Marathi language

Categories: Articles containing Indic text | Indo-Aryan languages | Languages of India

Image:Example.of.complex.text.rendering.(small-white).png

This page contains an Indic script. Without sufficient text support you may see irregular vowel placements and no conjuncts. More...

Marathi (Marathi)
Spoken in:	India
Region:	Maharashtra, Goa, Gujrat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and other pockets of the world.
Total speakers:	70 million native speakers 20 million second language speakers
Ranking:	13-17 (native); in a near tie with Korean, Vietnamese, Telugu, Tamil
Genetic classification:	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Central zone Marathi
Official status
Official language of:	Maharashtra State, India
Regulated by:	-
Language codes
ISO 639-1	mr
ISO 639-2	mar
SIL	MRT
See also: Language – List of languages

Marathi (मराठी) is one of the widely spoken languages of India, and has a long literary history. The first inscripted Marathi document was found in Karnataka state of India, which is supposed to be about 1300 years old.

In Maharashtra state, about 90 million people speak Marathi. Marathi mainly takes its grammar and sentence construction from Sanskrit. The name of the language can also appear as Maharashtri, Maharathi, Malhatee or Marthi.

1 History
2 Classification
3 Geographic distribution
- 3.1 Official status
- 3.2 Dialects
4 Sounds
5 Grammar
6 Vocabulary
7 Writing system
8 Marathi literature
9 See also
10 External links
- 10.1 Maharashtra Mandals

[edit]

History

Marathi descends from the Sanskrit language of India via the Prakrit dialect Maharashtri. The Satavahana empire based at Pratishthana (now Paithan) in the first few centuries CE used Maharashtri as its official language. Maharashtri became the most widespread Prakrit of its time, and also pre-dominated amongst the three "Dramatic" Prakrits (Maharashtri, Sauraseni and Magadhi). A version of Maharashtri (Jaina Maharashtri) served to write part of the Jain canon. The Satavahana emperor Hala's Sattasai (Sanskrit Saptashati) — an anthology of 700 love poems — became the most famous piece of literature in Maharashtri. Maharashtri slowly evolved into Marathi during the 15th and 16th centuries.

Marathi came into prominence during the reign of Chhatrapati Shivaji (1630 – 1680). Shivaji led the Marathas in an independence struggle against the Muslim sultans of Bijapur and later the Mughal empire. The Marathas later established a loose-knit empire which extended north to Delhi, east to Orissa, and south to Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu by the mid-18th century.

[edit]

Classification

Marathi is part of the Indo-Aryan grouping of the Indo-European family of languages.

[edit]

Geographic distribution

Most speakers of Marathi live in the Indian state of Maharashtra. They also inhabit neighboring states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. The Ethnologue also records speakers of Marathi in Israel (thanks to the emigration of the Bene Israel and other Jews from India) and in Mauritius.

[edit]

Official status

Marathi serves as an official language of Maharashtra. The Constitution of India recognises it as one of the twenty-two official languages of the country.

[edit]

Dialects

Dialects of Marathi include Ahirani and Manadeshi. Konkani as spoken in Goa or Karwar once ranked as a dialect of Marathi, but linguists now recognise it as a separate language. However one dialect called "Malwani" from Sindhudurg District (in the Konkan region) has now emerged as a major dialect, the vehicle of many entertaining plays. The recent rise of "Malwani" can be traced to the play "Wastraharan", written by Gangaram Gawankar and staged by Machchhindra Kambli, which became a superhit and virtually gave birth to the genre of Malwani plays. For more on this refer to the literature section. The other dilects in Marathi are VarhaaDi (vaidarbhi). Its spoken in Nagpur, Amravati,Pusad, Vashim, Yavatmal,Akola region. The people of Marathvada - Beed, Parabhani, Latur, Aurangabad, Nanded - - have a different accent. The Bene Israel Jews speak the dialect Judæo-Marathi.

[edit]

Sounds

[edit]

Grammar

Marathi, probably alone in the Indo-Aryan languages based on Sanskrit, partly preserves the Sanskrit locative case, thus:

Sanskrit:

         prabhaat: dawn         gR^iha: house
         prabhaate: at dawn     gR^ihe: at/in the house

Marathi:

         pahaaT: dawn            ghar: house
         pahaaTe: at dawn        gharI/gharaat/: at/in the house

Marathi words can be classified in any of the following parts:

1. Naam (noun)

2. Sarva naam (pronoun)

3. VisheshaN (adjective)

4. Kriya VisheshaN (adverb)

5. Kriyapad (verb)

6. Avyay - Ubhayanvayi Avyay

7. Shabd Yogi Avyay

8. Keval Prayogi Avyay

1. Naam: The definition resembles the definition in English. There are 3 types of Naam - Vishesh Naam )specific name - like John, Ajit, Ram, Seeta etc. A name of a person comes into this category.

2. Sarv naam (the definition resembles the english Pronoun.) To (english:he), Ti(english:she), Te (english:they) etc.

3. VesheshaN: Naama baddal saangitalelya vishesh maahitila Vesheshan mhantaat (the more information given about the naam (noun) is called as Visheshan (adjective); additional information about the noun. e.g. To Hushaar mulgaa aahe. (english:He is a clever boy) To (english:He) - Sarvanaam (english:pronoun) Hushar (english:clever) - Vesheshan (english:adjective) Mulgaa (english:boy) - naam (english:noun) Aahe (english:is) - kriyapad (verb)

4. Kriya VesheshaN (adverb) - Kriyapada baddal vishesh maahiti saangaNaaRyaa shabdaalaa kriya visheshan ase mhanataat (the word giving more information about verb is known as Kriya Visheshan)

[edit]

Vocabulary

Interestingly, Marathi uses the large number of modified Urdu, Persian and Arabic words. This came about because, for a significant period, Marathi came under the influence of Muslim and Maratha rulers who used words from these languages.

Some examples of this vocabulary:

Khurchii (chair) originally comes from Arabic Kursi (chair).
Jhaayraat (advertisement) originally comes from Persian Zaahiraat (advertisement).
Shiphaaras (recommendation) originally comes from Urdu Sifarish (recommendation).
Marjee (wish) originally comes from Urdu Marzee (wish).
Ishq (love), used in rural and theatrical versions of Marathi, comes from Urdu Ishq (love).

[edit]

Writing system

Marathi uses the Devanagari script for writing. Get Marathi Writing simple software baraha, Madhyam, Itranslator, ITRANS online, Yudit.

Before the use of the printing press, writers in Marathi used a different script called the Modi script -- a cursive script written with a minimal lifting of pen from paper. However, with the advent of large-scale printing, Modi script fell into disuse, as it proved very difficult for type-setting. (See External Link). The courts in the olden days also used Persian-type scripts under the influence of Muslim and Maratha rulers.

The oldest evidence of written Marathi comes from the base of a gigantic thousand year-old statue in the southern Indian town of Shravanabelagola. The inscription concerns the king Gangaraya who funded the effort, and his general Chamundaraya, who erected the statue for the king.

[edit]

Marathi literature

Main article: Marathi literature

Marathi has a long literary tradition, and a huge literature has grown up in Marathi in the last seven centuries. The first known major literateur in Marathi is Adya Kavi Mukundraj. The saint-poet Dnyaneshwar ranks as the most important major literateur in the Marathi language. Dnyaneshwar wrote Bhaavarth-Dipika which is also known as Dnyaneshwari. Other prominent saint-poets include Eknath, Tukaram and Namdev, who enriched Marathi from the grass-roots level. Marathi probably has the richest saint-literature of all Indian languages. Prominent recent Marathi authors include P.K.Atre, P.L. Deshpande, Vasant Kanetkar, Jaywant Dalawi, V. P. Kale, Vyankatesh Madgoolkar, D. M. Mirasdar, G. A. Kulkarni, Anand Yadav, Shankar Patil, and Vijay Tendulkar. Famous poets include Vishnu Vaman Shirvadakar (Kavi Kusumagraj), Mangesh Padgaonkar, Vaman Pandit, Aarati Prabhu , Suresh Bhat and Shanta Shelake.