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MUNDAS

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Originally appearing in Volume V19, Page 3 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MUNDAS . The Munda (Mund¢) See also:

family is the least numerous of the linguistic families of See also:India. It comprises several dialects spoken in the two See also:Chota See also:Nagpur plateaux, the adjoining districts of See also:Madras and the Central Provinces, and in the Mahadeo hills. The number of speakers of the various dialects, according to the See also:census of 1901, are as follow: Santali, 1,795,113; Mundari, 460,744; Bhumij, 111,304; Birhar, 526; KOda, 23,873; HO, 371,860; See also:Turi, 388o; Asuri, 4894; Korwa, 16,442; Korku, 87,675; Kharia, 82,506; Juang, 10,853; Savara, 157,136; Gadaba, 37,230; See also:total, 3,164,036. Santali, Mundari, Bhumij, Birhar, KOda, HO, Turi, Asuri and Korwa are only slightly differing forms of one and the same See also:language, which can be called Kherwari, a name borrowed from Santali tradition. Kherwari is the See also:principal Munda language, and quite 88% of all the speakers of Munda See also:tongues belong to it. The Korwa See also:dialect, spoken in the western See also:part of Chota Nagpur, connects Kherwari with the remaining Munda See also:languages. Of these it is most closely related to the Kurku language of the Mahadeo hills in the Central Provinces. Kurku, in its turn, in important points agrees with Kharia and Juang, and Kharia leads over to Savara and Gadaba. The two last-mentioned forms of speech, which are spoken in the See also:north-See also:east of the Madras See also:Presidency, have been much influenced by See also:Dravidian languages. The Munda dialects are not in See also:sole See also:possession of the territory where they are spoken. They are, as a See also:rule, only found in the hills and jungles, while the plains and valleys are inhabited by See also:people speaking some See also:Aryan language.

When brought into See also:

close contact with Aryan tongues the Munda forms of speech are See also:apt to give way, and in the course of See also:time they have been partly superseded by Aryan dialects. There are accordingly some Aryanized tribes in See also:northern India who have formerly belonged to the Munda stock. Such are the Cheros of See also:Behar and Chota Nagpur, the Kherwars, who. are found in the same localities, in See also:Mirzapur and elsewhere, the Savaras, who formerly extended as far north as See also:Shahabad, and others. It seems possible to trace an old Munda See also:element in some Tibeto-Burman dialects spoken in the Himalayas from See also:Bashahr eastwards. By See also:race the Mundas are Dravidians, and their language was likewise See also:long considered as a member of the Dravidian family. Max See also:Muller was the first to distinguish the two families. He also coined the name Munda for the smaller of them, which has later on often been spoken of under other denominations, such as Kolarian and Kherwarian. The Dravidian race is generally considered as the aboriginal See also:population of See also:southern India. The Mundas, who do not appear to have extended much farther towards the See also:south than at See also:present, must have mixed with the Dravidians from very See also:early times. The so-called Nahali dialect of the Mahadeo hills seems to have been originally a Munda See also:form of speech which has come under Dravidian See also:influence, and finally passed under the spell of Aryan tongues. The same is perhaps the See also:case with the numerous dialects spoken by the See also:Bhils. At all events, Munda languages have apparently been spoken over a wide See also:area in central and north India.

They were then early superseded by Dravidian and Aryan dialects, and at the present See also:

day only scanty remnants are found in the hills and jungles of See also:Bengal and the Central Provinces, Though the Munda family is not connected with any other languages in India proper, it does not form an isolated See also:group. It belongs to a widely spread family, which extends from India in the See also:west to See also:Easter See also:Island in the eastern Pacific in the east. In the first See also:place, we find a connected language spoken by the Khasis of the Khasi hills in See also:Assam. Then follow the MOn-Khmer languages of Farther India, the dialects spoken by the aboriginal inhabitants of the See also:Malay See also:Peninsula, the Nancowry of the Ni.cobars, and, finally, the numerous dialects of Austronesia, viz. Indonesic, Melanesic, Polynesic, and so on. Among the various members of this vast group the Munda languages are most closely related to the Mon-Khmer family of Farther India. Kurku, Kharia, Juang, Savara and Gadaba are more closely related to that family than is Kherwari, the principal Munda form of speech. We do not know if the Mundas entered India from without. If so, they can only have immigrated from the east. At all events they must have been settled in India from a very early See also:period. The Sabaras, the ancestors of the Savaras, are already mentioned in old Vedic literature. The Mundy languages seem to have been influenced by Dravidian and Aryan forms of speech.

In most characteristics, however, they differ widely from the neighbouring tongues. The Munda languages abound in vowels, and also possess a richly See also:

developed See also:system of consonants. Like the Dravidian languages, they avoid beginning a word with more than one consonant. While those latter forms of speech shrink from pronouncing a See also:short consonant at the end of words, the Mundas have the opposite tendency, viz. to shorten such sounds still more. The usual stopped consonants —viz. k, c (i.e. See also:English ch), t and p—are formed by stopping the current of breath at different points In the mouth, and then letting it pass out with a See also:kind of See also:explosion. In the Mundy language this operation can be abruptly checked See also:half-way, so that the breath does not See also:touch the See also:organs of speech in passing out. The result is a See also:sound that makes an abrupt impression on the See also:ear, and has been described as an abrupt See also:tone. Such sounds are See also:common in the Mundy languages. They are usually written k', c', t' and p'. Similar sounds are also found in the Mon-Khmer languages and in Indo-See also:Chinese. The vowels of consecutive syllables to a certain extent approach each other in sound.

Thus in Kherwari the open sounds a (nearly English a in all) and a (the a in care) agree with each other and not with the corresponding close sounds o (the o in See also:

pole) and e (the e in See also:pen). The Santali passive suffix ok' accordingly becomes Ok' after 0 or a ; compare See also:sin-dk', go, but dal-ok' , to be struck. Words are formed from monosyllabic bases by means of various additions, suffixes (such as are added after the See also:base), prefixes (which precede the base) and infixes (which are inserted into the base itself). Suffixes See also:play a See also:great r81e in the See also:inflexion of words, while prefixes and infixes are of greater importance as formative additions. Compare Kurku k-on, Savara on, son; Kharia ro-mong, Kherwari mu, See also:nose; Santali See also:bar, to fear; bo-to-r, fear; dal, to strike; da-pa-1, to strike each other. The various classes of words are not clearly distinguished. The same base can often be used as a noun, an See also:adjective or a verb. The words simply denote some being, See also:object, quality, See also:action or the like, but they do not tell us how they are conceived. Inflexion is effected in the usual agglutinative way by means of additions which are " glued " or joined to the unchanged base. In many respects, however, Mundy inflexion has struck out See also:peculiar lines. Thus there is no grammatical distinction of gender. Nouns can be divided into two classes, viz. those that denote animate beings and those that denote inanimate See also:objects respectively.

There are three See also:

numbers—the singular, the dual and the plural. On the other See also:hand, there are no real cases, at least in the most typical Mund'a languages. The See also:direct and the indirect object are indicated by means of certain additions to the verb. Certain relations in time and space, however, are indicated by means of suffixes, which have probably from the beginning been See also:separate words with a definite meaning. The genitive, which can be considered as an adjective preceding the governing word, is often derived from such forms denoting locality. Compare Santali hdr-rd, in a See also:man; hdr-ruin, of a man. Higher numbers are counted in twenties, and not in tens as in the Dravidian languages. The pronouns abound in different forms. Thus there are See also:double sets of the dual and the plural of the pronoun of the first See also:person, one including and the other excluding the person addressed. The Rev. A. Nottrott aptly illustrates the importance of this distinction by remarking how it is necessary to use the exclusive form if telling the servant that " we shall dine at seven." Otherwise the See also:speaker will invite the servant to partake of the See also:meal.

In addition to the usual See also:

personal pronouns there are also short forms, used as suffixes and infixes, which denote a direct object, an indirect object, or a genitive. There is a corresponding richness in the case of See also:demonstrative pronouns. Thus the pronoun " that " in Santali has different forms to denote a living being, an inanimate object, something seen, some-thing heard, and so on. On the other hand, there is no relative pronoun, the want being supplied by the use of indefinite forms of the verbal bases, which can in this connexion be called relative participles. ,The most characteristic feature of Mundy See also:grammar is the verb, especially in Kherwari. Every See also:independent word can perform the See also:function of a verb, and every verbal form can, in its turn, be used as a noun or an adjective. The bases of the different tenses can there-fore be described as indifferent words which can be used as a noun, as an adjective, and as a verb, but which are in reality none of them. Each denotes simply the See also:root meaning as modified by time. Thus in Santali the base dal-See also:ket', struck, which is formed from the base dal, by adding the suffix ket' of the active past, can be used as a noun compare dal-ket'-ko, strikers, those that struck), as an adjective compare dal-ket'-har, struck man, the man that struck), and as a verb. In the last case it is necessary to add an a if the action really takes place; thus, dal-ket'-a, somebody struck. It has already been remarked that the cases of the direct and indirect object are indicated by adding forms of the personalpronouns to the verb. Such pronominal affixes are inserted before the assertive particle a.

Thus the affix denoting a direct object of the third person singular is e, and by inserting it in dal-ket'-a we arrive at a form dal-ked-e-a, somebody struck him. Similar affixes can be added to denote that the object or subject of an action belongs to somebody. Thus Santali hdpdn-in-e dal-ket'-tako-See also:

tin-a, son-my-he struck-theirs-mine, my son who belongs to me struck theirs. In a See also:sentence such as har See also:kora-e dal-ked-e-a, man boy-he struck-him, the man struck the boy, the See also:Santals first put together the ideas man, boy, and a striking in the past. Then the e tells us that the striking affects the boy, and finally the -a indicates that the whole action really takes place. It will be seen that a single verbal form in this way often corresponds to a whole sentence or a See also:series of sentences in other languages. If we add that the most developed Mundy languages possess different bases for the active, the See also:middle and the passive, that there are different causal, intensive and reciprocal bases, which are conjugated throughout, and that the person of the subject is often indicated in the verb, it will be understood that Mundy conjugation presents a somewhat bewildering aspect. It is, however, quite See also:regular throughout, and once the mind becomes accustomed to these peculiarities, they do not present any difficulty to the understanding.

End of Article: MUNDAS

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