Lodhi language

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Lodhi (Lodi, Lohi, Lozi) is a Munda language, or dialect cluster, of India. Kharia Thar is only spoken by one quarter of ethnic Lodhi in Orissa. However, while admitting that Lodhi is related to Sora, a Munda language, Ethnologue classifies it as Indic (Bengali–Assamese), and it is considered a variety of Hindi in the Indian census. It may be that there are both Munda and Indic varieties subsumed under the name Lodhi.^{[citation needed]}

However, Anderson (2008:299) suggests that Lodhi (Lodha) of northern Orissa may be an endangered Munda language; some members use the autonym Sabar or Sabara.

Lodhi is spoken in:

• Morada and Suliapada, Sadar subdivision, Mayurbhanj district, Odisha
• Sora block, Balasore district, Odisha
• Binpur and Kharagpur-I blocks in West Medinipur district, West Bengal
• Jharkhand (along the West Bengal border)

Since the Lodha live in multilingual communities in frequent contact with peoples such as the Kharia, Begali and Bhumij almost all Lodha are bilingual and can speak Bengali. In addition to bilingualism the multilingualism of the Lodha means that the Lodhi language is only used within the home or amongst the tribe. The Lodhi language is declining as now most of its speakers are elderly with the younger population switching to Bengali.^[2]

The Lodhi language is neither a subject nor a medium of instruction in any of the schools. It is not used in the judicial or in government system. In the religious and cultural ceremonies, the Lodhi language is sparingly used. Instead of Lodha Bengali is used instead.^[2]

Lodhi is a mostly unwritten language but when it needs to be written the Devanagri Script is used.^[2]

All phonemes can occur in either the beginning, middle, or the end of a world.^[2]

The 4 diphthongs that are used are: /eu/ /oi/ /ua/ /ui/.^[2]

The lexicon of Lodhi is divded into 2 groups: the vast majority of words are in the first group which is made up of predicates, complements of predicates and as modifiers, and a second smaller group which serves to indicate things like tense, person, and number.^[2]

Nouns in Lodhi are distinguished by grammatical number, grammatical gender, and case; and can only be used at the head of a predicate phrase. They are divided by animacy into two groups: animate, and inanimate; animate nouns include words like Lebuki (persons) and biloiki (cats) while inanimate nouns are words like daru (stone).^[2]

Words in Lodhi are divided by three types of number: singular, dual, and plural. Singular words are unmarked, dual words are marked with the suffix -kiyar, and plural words are marked with the suffix -ki.^[2]

The dual can also be used in combination with a personal name refers to that person and a person who is related to him or her in some fashion, usually by marriage; while the plural is also often found to denote approximation between two things.^[2]

Lodhi does not have grammatical gender but it does have natural gender where words for things which have a gender use either use a word with the gender within the defintion ex. konselu (woman) and kõpuu (man), or the suffix -ay can be added to make a word from its female version to its male version ex. saw (husband) vs. saway (wife). Inanimate objects do not have any gender associated with them.^[2]

Lodhi has 3 cases: nominative, locative, and possessive.^[2]

Nominative is unmarked ex. dʰaru (tree), bi:or (jungle)

Locative is marked with the suffix -te ex. oʔ (house) oʔte (in the house)

Possessive is marked with 1 of 3 suffixes depending on the grammatical person of the possession

There are many postposition in Lodhi with the most popular being.^[2]

Adjectives in Lodhi are divided into 2 groups: simple adjectives and derived pronouns. Simple adjective are all mono-morphophonetic.^[2]

Derived adjectives are derived by adding either -i, -e, or -te to the end of a simple adjective to get a new adjective with a related but different definition. Examples include dhoa (smoky) vs. dhoate (smoky), mati (earth) vs. maite (early), and des (country) vs. desi (indigenous).^[2]

In Lodhi the verbs ending in personal suffix are finite Verbs and those which do not end in personal suffix and which carry participle suffix or infinitive suffix are non-finite Verbs. Additionally the verbs contain aspect and/ or tense or imperative suffixes or the gerundial suffix.^[3]

There are four tenses in Lodhi: past, present, future, and continuous.^[3]

Imperative mood is only used in the second person and is marked via the infix -na- as in the word com (go) vs. conam (you go).^[3]

Perfect participle is marked via the suffix -kon ex. co (go) vs. cokon (having gone)

The infinitive is marked marked with the suffix -na ex. co vs. cona (to go)

Verbal nous are formed are adding either the infix -ne- or -na- to a verb ex. dej (cut) denej (axe).^[3]

Causative Verbs are formed either by adding for the infix -b- for polysyllabic roots or by adding the prefix -ob- for monosyllabic roots ex. nog (eat) vs. obnog (feed) ex. remag (call) vs. rebmag (make it call).^[3]

Negative verbs have two markers those that go before non-imperative verbs use the prefix um- while those that go before Imperative verbs use the prefix ag- ex. in cona (I will go) vs unim cona (I won't go) ex. nok og (he ate) vs. umnok og (he didn't eat).^[3]

Compound verbs are formed by combining the two verbs being compounded ex. pad (jump) and paro (cross) > padparo (jump and cross).^[3]

Passive formation is done by adding the suffix -dom to the verb root ex. yo (see) vs. yodom (seen).^[3]

There are two special interrogative pronouns a betu (which boy) and a lebu (which man).^[2]

• Anderson, Gregory D.S (ed). 2008. The Munda languages. Routledge Language Family Series 3.New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-32890-X.