Halbi language

Halbi (also Bastari, Halba, Halvas, Halabi, Halvi) is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language, transitional between Odia and Marathi. It is spoken by at least 766,297 people across the central part of India.

Halbi
हलबी
The word "Halbi" written in Devanagari script
Native to	India
Region	Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra
Ethnicity	Halba
Native speakers	766,297 (2011 census)
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Eastern Halbic Halbi
Writing system	Odia, Devanagari
Language codes
ISO 639-3	hlb
Glottolog	halb1244  Halbi
Linguasphere	59-AAF-tb
Halbi-speaking region

The Mehari (or Mahari) dialect is mutually intelligible with the other dialects only with difficulty. There are an estimated 200,000 second-language speakers (as of 2001). In Chhattisgarh educated people are fluent in Hindi. Some first language speakers use Bhatri as second language.

Halbi is often used as a trade language, but there is a low literacy rate. It is written in the Odia and Devanagari scripts. It uses SOV word order (subject-object-verb), makes strong use of affixes, and places adjectives before nouns.

Phonology

Vowels

Halbi has 6 vowels: /a, e, ɘ, i, o, u/. All vowels show contrastive vowel nasalization.

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Stop	voiceless	p	t		k	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ		kʰ
	voiced	b	d		g
	breathy	bʱ	dʱ		gʱ
Affricate	voiceless		t͡s	cç
	voiced			ɟʝ
Fricative	voiceless	f	s	ç		h
	voiced	v	z
Approximant			l	j	w
Trill			r