (Consonant Clusters - initial, medical and final), Suprasegmentals
(Length, Stress, Intonation).
The last chapter deals with
language contact and the process of change based on the theoretical perspectives
of Weinreich (1953), Thomason et al (1991). Dorian (1981), Veltman (1991) etc.
It gives an overview of the process of language change and the degree of obsolescence
in Laria while testing the theories provided. It also takes into consideration
the ecological models of Haugen (1972) and Edwards (1992) to understand the status
of this minority language.
The last chapter, Conclusion,
summarises all the findings of this thesis.