Chambeali (Takri: 𑚏𑚢𑚶𑚠𑚣𑚭𑚥𑚯) is a Western Pahari language spoken in the Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh.
Classification
The Chambeali language is a part of the North-Western branch of the Indo-Aryan languages. It is further classified as a member of the Western-Pahari group. The language has a high degree of mutual intelligibility with neighbouring Pahari languages like Mandeali (83%).[2]
Geographic distribution
Official status
The language is commonly called Pahari or Himachali. Some speaker may even call it a dialect of Punjabi or Dogri. The language has no official status and is recorded as dialect of Hindi.[3] According to the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the language is of definitely endangered category, i.e. many Chambeali children are not learning Chambeali as their mother tongue any longer.[4] Earlier the language got huge amount of state patronage. Everything changed since independence, due to favoritism towards Hindi by the Indian Government.
The demand for the inclusion of 'Pahari (Himachali)' under the Eight Schedule of the Constitution, which is supposed to represent multiple Pahari languages of Himachal Pradesh, had been made in the year 2010 by the state's Vidhan Sabha.[5] There has been no positive progress on this matter since then even when small organisations are striving to save the language.[6] Due to political interest, the language is currently recorded as a dialect of Hindi, even when having a poor mutual intelligibility with it and having a higher mutual intelligibility with other recognised languages like Dogri.
Dialects
There are three dialects of the language[7] as follows:
- Bansyari
- Bansbari
- Gadi Chambeali
Writing system
The native script of the language is Takri script. The Chambeali version of Takri script has been encoded as the standard for Takri script under Unicode. This version resembles other version of the script.[8]
Vocabulary
Name of months
Traditionally, the month formats is based on Hindu calendar.
| 𑚏𑚢𑚶𑚠𑚣𑚭𑚥𑚯 | चम्बयाली | Transliteration (ITRANS) | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| 𑚏𑚳𑚙𑚤 | चैतर | chaitara | March-April |
| 𑚠𑚨𑚭𑚸 | बसाख | basAkha | April-May |
| 𑚑𑚳𑚕 | जैठ | jaiTha | May-June |
| 𑚩𑚭𑚖 | हाड | hADa | June-July |
| 𑚨𑚵𑚘 | सौण | sauNa | July-August |
| 𑚡𑚭𑚛𑚶𑚤𑚴 | भाद्रो | bhAdro | August-September |
| 𑚨𑚱𑚑 | सूज | sUja | September-October |
| 𑚊𑚭𑚙𑚮 | काति | kAti | October-November |
| 𑚢𑚍𑚳𑚤 | मघैर | maghaira | November-December |
| 𑚞𑚴𑚩 | पोह | poha | December-January |
| 𑚢𑚭𑚍 | माघ | mAgha | January-February |
| 𑚟𑚵𑚌𑚘 | फौगण | phaugaNa | February-March |
References
- ^ Chambeali at Ethnologue (24th ed., 2021)
- ^ "intelligibility".
- ^ "Indian Language Census" (PDF).
- ^ "Endangered languages".
- ^ "Pahari Inclusion". Zee News.
- ^ "Pahari Inclusion". The Statesman.
- ^ "Chambeali".
- ^ Anshuman Pandey (6 April 2009). "Proposal to Encode the Takri Script in ISO/IEC 10646" (PDF).
This page was last edited on 2 April 2024, at 16:33