Linguistic Survey of India - Rajasthan (Part I)

The Linguistic Survey of India (LSI) is an ongoing project of the Government of India that aims to document and study how languages have changed in the country over the years. It considers shifts in society, administrative regions and the reorganisation of states based on linguistic identity. This project has been undertaken by the Language Division, Office of the Registrar General, Government of India. Part of this project is the Linguistic Survey of India – Rajasthan (Part I) which studies seven languages spoken in Rajasthan. The survey was carried out between 1998 and 2001. The survey works on the census framework according to which ‘language’ and ‘mother tongue’ are ‘co-terminus’ or mean the same. The volume presents sketches of seven languages: Marwari, Brajbhasha, Malvi, Mewati, Bundeli or Bundelkhandi, Jaipuri (Dhundhari) – all mother tongues listed under the Hindi group of languages – and Wagdi (mother tongue listed under the Bhili/Bhilodi group). The present-day LSI is an extension of the survey first proposed by George Abraham Grierson, an Irish linguist who documented Indian languages during the pre-Independence era. This project ‘supplements and complements’ Grierson’s work. The document is divided into nine chapters: Introduction (Chapter 1); Marwari (Chapter 2); Brajbhasha (Chapter 3); Malvi (Chapter 4); Mewati (Chapter 5); Bundeli/Bundelkhandi (Chapter 6); Jaipuri (Chapter 7) and Wagdi (Chapter 8). The ninth chapter presents a comparative lexicon of 500 lexical items in all the languages.