Surjapuri language

Surjapuri is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language spoken in Eastern India including North Bengal, West Bengal, and Banganchal of Eastern Bihar, as well as in Nepal. Among speakers in some regions, it is known as 'Deshi Bhasa'. It possesses similarities with Kamatapuri, Assamese, Bengali, and Maithili.

Surjapuri
Sura, Deshi Bhasa
सुरजापुरी, সুরজাপুরী
'Surjapuri' in Devanagari & Bengali scripts
Native to	India, Nepal, Bangladesh
Region	Bihar, West Bengal
Native speakers	2,256,228 (2011 census)^[1] Census results conflate some speakers with Hindi.^[2]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Eastern Bengali–Assamese Surjapuri
Writing system	Devanagari, Bengali
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sjp
Glottolog	surj1235

Geographical distribution

Surjapuri is mainly spoken of Surjapuri Bengali in the parts of Purnia division (Kishanganj, Katihar, Purnia, and Araria districts) of Bihar.^[3] It is also spoken in West Bengal (Uttar Dinajpur and Dakshin Dinajpur districts, and in North Malda of Malda district, specially in Harishchandrapur and Chanchal area and Siliguri city of Darjeeling district – part of the North Bengal region within the Jalpaiguri division), Bangladesh (Thakurgaon District) as well as in parts of eastern Nepal.

Related languages

Surjapuri is associated with the Kamtapuri language (and its dialects Rangpuri and Koch Rajbangshi) spoken in North Bengal and Western Assam,^[4] as well as with Assamese, Bengali, and Maithili.

Pronouns^[5][6][7]

		Singular		Plural
		nominative	oblique	nominative	oblique
1st person		mũi	mo-	hāmrā	hāmsā-, hāmcā-
2nd person		tũi	to-	tumrā, tomrā	tumsā-, tomsā-
3rd person	proximal	yāhāy	yahā-	emrā, erā	ismā-, isā-
	distal	wahā̃y	wahā-	amrā, worā	usmā-, usā-

Surjapuri has the oblique plural suffixes: sā (hamsā-, tomsā-) and smā (ismā-, usmā-). They are also seen in Early Assamese as: sā (āmāsā-, tomāsā-) and sambā (esambā-, tesambā-) and their occurrences are similar.^[8]

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Retroflex	Post-alv./ Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n			ŋ
Stop/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	ʈ	tʃ	k
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	ʈʰ	tʃʰ	kʰ
	voiced	b	d	ɖ	dʒ	ɡ
	breathy	bʱ	dʱ	ɖʱ	dʒʱ	ɡʱ
Fricative			s				h
Tap			ɾ
Lateral			l
Approximant		w			j

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid	e	ə	o
			ɔ
Low	æ	ɑ

• Nasalization is also phonemic.
• /i, e/ in medial and initial form are heard as [ɪ, ɛ].^[9]

Notes

1. "Statement 1: Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues - 2011". www.censusindia.gov.in. Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Retrieved 2018-07-07.
2. "Statement 1: Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues – 2001". Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Retrieved 30 May 2017.
3. Kumāra, Braja Bihārī (1998). Small States Syndrome in India. p. 146. ISBN 9788170226918. Retrieved 16 February 2017.
4. Hernández-Campoy, Juan Manuel; Conde-Silvestre, Juan Camilo, eds. (15 February 2012). The Handbook of Historical Sociolinguistics. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781118257265. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
5. (Toulmin 2006, p. 184)
6. (Bez 2012)
7. Kakati 1941 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFKakati1941 (help)
8. (Bez 2012)
9. Srivastava & Perumalsamy 2021. sfn error: no target: CITEREFSrivastava_&_Perumalsamy2021 (help)

References

• Bez, Gitanjali (2012). Grammatical Categories in Madhav Kandali's Ramayana (Ph.D.). Gauhati University. hdl:10603/116370.

Further reading

• Srivastava, S.P. and Perumalsamy, P (2021). Linguistic Description of Surjapuri Mother Tongue Spoken in Bihar, New Delhi: Office of the Registrar General.

External links

• Free repository of illustrated children's stories in Surjapuri translated by Azad India Foundation and sponsored by Pratham Books
• "Word Formation in Surjapuri" (PDF). Language in India.
• "Case and Case-like Postposition in Surjapuri" (PDF). Language in India.
• Toulmin, Mathew W. S. (2006). Reconstructing linguistic history in a dialect continuum: The Kamta, Rajbanshi, and Northern Deshi Bangla subgroup of Indo-Aryan (Ph.D. thesis). The Australian National University. hdl:1885/45743.
• A Sketch Grammar (2021) of Surjapuri mother tongue spoken in Bihar state