Desia language


Desia,[1] also Desiya or Desia Odia or Koraputi Odia or Southwestern Odia, is an Indo-Aryan language variety (sociolinguistically considered as a dialect of Odia) spoken in Koraput, Nabarangpur, Rayagada, Malkangiri districts and parts of Kalahandi district of Odisha and in the hilly regions of Vishakhapatnam and Vizianagaram districts of Andhra Pradesh.[2] The variant spoken in Koraput is called Koraputia.

Desia
Desiya, Desia Odia
ଦେଶିଆ
Native toIndia
RegionOdisha (Koraput, Malkangiri, Rayagada, Nabarangpur, Kalahandi)
EthnicityOdias
Native speakers
227,313 (2011 census)
Odia
Language codes
ISO 639-3Either:
dso – Desiya
ort – Adivasi Oriya
Glottologadiv1239

Desia serves as the lingua franca among the different ethnic groups in the area[3] and is the major regional tribal-non tribal dialect continuum of the undivided Koraput district of the Southwestern Odisha region.[4][5][6][7][8]

PhonologyEdit

Desia variety has 21 consonant phonemes, 2 semivowel phonemes and 6 vowel phonemes.[9]

Desia vowel phonemes
Front Central Back
High i u
Mid e o
Low a ɔ

There are no long vowels in Desia just like Standard Odia.

Desia consonant phonemes
Labial Alveolar
/Dental
Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Stop/
Affricate
voiceless p t ʈ k
voiceless aspirated
voiced b d ɖ ɡ
voiced aspirated
Fricative s ɦ
Trill/Flap ɾ ɽ~ɽʰ
Lateral approximant l
Approximant w j

Desia shows loss of both voiceless and voiced aspirated consonants as well as retroflex consonants like retroflex unaspirated nasal(voiced retroflex nasal) ɳ () and voiced retroflex lateral approximant [ɭ] () which are present in Standard Odia.

ReferencesEdit

  1. Masica (1991:426)
  2. "Desiya", in Eberhard, David M., Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig, eds. (2020). Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Twenty-third edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International.
  3. Gustafsson, Uwe (1978). "Procedural discourse in Kotia Oriya". In Joseph E. Grimes (ed.), Papers on discourse, 283-97. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
  4. Mohan, Shriya (January 10, 2018). "Speak up, India". The Hindu.
  5. Vishnu, Uma (May 15, 2016). "This way to school: How dismal indicators for education in Odisha's Nabarangpur are slowly changing". The Indian Express.
  6. https://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011-documents/lsi/ling_Orissa.html
  7. Mahapatra, B.P. (2002). Linguistic Survey of India: Orissa (PDF). Kolkata, India: Language Division, Office of the Registrar General. p. 2. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
  8. Mahapatra, B.P. (2002). Linguistic Survey of India: Orissa (PDF). Kolkata, India: Language Division, Office of the Registrar General. p. 20. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
  9. Mahapatra, B.P. (2002). Linguistic Survey of India: Orissa (PDF). Kolkata, India: Language Division, Office of the Registrar General. p. 94,95. Retrieved 5 August 2020.

Further readingEdit

  • Masica, Colin (1991). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Cambridge Language Surveys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-29944-2.

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