Munda languages

"Munda language" redirects here. For the Kili language, also known as the Munda or Mundari language, see Mundari language.

Munda
Mundaic
Ethnicity	Munda peoples
Geographic distribution	Indian subcontinent
Native speakers	9–11 million (2010s Template:Est.)
Linguistic classification	Austroasiatic Munda
Proto-language	Proto-Munda
Subdivisions	North Munda Sora–Gorum Juang Kharia Gutob–Remo Gtaʼ
ISO 639-2 / 5	mun
Glottolog	mund1335
Map of areas with significant concentration of Munda speakers

The Munda languages are a group of closely-related languages spoken by about eleven million people in India, Bangladesh and Nepal. Historically, they have been called the Kolarian languages. They constitute a branch of the Austroasiatic language family, which means they are distantly related to languages such as the Mon and Khmer languages, to Vietnamese, as well as to minority languages in Thailand and Laos and the minority Mangic languages of South China. Bhumij, Ho, Mundari, and Santali are notable Munda languages.

Grierson's Linguistic Map of India, 1906

The family is generally divided into two branches: North Munda, spoken in the Chota Nagpur Plateau of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal, as well as in parts of Bangladesh and Nepal, and South Munda, spoken in central Odisha and along the border between Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.

North Munda, of which Santali is the most widely spoken and recognised as an official language in India, has twice as many speakers as South Munda. After Santali, the Mundari and Ho languages rank next in number of speakers, followed by Korku and Sora. The remaining Munda languages are spoken by small isolated groups and are poorly described.

Characteristics of the Munda languages include three numbers (singular, dual and plural), two genders (animate and inanimate), a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns, the use of suffixes or auxiliaries to indicate tense, and partial, total, and complex reduplication, as well as switch-reference. The Munda languages are generally synthetic and agglutinating. In Munda sound systems, consonant sequences are infrequent except in the middle of words.

The Munda languages are often interpreted as prime examples of father tongues since the majority of native speakers of the these languages tend to display the Y-chromosome haplogroup of the original linguistic founding population in higher frequencies, and that Y-haplogroup signifies the linguistic origin, rather than based on a maternal haplogroup.

Origin

Many linguists suggest that the Proto-Munda language probably split from Proto-Austroasiatic somewhere in Indochina. Studies by Chaubey et al. (2011), Arunkumaret al. (2015), Metspalu et al. (2018), and Tätte et al. (2019) all show that the Munda branch of the Austroasiatic family was created as the result of a male-biased linguistic intrusion into the Indian subcontinent from Southeast Asia during the Late Neolithic period (Sidwell & Rau 2019 cited Tätte et al. (2019), estimate a date of formation between 3,800 and 2,000 years ago), which carried the paternal lineage O1b1a1a into India from either Meghalaya or the sea. These studies and analyses confirm George van Driem's Munda Father tongue hypothesis. Paul Sidwell (2018) suggests they arrived on the coast of modern-day Odisha about 4000–3500 years ago (c. 2000 – c. 1500 BCE) and spread after the Indo-Aryan migration to the region.

Rau and Sidwell (2019), along with Blench (2019), suggest that Pre-Proto-Munda had arrived in the Mahanadi River Delta around 1500 BCE from Southeast Asia via a maritime route, rather than overland. The Munda languages then subsequently spread up the Mahanadi watershed. 2021 studies suggest that Munda languages impacted Eastern Indo-Aryan languages.

Present-day distribution of Austroasiatic languages

Austro-asiatic dispersal map

Classification

Munda consists of five uncontroversial branches (Korku as an isolate, Remo, Savara, Kherwar, and Kharia-Juang). However, their interrelationship is debated.

Diffloth (1974)

The bipartite Diffloth (1974) classification is widely cited:

• Munda
  • North Munda
    • Korku
    • Kherwarian
      • Kherwari branch: Birjia, Koraku
      • Mundari branch: Mundari, Bhumij, Asuri, Koda, Ho, Birhor, Kol, Turi
      • Santal branch: Santali, Mahali
  • South Munda
    • Kharia–Juang: Kharia, Juang
    • Koraput Munda
      • Remo branch: Gata (Gta), Bondo (Remo), Bodo Gadaba (Gutob)
      • Savara branch [Sora–Juray–Gorum] : Parengi (Gorum), Sora (Savara), Juray, Lodhi

Diffloth (2005)

Diffloth (2005) retains Koraput (rejected by Anderson, below) but abandons South Munda and places Kharia–Juang with the northern languages:

Anderson (1999)

Anderson's 1999 proposal is as follows.

• Munda
  • North Munda
    • Korku
    • Kherwarian: Santali, Mundari
  • South Munda (3 branches)
    • Kharia–Juang: Juang, Kharia
    • Sora–Gorum: Sora, Gorum
    • Gutob–Remo–Gtaʔ
      • Gutob–Remo: Gutob, Remo
      • Gtaʼ: Plains Gtaʔ, Hill Gtaʔ

However, in 2001, Anderson split Juang and Kharia apart from the Juang-Kharia branch and also excluded Gtaʔ from his former Gutob–Remo–Gtaʔ branch. Thus, his 2001 proposal included five branches for South Munda.

Anderson (2001)

Anderson (2001) follows Diffloth (1974) apart from rejecting the validity of Koraput. He proposes instead, on the basis of morphological comparisons, that Proto-South Munda split directly into Diffloth's three daughter groups, Kharia–Juang, Sora–Gorum (Savara), and Gutob–Remo–Gtaʼ (Remo).

His South Munda branch contains the following five branches, but the North Munda branch is the same as those of Diffloth (1974) and Anderson (1999).

Sora–Gorum Juang ↔ Kharia ↔ Gutob–Remo ↔ Gtaʔ

• Note: "↔" = shares certain innovative isoglosses (structural, lexical). In Austronesian and Papuan linguistics, this has been called a "linkage" by Malcolm Ross.

Sidwell (2015)

Paul Sidwell (2015:197) considers Munda to consist of 6 coordinate branches, and does not accept South Munda as a unified subgroup.

• Munda
  • North Munda
    • Korku
    • Kherwarian (Santali, Munda)
  • Sora–Gorum
  • Juang
  • Kharia
  • Gutob–Remo
  • Gtaʼ

Phonology

Consonants, vowels, and syllable

The Munda languages share similar sets of phonemes with regional languages in their respective areas. Inherited Austroasiatic "checked" glottalised stop (pre-glottalised articulatory) and nasalised final consonants found in some Munda languages such as Mundari (eg. ub ("hair") is realised as [uˀb̥ᵐ]) and Kharia (eg. oreˀdʒ ("ox") is realised [ɔrɛˀɟ˺ⁿ]) may stand out in South Asia. One key feature in the Munda consonants is the distinction between dental and retroflex stops (/t̪/ vs /ʈ/, /d̪/ vs /ɖ/) in lexical level exists in most Munda languages except Sora and Gorum, reflecting a general characteristic of South Asian (Indosphere) phonology. Because of South Asian areal convergence, Munda languages generally have fewer vowels (between 5 and 10) than their Eastern Austroasiatic relatives. Additionally, Sora has glottalised vowels. Like any other Austroasiatic languages, the Munda languages make extensive uses of diphthongs and triphthongs. Larger vowel sequences can be found, with an extreme example of Santali kɔeaeae meaning ‘he will ask for him’. Most Munda languages have registers but lack tones with an exception of Korku, which has acquired two contrastive tones within the South Asian linguistic area: an unmarked high and a marked low. The general syllable shape is (C)V(C), and the preferred structure for disyllables is CVCV. South Munda displays tendency toward initial clusters, CCVC word shape, diphthong reflexes, with best examples are manifested in the Gtaʔ case.

As stated above, tonogenesis in Korku and continuous CCVC/sesquisyllabic development in Gtaʔ, both of which were unfolded inside the South Asian linguistic area, seem to have nothing related to contact-driven restructuring in the subcontinent. It is also unclear whether they were directly connected to areal convergences in the Eastern Austroasiatic languages. Munda word shape is dictated by a general phonotactical phenomenon called bimoraic constraint, which requires free-standing nominal stems to stay disyllabic or to obtain weight at the stressed syllable; that is, monosyllabic free forms of nouns must be expanded to remain heavy (Anderson & Zide 2001). See #Vocabulary for comparison.

Munda phonemes

The following table compiles lists of consonantal and vowel systems of several Munda languages, mainly from Anderson (2014), Nagaraja (1999), and many others on International Phonetic Alphabet.

	Plosives	Retroflex Stops	Affricates	Fricatives	Nasals	Rhotics	Laterals	Glides	Vowels
Santali	p b t d k ɡ ʔ	ʈ ɖ	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ	s h	m n ɲ ŋ	r ɽ	l	w j	a i u o e ɔ ɛ ə
Ho	p b t d k ɡ ʔ	ʈ ɖ	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ	s h	m n [ɲ] ŋ	r	l	w j	a i u o e (ɔ) (ɛ)
Mundari	p b t d k ɡ ʔ	ʈ ɖ	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ	s h	m n ɳ ɲ ŋ	r ɽ	l	w j	a i u o e
Keraʔ Mundari	p b t d k ɡ ʔ	ʈ ɖ	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ	s h	m n ɲ ŋ	r ɽ	l	w j	a i u o e
Asuri	p b t d k ɡ	ʈ ɖ	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ	s h	m n ŋ	r ɽ	l	w j	a i u o e
Kɔɖa	p b t d k ɡ ʔ	ʈ ɖ	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ	ʃ h	m n ŋ	ɾ	l	i̯ u̯	ɑ i u ɔ ɛ
Birhoɽ	p b t d k ɡ ʔ	ʈ ɖ	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ	s ʃ h	m n ɳ ɲ ŋ	r ɽ	l	j	a i u ɔ ɛ
Birjia	p b t d k ɡ ʔ	ʈ ɖ	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ	s ç h	m n ɲ ŋ	r ɽ	l	w j	a i u o e ɔ ɛ ə
Turi	p b t d k ɡ ʔ	ʈ ɖ	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ	s h	m n ɳ ɲ ŋ	ɾ ɽ	l	ʋ j	ɑ i u ɔ ɛ ə
Korku	p b t d k ɡ ʔ	ʈ ɖ	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ	v s h	m n ɳ ɲ ŋ	r ɽ	l	w j	a i u o e
Kharia	p b t d k ɡ ʔ	ʈ ɖ	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ	f v s h	m n ɲ ŋ	r ɽ	l	w j	a i u o e
Juang	p b t d k ɡ	ʈ ɖ	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ	s	m n ɳ ɲ ŋ	r	l ɭ	j	a i u o e ɔ
Sora	p b t d k ɡ ʔ		(t͡ʃ) d͡ʒ	s z	m n ɲ ŋ	r ɽ	l	w j	a i u o e ɔ ɛ ə ɨ
Gorum	p b t d k ɡ ʔ	ʈ ɖ		s z	m n ŋ	r ɽ	l	j	a i u e ɔ
Remo	p b t d k ɡ ʔ	ʈ ɖ	t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ	v s z	m n ɳ ɲ ŋ	r ɽ	l	w j	a i u o e
Gutob	p b t d k ɡ ʔ	ʈ ɖ	t͡s d͡z t͡ʃ d͡ʒ	s z h	m n ɲ ŋ	r ɽ	l	j	a i u o e
Gtaʔ	p b t d k ɡ ʔ	ʈ ɖ	t͡ʃ d͡ʒ	s h	m n ŋ	r ɽ	l	w j	a i u o e æ/ɛ (ɨ)

Word prominence

Donegan & Stampe (2004) posited overarching assumptions that all Munda languages have completely redesigned their word prosodic structure from proto-Austroasiatic rising intonation, iambic and reduced vowel, sesquisyllabic structure to Indic norms of trochaic, falling rhythm, stable or assimilationist consonants and harmonised vowels, making them typological opposed to Eastern Austroasiatic languages at almost every level. Sidwell & Rau (2014) criticised Donegan & Stampe by pointing out that the overall picture appears much more complicated and diverse and that generalisations of Donegan & Stampe are not supported by the instrumental data of the various Munda languages. Peterson (2011b) describes word-rising contour in monosyllables and second syllable prominence in Kharia content words. Even the presence of clitics and affixes does not drive Kharia word prosodic structure to that of a trochaic and falling system. Osada (2008) reports final-syllable stress in all but CVC.CV stems in Mundari. Horo & Sarmah (2015), Horo (2017) and Horo, Sarmah & Anderson (2020) found that the Sora disyllables are always iambic, reduced first syllable vowel space, and second syllable prominence. Even CV.CCə words show final-syllable prominence. Horo & Sarmah (2015) note that the Sora vowels of the first syllables are centralised and that vowels in the second syllables are more representative of the canonical vowel space.

Ghosh (2008) describes about Santali prosody that "stress is always released in the second syllable of the word regardless of whether it is an open or a closed syllable". His analysis was confirmed by Horo & Anderson (2021), whose acoustic data clearly shows that the second syllable in Santali is always the prominent syllable, with a greater intensity of stress and a rising contour.

Zide (2008) reports that in Korku, the final syllable is heavier than the initial syllable, and within a disyllable, stress is preferentially released at the final syllable. The analyses inferred from fieldworks demonstrate that despite exhibiting some variants, most Munda prominence alignments are in line with other Austroasiatic languages, with a predictable final-syllable prominence in a prosodic word. Again, Donegan & Stampe (2004) claim on rhythmic holism that does not conform with the data presented by individual Munda languages.

Morphology

Morphologically, both North and South Munda subgroups mainly focus on the head or the verb, thus they are primarily head-marking, in contrast to the Indo-European and Dravidian languages, which are mainly dependent-marking. As a result, nominal morphology is less complex than is verbal morphology. Case markers on nominals to show syntactic alignments (nominative-accusative or ergative-absolutive) are largely absent or not systematically developed in the Munda languages except Korku. The relation between subject and object in clause is conveyed mainly through verbal referent indexation and word order. At the clause/sentence level, Munda languages are head-final but internally head-first in referent indexation, compounds, and noun incorporation verb complexes.

Munda head-first, bimoraic constraint-free noun incorporation is also found in Khasian, Nicobaric, and other Mon-Khmer languages. In word derivation, besides their own innovative methods, the Munda languages maintain Austroasiatic methods in forms of reduplication, compounding, and derivational infixation and prefixation.

One unusual characteristic that appears to be pervasive among the Munda languages is lexical flexibility, that is, a large number to almost entire their lexicons are precategorial, i.e. lexically underspecified for categories such as noun, verb, adjectives etc. Thus, these languages may rely more on syntax and affixes/clitics to distinguish parts of speech. Pinnow summarised the issue back in the 1960s,

[...]Theoretically any word for any concept, i.e., all words, can function as a verb base. Thus, we may not speak of a verb in the Indo-European sense. This fact was recognized at an early date and is now generally known. This is true for all Munda languages, but cannot be considered distinctive of them since there are innumerable other language families in which the situation is the same.[...] This phenomenon undoubtedly goes back to very ancient times and can probably be accepted as Proto-Munda.

— Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow, 1966:101

The following elicited examples from Simdega Kharia illustrate the problem:

The degree of lexical flexibility are extremely prominent in North Munda and Kharia, where the lexicons may only contain an open class of contentives; whereas in other South Munda languages this phenomenon however tends to be much weaker.

North Munda

The North Munda subgroup is split between Korku and the 14 Kherwarian languages.

Kherwarian languages

Kherwarian is a large language continuum with speakers extending west to east from the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh to Assam, north to south from Nepal to Odisha. They include fourteen languages: Asuri, Birhor, Bhumij, Koda, Ho, Korwa (Korowa), Mundari, Mahali, Santali, Turi, Agariya, Bijori, Koraku, and Karmali, with the total number of speakers surpassing ten million (2011 census). The Kherwarian languages are often highlighted because their elaborate and complex templatic and pronominalised predicate structures are so pervasive that it is obligatory for the verb to encode tense–aspect–mood, voices, transitivity, and indexation of two arguments, including outside arguments like possessors.

Kherwarian languages	Examples
Santali	Template:Interlinear
Mundari	Template:Interlinear
Ho	Template:Interlinear
Asuri	Template:Interlinear
Bhumij	Template:Interlinear
Koda	Template:Interlinear
Korwa	Template:Interlinear
Turi	Template:Interlinear
Birhor	Template:Interlinear

Noun incorporation is often described as an ancestral Munda morphological feature and is essential to the grammar of other South Munda languages such as Sora, but the Kherwarian languages appear to have lost noun incorporation altogether. Nevertheless, rare instances of noun incorporation may be found in some archaic Kherwarian registers and oral literature.

Korku

Unlike the Kherwarian languages, with their complex verbal morphology, Korku verbs are moderately simple, with a modest amount of synthesis. Korku lacks person/number indexing of subject(s)/actor (except third persons of locative copulas and nominal predicates in the locative case) and independent present/future tense markers. Korku present/future tenses rely on the finitising suffix -bà. Present or future tense negation can be located in preverbal or postverbal positions, but past tense negation is marked by the suffix -ᶑùn.

Many Korku auxiliary verbs are borrowed from Indo-Aryan. The auxiliary verb takes tense–aspect–mood, voice, and finite suffixes for the lexical verb. An example is ghaʈa-, which means 'to manage to, to find a way to' and serves as the acquisitive.

South Munda

Compared to North Munda languages languages, South Munda languages are even more divergent and have fewer shared morphological traits. Even the classification of Munda languages is controversial, and South Munda does not seem to exist as a valid taxon. However, South Munda languages retain many notable characteristics of the original Proto-Munda such as prefix slots and scope-ordering of referent indexation and so they represent the less restructured morphology of Munda and reflect the older Proto-Munda and Proto-Austroasiatic structures.

Kharia

In Kharia, subject markers index not only dual/plural exclusive/inclusive but also honorific status. Objects are not marked in the predicate but instead by the oblique case: -te.

There is a reduplicated free-standing form of finite predicates that behaves differently from the simple predicative base. In the predicate, reduplicated free-standing form never marks tense–aspect–mood and person. That causes the free-standing form to be used in subordination, an attributive function corresponding more or less to relative clauses. Kharia is perhaps the only Munda language that has a infinitive on predicates, =na. The infinitive can serve also as a nominaliser: jib=na=te ‘touching’.

Non-finite class

	Simple verb root	Free-standing form
live	borol	borol
open	ruʔ	ruʔruʔ
see	yo	yoyo

Like in Hindi and Sadani, Kharia has made a calque to form sequential converbs (conjunctive participles) kon (derived from ikon, ‘do’). They denote the completion of an action before another begins.

The negation particle um attaches or fuses person/number/honorific of the subject argument.

Juang

Juang exhibits nominative-accusative alignment with unmarked subject/agents and marked objects or patients.

In Juang, a pro-drop language, verbs can index both two core arguments in a transitive predicate, but not frequently. If the arguments are not omitted, referent indexation is largely optional. Juang has a fairly complex tense–aspect–mood system, which is often divided into two sets: I for transitive verbs and II for intransitive verbs. The verb "be" is usually omitted in the present tense and with a predicate adjective in sentences.

There are two types of negation markers. Pronominal negation markers are specific for person/number of subject or object arguments. General negation markers such as -jena make up for the lack of a first-person singular negative. Negatives are ambifixative but usually precede the verb stem. There are double negations: combinations of two negatives. The negated verb may reduplicate itself.

Noun incorporation is fossilised in lexical compounds and words like body parts being combined with the verb "wash". Note that the head precedes the incorporated object, as opposed to the head-final position in normal clauses.

Gtaʔ-Remo-Gutob

The southernmost Gtaʔ and Remo-Gutob subgroups of South Munda exhibit significant morphological convergence towards Dravidian languages. Auxiliary verb constructions are heavily employed. Doubly-inflected auxiliary verb constructions are common in Gutob and Gorum, which reflects Dravidian influence. Gtaʔ-Remo-Gutob apparently have either altogether lost or not developed object indexation. Thus, they can only employ the dependent-marking strategy in differential argument marking. Examples of each languages:

1. Remo (Anderson, field notes) Template:Interlinear

2. Gutob Template:Interlinear

3. Hill Gtaʔ (Anderson, field notes) Template:Interlinear

Negation in Gutob is the most complex among the Munda languages. Like for other Munda languages, Gtaʔ-Remo-Gutob have lexical noun incorporation. Gtaʔ retains some instances of unproductive incorporation of body parts to the verb "wash" like Juang, which may fit Mithun (1984)'s type II of incorporation.

Sora-Gorum

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A native speaker discussing information access and welfare in Juray language in 2019

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A Gorum-language speaker discussing the issues with native language education due to lack of books and teachers

The Sora-Gorum languages consist of Sora, Gorum, and the lesser-known Juray.They display many features that are considered to be archaic that can be dated to Proto-Munda. For mainstream South Asian languages like Indo-Aryan and Dravidian, the latter are exclusively suffixing, prefixes and infixes are unusual but quite common in Austroasiatic languages, and Sora-Gorum has a prefix domain that can host several pre-stem markers. The indexation paradigm in Sora and Gorum renders the fullest form of Proto-Munda predicate structure and syntax. In practice, Sora is inclined to index only one argument. Within a transitive predicate, the object argument is ranked higher than subject, and pronouns are required.

Gorum: Template:Interlinear

Sora: Template:Interlinear

In Sora, noun incorporation is a valency-reducing effort, close to what described by Mithun's type III incorporation. Every noun has a combining form (CF), which is a compact, compressed monosyllabic form of free-standing noun, having been stripped of its functional morphology, and does not adhere to bimoraic constraint. Only CFs are allowed to form compounds with verbs. The resulted verb-noun incorporated compound is syntactically distinct from phrases. Unlike in North Munda where it is restricted to oral literature, noun incorporation in Sora is in fact pervasive in daily conversations, with every noun except loanwords having a possible CF, which allows the creation of sequences of complex verb phrases.

While the most salient effect of object noun incorporation in most polysynthetic languages is the lowering of the scope of the verb and the converting of transitive verbs to intransitive, incorporation of transitive subject/agent is considered atypical and occupies at the lowest position of the hierarchy. That made the incorporation of transitive subjects to have once been considered theoretically impossible by some linguists. Among all languages, there are few exceptional attested cases that permit such type of incorporation including some Athabaskan languages like Koyukon and South Slavey, and indeed, Sora.

Munda lexicon and lexical relation with other Indian language families

Despite some influence from neighbouring languages, the Munda languages generally maintain a solid Austroasiatic and Munda base vocabulary. The most extreme case is Sora, which has zero foreign phonemes. Agricultural-related words from Proto-Austroasiatic are widely shared (Zide & Zide 1976). Words for domesticated animal and plant species like dog, millet, chicken, goat, pig, rice are shared or semantically alternated. There are even specific terms for husked uncooked rice vs cooked rice vs rice (tree), as well as shared words used in rice production and processing like 'mortar', 'pestle', 'paddy', 'sow', 'grind/ground'. The majority of loan words from Indo-Aryan to Munda are quite recent and mostly came from Hindi. The Southern languages like Gutob have received considerable Dradivian lexical influence. A very small number of lexemes seem to be shared between Munda and Tibeto-Burman, probably reflecting earlier contact between the two groups.

It is clear that hundreds of non-Indo-European words in Vedic Sanskrit that Kuiper (1948) attributed to Munda have been rejected through careful analysis. There is a surprising absence of ancient Sanskrit and medieval Indian borrowings of animal and plant names from Munda. Scholars believe that the Munda tribes typically occupied a marginalised and lowly socioeconomic position in the Hinduized society of Vedic South Asia or did not participate in the Hindu caste system and had barely any contacts with Hindus at all. Witzel (1999) and Southworth (2005) proposed that the early non-Indo-European words with prefixes k-, ka-, ku-, cər- in Vedic Sanskrit belonged to a hypothetical 'Para-Munda substratum', which they believed to be part of the Harappan language. That would imply that Austroasiatic speakers might have penetrated as far as the Panjab and Afghanistan in the early 2nd millennium BC. However, Osada (2009) refuted Witzel and considered that those words might have been in fact Dravidian compounds.

Vocabulary

Munda basic words

gloss	Santali	Mundari	Ho	Bhumij	Korwa	Korku	Kharia	Juang	Sora	Gorum	Remo	Gutob	Gtaʔ
"hand"	ti	tīi	tī	ti	tiʔi:	ʈi	tiʔ	iti	si:ʔ	siʔ	titi	titi	tti, nti
"foot"	janga	janga	–	janga	dʒaŋg	nanga	-dʒuŋ	idʒiɲ/ŋ	dʒe:ˀŋ	zḭŋ	tiksuŋ	susuŋ	nco
"eye"	mẽ̠t'	med'	meɖ	med	meɖ	med	moˀɖ	ɛmɔɖ	mo:ˀd/mad	maˀd	moʔ	moʔ	mwaʔ
"water"	daˀk	da:	daʔ	daʔ	da:ʔ	ɖa	daʔ	dag	da:ʔ	ɖaʔ	dak'	ɖaʔ	nɖiaʔ
"child"	hon	hon	hon	hon	hon	kon	konon	kɔn	oˀo:n	aŋon	ɔ̃ʔɔ̃	oʔn	ūhuŋo
"bear"	bana	bana	bana	bana	–	bana	bane/ai	banae	kəmbud	kibud	gibɛ	gubɔn	gbɛ
"tiger"	kul	kula:	kula	kula	ku:l	kula	kiɽoʔ	kiɭog	kɨna	kulaʔ	kukusa	gikil, kilɔ	nku
"dog"	seta	seta	se:ta	seta	sɛit̪a	sita	soloʔ	selog/ˀk	kənsod	kusɔˀd	gusɔd	gusɔʔ	gsuʔ

Distribution

Language name	Number of speakers (2011)	Location
Korwa	28,400	Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand
Birjia	25,000	Jharkhand, West Bengal
Mundari (inc. Bhumij)	1,600,000	Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar
Asur	7,000	Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha
Ho	1,400,000	Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal
Birhor	2,000	Jharkhand
Santali	7,400,000	Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar, Assam, Bangladesh, Nepal
Turi	2,000	Jharkhand
Korku	727,000	Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra
Kharia	298,000	Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh
Juang	30,400	Odisha
Gtaʼ	4,500	Odisha
Bonda	9,000	Odisha
Gutob	10,000	Odisha, Andhra Pradesh
Gorum	20	Odisha, Andhra Pradesh
Sora	410,000	Odisha, Andhra Pradesh
Juray	25,000	Odisha
Lodhi	25,000	Odisha, West Bengal
Koda	47,300	West Bengal, Odisha, Bangladesh
Kol	1,600	West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bangladesh

Reconstruction

Main article: Proto-Munda language

The proto-forms have been reconstructed by Sidwell & Rau (2015: 319, 340–363). Proto-Munda reconstruction has since been revised and improved by Rau (2019).

Writing systems

The following are current used alphabets of Munda languages:

• Mundari Bani (Mundari alphabet)
• Ol Chiki (Santali alphabet)
• Ol Onal (Bhumij alphabet)
• Sorang Sompeng (Sora alphabet)
• Warang Citi (Ho alphabet)

See also

• Nihali language
• Munda peoples

References

General references

• Diffloth, Gérard (1974). "Austro-Asiatic Languages". Encyclopædia Britannica. pp. 480–484.
• Diffloth, Gérard (2005). "The contribution of linguistic palaeontology to the homeland of Austro-Asiatic". In Sagart, Laurent; Blench, Roger; Sanchez-Mazas, Alicia (eds.). The Peopling of East Asia: Putting Together Archaeology, Linguistics and Genetics. RoutledgeCurzon. pp. 79–82.

Further reading

• Anderson, Gregory D S (2007). The Munda verb: typological perspectives. Trends in linguistics. Vol. 174. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-018965-0.
• Anderson, Gregory D S, ed. (2008). Munda Languages. Routledge Language Family Series. Vol. 3. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-32890-6.
• Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2015). "Prosody, phonological domains and the structure of roots, stems and words in the Munda languages in a comparative/historical light". Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics. 2 (2): 163–183. doi:10.1515/jsall-2015-0009. S2CID 63980668.
• Anderson, Gregory D. S.; Boyle, John P. (2002). "Switch-Reference in South Munda". In Macken, Marlys A. (ed.). Papers from the 10th Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (PDF). Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University, South East Asian Studies Program. pp. 39–54. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 June 2015.
• Brown, E. K., ed. (2006). "Munda Languages". Encyclopedia of Languages and Linguistics. Oxford: Elsevier Press.
• Donegan, Patricia J.; Stampe, David (1983). "Rhythm and the holistic organization of linguistic structure". Chicago Linguistic Society. 19 (2): 337–353.
• Donegan, Patricia; Stampe, David (2002). "South-East Asian Features in the Munda Languages: Evidence for the Analytic-to-Synthetic Drift of Munda". In Chew, Patrick (ed.). Proceedings of the 28th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Special Session on Tibeto-Burman and Southeast Asian Linguistics, in honour of Prof. James A. Matisoff. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Linguistics Society. pp. 111–129.
• Donegan, Patricia; Stampe, David (2004). "Rhythm and the Synthetic Drift of Munda". In Singh, Rajendra (ed.). The Yearbook of South Asian Languages and Linguistics. De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 3–36.
• Newberry, J (2000). North Munda hieroglyphics. Victoria, BC: J Newberry.
• Śarmā, Devīdatta (2003). Munda: sub-stratum of Tibeto-Himalayan languages. Studies in Tibeto-Himalayan languages. Vol. 7. New Delhi: Mittal Publications. ISBN 81-7099-860-3.
• Varma, Siddheshwar (1978). Munda and Dravidian languages: a linguistic analysis. Hoshiarpur: Vishveshvaranand Vishva Bandhu Institute of Sanskrit and Indological Studies, Panjab University. OCLC 25852225.
• Zide, Norman H.; Anderson, G. D. S. (1999). Bhaskararao, P. (ed.). "The Proto-Munda Verb and Some Connections with Mon-Khmer". Working Papers International Symposium on South Asian Languages Contact and Convergence, and Typology. Tokyo: 401–421.
• Zide, Norman H.; Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2001). "The Proto-Munda Verb: Some Connections with Mon-Khmer". In Subbarao, K. V.; Bhaskararao, P. (eds.). Yearbook of South-Asian Languages and Linguistics. Delhi: Sage Publications. pp. 517–540. doi:10.1515/9783110245264.517.
• Anderson, Gregory D. S.; Zide, Norman H. (2001). "Recent Advances in the Reconstruction of the Proto-Munda Verb". In Brinton, Laurel J. (ed.). Historical Linguistics 1999: Selected papers from the 14th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Vancouver, 9–13 August 1999. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. Vol. 215. Amsterdam: Benjamins. pp. 13–30. doi:10.1075/cilt.215.03and. ISBN 978-90-272-3722-4.
• Rau, Felix (2013). "Proper names, predicates, and the parts-of-speech system of Santali". In Rijkhoff, Jan; Lier, Eva Helena van (eds.). Flexible word classes: typological studies of underspecified parts of speech (1 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 169–184. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199668441.003.0006. ISBN 978-0-19-966844-1.
• Jenny, Mathias; Weber, Tobias; Weymuth, Rachel (2014). "The Austroasiatic Languages: A Typological Overview". In Jenny, Mathias; Sidwell, Paul (eds.). The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages. Leiden: Brill. pp. 13–143. doi:10.1163/9789004283572_003.
• Sidwell, Paul (2015). "Local drift and areal convergence in the restructuring of Mainland Southeast Asian languages: Gtaʔ (Munda) creating initial clusters/sesquisyllables". In Enfield, N. J.; Comrie, Bernard (eds.). Languages of Mainland Southeast Asia: The State of the Art. De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 51–81. doi:10.1515/9781501501685-003. ISBN 9781501501708. OCLC 909907686.
• Sidwell, Paul; Rau, Felix (2014). "Austroasiatic Comparative-Historical Reconstruction: An Overview". In Jenny, Mathias; Sidwell, Paul (eds.). The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages. Leiden: Brill. pp. 221–363. ISBN 978-90-04-28295-7.
• Peterson, John M. (2010). "Language contact in Jharkhand: Linguistic convergence between Munda and Indo-Aryan in eastern-central India". Himalayan Linguistics. 9 (2): 56–86. doi:10.5070/H99223479.
• Peterson, John M. (2011a). A Grammar of Kharia: A South Munda Language. Brill. ISBN 978-9-00418-720-7. OCLC 31045692.
• Peterson, John M. (2011b). ""Words" in Kharia: Phonological, morpho-syntactic and "orthographical" aspect". In Heig, Geoffrey; Nau, Nicole; Schnell, Stefan; Wegener, Claudia (eds.). Documenting Endangered Languages, Achievements and perspectives. Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 89–119. doi:10.1515/9783110260021.89.
• Peterson, John M. (2015). "Introduction – advances in the study of Munda languages". Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics. 2 (2): 149–162. doi:10.1515/jsall-2015-0008.
• Peterson, John M. (2022). "A sociolinguistic-typological approach to the linguistic prehistory of South Asia: Two case studies". Language Dynamics and Change. 12 (2): 224–273. doi:10.1163/22105832-bja10018.
• Alves, Mark J. (2020). "Morphology in Austroasiatic Languages". In Lieber, Rochelle (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of Morphology. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.532. ISBN 978-0-19-938465-5.
• Hock, Hans Henrich; Bashir, Elena, eds. (2016). The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia: A Comprehensive Guide. Volume 7 of The World of Linguistics. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. doi:10.1515/9783110423303. ISBN 978-3-11-0423-389.
  • Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2016). "Austroasiatic languages of South Asia". In Hock, Hans Henrich; Bashir, Elena (eds.). The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia: A Comprehensive Guide. Volume 7 of The World of Linguistics. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. pp. 107–130. doi:10.1515/9783110423303-003.
  • Bashir, Elena (2016). "Contact and convergence". In Hock, Hans Henrich; Bashir, Elena (eds.). The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia: A Comprehensive Guide. Volume 7 of The World of Linguistics. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. pp. 241–374. doi:10.1515/9783110423303-004. ISBN 978-3-11-042330-3.
  • Hock, Hans Henrich (2016c). "Morphology". In Hock, Hans Henrich; Bashir, Elena (eds.). The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia: A Comprehensive Guide. Volume 7 of The World of Linguistics. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. pp. 437–500. doi:10.1515/9783110423303-006. ISBN 978-3-11-042330-3.
• Ghosh, Arun (2008). "Santali". In Anderson, Gregory D.S. (ed.). The Munda Languages. London: Routledge. pp. 11–98.
• Osada, Toshiki (2008). "Mundari". The Munda Languages. New York: Routledge. pp. 99–164. ISBN 978-0-415-32890-6.
• Zide, Norman H. (2008). "Korku". The Munda Languages. New York: Routledge. pp. 256–298. ISBN 978-0-415-32890-6.
• Hildebrandt, Kristine; Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2023). "Word Prominence in Languages of Southern Asia". In Hulst, Harry van der; Bogomolets, Ksenia (eds.). Word Prominence in Languages with Complex Morphologies. Oxford University Press. pp. 520–564. doi:10.1093/oso/9780198840589.003.0017. ISBN 978-0-19-884058-9.
• Horo, Luke; Anderson, Gregory D. S.; Harrison, K. David (2024). "Vowel Harmony in the Munda Languages". In Hulst, Harry van der; Ritter, Nancy A. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Vowel Harmony. Oxford University Press. pp. 723–728. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198826804.013.57. ISBN 978-0-19-882680-4.
• Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2014). "Overview of the Munda languages". In Jenny, Mathias; Sidwell, Paul (eds.). The Handbook of Austroasiatic Languages. Leiden: Brill. pp. 364–414. doi:10.1163/9789004283572_006. ISBN 978-90-04-28295-7.
• Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2017a). "Polysynthesis in Sora (Munda) with Special Reference to Noun Incorporation". In Fortescue, Michael; Mithun, Marianne; Evans, Nicholas (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Polysynthesis. Oxford University Press. pp. 930–947. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199683208.013.50. ISBN 978-0-19-968320-8.
• Jenny, Mathias (2020). "Verb-Initial Structures in Austroasiatic Languages". In Jenny, Mathias; Sidwell, Paul; Alves, Mark (eds.). Austroasiatic Syntax in Areal and Diachronic Perspective. Brill. pp. 21–45. doi:10.1163/9789004425606_003. ISBN 978-90-04-39695-1.
• Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2020). "Proto-Munda Prosody, Morphotactics and Morphosyntax in South Asian and Austroasiatic Contexts". In Jenny, Mathias; Sidwell, Paul; Alves, Mark (eds.). Austroasiatic Syntax in Areal and Diachronic Perspective. Brill. pp. 157–197. doi:10.1163/9789004425606_008. ISBN 978-90-04-39695-1.
• Rau, Felix (2020). "The Proto-Munda Predicate and the Austroasiatic Language Family". In Jenny, Mathias; Sidwell, Paul; Alves, Mark (eds.). Austroasiatic Syntax in Areal and Diachronic Perspective. Brill. pp. 198–235. doi:10.1163/9789004425606_009. ISBN 978-90-04-39695-1.
• Kobayashi, Masato; Mohan, Shailendra (2021). "Munda Languages: An Overview". In Mohan, Shailendra (ed.). Advances in Munda Linguistics. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 1–22. ISBN 978-1527570474.
• Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2021). "On the Role of Areal and Genetic Factors in the Development of the Word-Structure and Morphosyntax of the Munda Languages". In Mohan, Shailendra (ed.). Advances in Munda Linguistics. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 22–77. ISBN 978-1527570474.
• Ghosh, Arun (2021). "Infixation in Munda and its Austroasiatic Legacy". In Mohan, Shailendra (ed.). Advances in Munda Linguistics. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 78–107. ISBN 978-1527570474.
• van Driem, George L. (2021). Ethnolinguistic Prehistory: The Peopling of the World from the Perspective of Language, Genes and Material Culture. Brill. ISBN 978-9-00444-837-7.

Historical migrations

• Blench, Roger (19 July 2019). The Munda maritime dispersal: when, where and what is the evidence? (PDF) (Report).
• Rau, Paul; Sidwell, Felix (2019). The Maritime Munda Hypothesis. ICAAL 8, Chiang Mai, Thailand, 29–31 August 2019. doi:10.5281/zenodo.3365316.
• Rau, Felix; Sidwell, Paul (2019). "The Maritime Munda Hypothesis". Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society. 12 (2): 31–53. hdl:10524/52454.

External links

• SEAlang Munda Languages Project
  • SEAlang Munda Etymological Dictionary
• Donegan & Stampe Munda site
• Munda languages at Living Tongues
• bibliography
• The Ho language webpage by K. David Harrison, Swarthmore College
• RWAAI (Repository and Workspace for Austroasiatic Intangible Heritage)
• http://hdl.handle.net/10050/00-0000-0000-0003-66EE-3@view Munda languages in RWAAI Digital Archive