Marathi

Marathi, मराठी Marāṭhī, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are 90 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the 4th largest number of native speakers in India and is the 15th most spoken language in the world. Marathi has the oldest of the regional literatures in Indo-Aryan languages, dating from about 1000 CE. The major dialects of Marathi are called the Standard Marathi and the Warhadi Marathi. There are a few other sub-dialects like Ahirani, Dangi, Samavedi, Khandeshi and Chitpavani Marathi. Standard Marathi is the official language of the State of Maharashtra. There are no inherently nasalized vowels in standard Marathi whereas the Chitpavani dialect of Marathi does have nasalized vowels.

History

The Prakrit vernacular languages, including Maharashtri Prakrit, were originally derived from Sanskrit. Further change led to apabhraṃśa languages like Marathi, which may be described as being a re-Sanskritised, developed form of Maharashtri Apabhraṃśa. The more recent influence of Persian, Arabic or Urdu has also made this language seem close to mainstream Hindi.

Maharashtri Prakrit was commonly spoken until 875 CE and was the official language of the Sātavāhana empire. It had risen to a high literary level, and works like Karpurmanjari and Saptashati (150 BCE) were written in it. Maharashtri Prakrit was the most widely used Prakrit language in western and southern India.

Maharashtri Apabhraṃśa remained in use for several hundred years until at least 500 CE. Apabhraṃśa was used widely in Jain literature and formed an important link in the evolution of Marathi. This form of Apabhraṃśa was re-Sanskritised and eventually became Marathi.

According to the written forms and historical attestations and evidences, Marathi is said to date to the 8th century.

Geographic distribution

Marathi is primarily spoken in Maharashtra and parts of neighbouring states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka, Chattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh, union-territories of Daman-diu and Dadra Nagar Haveli. The cities of Baroda, Surat, Ahmedabad and Belgaum (Karnataka), Indore, Gwalior (Madhya Pradesh), Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh) and Tanjore (Tamil Nadu) each have sizable Marathi-speaking communities. Marathi is also spoken by Maharashtrian emigrants worldwide, in the United States, UAE, South Africa, Singapore, Germany, UK, Australia, Japan and New Zealand. The Ethnologue states that Marathi is also spoken in Israel and Mauritius, and Canada.

Official status

Marathi is an official language of the Indian state of Maharashtra and co-official language in the union territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli. In Goa, Konkani is the sole official language; however, Marathi may also be used for all official purposes. The Constitution of India recognizes Marathi as one of India's 22 official languages.

In addition to all universities in Maharashtra, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda (Gujarat), Osmania University (Andhra Pradesh), Gulbarga university (Karnataka), Devi Ahilya University of Indore and Goa University (Panaji) all have special departments for higher studies in Marathi linguistics. Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi) has announced plans to establish a special department for Marathi.

Dilemma of Ahirani & Khandeshi

The views of Dr. Ramesh Sitaram Suryawanshi on Ahirani and Khandeshi are explained in detail in his linguistic study of Ahirani. His books, published on the linguistic study of the Ahirani dialect, are Ahirani Bhasha Vaidnynik Abhyasa ("A linguistic study of Ahirani"; it explains the grammar formation of words and formation of sentences of Ahirani), Ahirani-shabdkosh (the first dictionary of Ahirani dialect which contains nearly 10,000 words lexicographically arranged) and Aharani Mhani Ani Wakprachar ("sayings and proverbs" in Ahirani dialect; it contains 1,000 sayings and 4,000 proverbs with illustrations). All these books were published by Akshaya Prakashan, Pune in 1997. His fourth book is Khandeshatil Krishak Jivan Sachitra Kosha — a pictorial dictionary used by the farmers in Khandesh. It is a book with pictures of the tools used by the farmers: the tools and their parts are labeled with their local names in the Ahirani dialect. It is published by Maharashtra State Governments Sahitya Ani Sanskriti Mandal, Mumbai, in 2000, and uploaded to the net by the Digital Library of India under the barcode 999999901412000. Dr. Ramesh Suryawanshi explains Ahirani and Khandeshi in detail. His explanation is elaborated in this article.

Ahirani or Khandeshi is spoken in Khandesh. Khandesh is the old name of area which covers today's Jalgaon, Dhulia, Nandurbar and part of Nasik and Aurangabad districts. Originally Ahirani was spoken by the Ahiras, herders who were with their cows, sheep, goats and bedfellows in the grassy land of Khandesh (previously known as Khandav Van). Khandesh was an old district of the Bombay Presidency. (Kahan means dry grass or grass land. Khan means pure. Khan means large ditch.) Khandesh is an area surrounded by the Satpuda, Ajanta, and Chandwad ranges, and the River Waghur. This wide basin was grass land, useful for cattle, the basin of the Tapi and Narbada rivers. Ahirani is the caste based name of the dialect and Khandeshi is the region based name of the dialect.

Marathi on computers and the Internet

Shrilipi, Shivaji, kothare 2,4,6 Kiran and many more (about48) based on ASCII code were used prior to the introduction of Unicode standard for Devanagari script. Fonts (Tanka) in ASCII code are in vogue on PCs even today since most of the computers in use are working with English Keyboard. Even today a large number of printed publications of books, news papers and magazines are prepared using these ASCII based fonts. However, these fonts cannot be used on internet due to new restrictions.

Earlier Marathi suffered from weak support by computer operating systems and Internet services, as have other Indian languages. But recently, with the introduction of language localisation projects and new technologies, various software and Internet applications have been introduced. Various Marathi typing software is widely used and display interface packages are now available on Windows, Linux and Mac OS. Many Marathi websites, including Marathi newspapers, have become popular especially with Maharashtrians outside India. Online projects such as the Marathi language Wikipedia, with 25,000+ articles, the Marathi blogroll and Marathi blogs have gained immense popularity.

Voyager Golden Record

The Voyager Golden Record carries greetings from earth to the Universe in 55 different languages including Marathi. The message in Marathi is "नमस्कार. ह्या पृथ्वीतील लोक तुम्हाला त्यांचे शुभविचार पाठवतात आणि त्यांची इच्छा आहे की तुम्ही ह्या जन्मी धन्य व्हा". ("Namaskar! Hya prithvitil lok tumhala tyanche shubhavichar pathavitat, ani tyanchi iccha ahe ki tumhi hya janmi dhanya vha").