Dark green indicates Marwari speaking home area in Rajasthan, light green indicates additional dialect areas where speakers identify their language as Marwari.
Marwari has no official status in India and is not used as a language of education. Marwari is still spoken widely in Jodhpur, Pali, Jaisalmer, Barmer, Nagaur, Bikaner.
Marwari is primarily spoken in the Indian state of Rajasthan. Marwari speakers have dispersed widely throughout India and other countries but are found most notably in the neighbouring state of Gujarat and in Eastern Pakistan. Speakers are also found in Bhopal. With around 7.9 million speakers in India according to the 2001 census.[9]
Indian Marwari [rwr] in Rajasthan shares a 50%–65% lexical similarity with Hindi (this is based on a Swadesh 210 word list comparison). It has many cognate words with Hindi. Notable phonetic correspondences include /s/ in Hindi with /h/ in Marwari. For example, /sona/ 'gold' (Hindi) and /hono/ 'gold' (Marwari).
Pakistani Marwari [mve] shares 87% lexical similarity between its Southern subdialects in Sindh (Utradi, Jaxorati, and Larecha) and Northern subdialects in Punjab (Uganyo, Bhattipo, and Khadali), 79%–83% with Dhakti [mki], and 78% with Meghwar and Bhat Marwari dialects. Mutual intelligibility of Pakistani Marwari [mve] with Indian Marwari [rwr] is decreasing due to the rapid shift of active speakers in Pakistan to Urdu, their use of the Arabic script and different sources of support medias, and their separation from Indian Marwaris, even if there are some educational efforts to keep it active (but absence of official recognition by Pakistani or provincial government level). Many words have been borrowed from other Pakistani languages.[7]
Merwari [wry] shares 82%–97% intelligibility of Pakistani Marwari [mve], with 60%–73% lexical similarity between Merwari varieties in Ajmer and Nagaur districts, but only 58%–80% with Shekhawati [swv], 49%–74% with Indian Marwari [rwr], 44%–70% with Godwari [gdx], 54%–72% with Mewari [mtr], 62%–70% with Dhundari [dhd], 57%–67% with Haroti [hoj]. Unlike Pakistani Marwari [mve], the use of Merwari remains vigorous, even if its most educated speakers also proficiently speak Hindi [hin].[11]
Implosives are mostly only found word initially and it formed due to the influence of neighbouring languages.[12]
/w/ is [ʋ] before front vowels and [w] elsewhere e.g. [ʋɪwwa] 'marriage'.[13]
Morphology
Marwari languages have a structure that is quite similar to Hindustani (Hindi or Urdu).[citation needed] Their primary word order is subject–object–verb[14][15][16][17][18] Most of the pronouns and interrogatives used in Marwari are distinct from those used in Hindi; at least Marwari proper and Harauti have a clusivity distinction in their plural pronouns.[citation needed]
Marwari vocabulary is somewhat similar to other Western Indo-Aryan languages, especially Rajasthani and Gujarati, however, elements of grammar and basic terminology differ enough to significantly impede mutual intelligibility.
Writing system
Marwari is generally written in the Devanagari script, although the Mahajani script is traditionally associated with the language. In Pakistan it is written in the Perso-Arabic script with modifications. Historical Marwari orthography for Devanagari uses other characters in place of standard Devanagari letters.[19]
سگݪا مݨکھ نے گورو ان ادھکاروں رے راسے مای جݪم سوں سوتنترا انے سمانتا پراپت چھے. وݨی رے گوڑے بدّھی ان انتراتما ری پراپتی چھے ان وݨی نے بھیئیپاݪا بھاونا سو ایکبیجے رے سارو ورتن کرݨو جوییجے چھے
सगळा मिणख नै गौरव अन अधिकारों रे रासे मांय जळम सूं स्वतंत्रता अने समानता प्राप्त छे। वणी रे गोड़े बुध्दि अन अंतरआत्मा री प्राप्ती छे अन वणी ने भैईपाळा भावना सू एकबीजे रे सारू वर्तन करणो जोयीजै छे।
Sagḷā miṇakh nai gaurav an adhikārõ re rāse māy jaḷam sū̃ svatantrā ane samāntā prāpt che. Vaṇī re goṛe buddhi an antarātmā rī prāptī che an vaṇī ne bhaiīpāḷā bhāvnā sū ekbīje re sārū vartan karṇo joyījai che.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
^Frawley, William J. (1 May 2003). International Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-977178-3. Marwari : also called Rajasthani, Merwari, Marvari. 12,963,000 speakers in India and Nepal. In India: Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, throughout India. Dialects are Standard Marwari, Jaipuri, Shekawati, Dhundhari, Bikaneri.
^Mayaram, Shail (2006). Against History, Against State. Permanent Black. p. 43. ISBN978-81-7824-152-4. The lok gathā (literally, folk narrative) was a highly developed tradition in the Indian subcontinent, especially after the twelfth century, and was simultaneous with the growth of apabhransa, the literary languages of India that derived from Sanskrit and the Prakrits. This developed into the desa bhāṣā, or popular languages, such as Old Western Rajasthani (OWR) or Marubhasa, Bengali, Gujarati, and so on. The traditional language of Rajasthani bards is Dingal (from ding, or arrogance), a literary and archaic form of old Marwari. It was replaced by the more popular Rajasthani (which Grierson calls old Gujarati) that detached itself from western apabhransa about the thirteenth century. This language was the first of all the bhasas of northern India to possess a literature. The Dingal of the Rajasthani bards is the literary form of that language and the ancestor of the contemporary Marvari and Gujarati.
