Memoni language

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[edit] Language

Memons speak a non-written dialect called Memoni, a mixture of Sindhi and Kutchi which belongs to the Indic (North-Western Zone) family of languages. While the Sindhi and Kutchi languages are spoken by both Muslims and non-Muslims, Memoni refers exclusively to the vernacular of the Kathiawadi Memons who are Sunni (Hanafi) Muslims that migrated from Sindh to the neighbouring regions of Kutch and Kathiawar in Gujarat several centuries ago. In stress, intonation, and everyday speech, Memoni is very similar to Sindhi, but it borrowes extensively from Gujarati, Hindustani and lately English. Like most languages of the Indian subcontinent the sentence structure of Memoni generally follows subject -> object -> verb order. [1]

[edit] Nouns

The most nouns has a grammatical gender, either masculine or feminine and often have singular and plural forms. The Memons borrow vast majorities of the nouns from Hindustani (mixture of Urdu & Hindi) languages and lately extensive use of English vocabulary.

[edit] Example

English Memoni Sindhi Kutchi Gujarati Hindi/Urdu
vegetables bakaala (m)s/p ? ? Sabji sabzi(f) sabzia
bed Palan (m) ? ? Khatlo chaarpaee (f)
mirror aariso (m) aarisa (p) ? ? aarisa (m) aaena (m)
door dervajo (m) dervajaa (p) ? ? darwazo dervaza (m) dervazey (p)
man maru (m) maruu (p) ? ? manas/purush admi (m) admion (p)
boy chhokro (m) chokraa (p) ? ? choro/chokra larka (m) larkay (p)
girl chhokree (f) chokriun (p) ? ? chokri (f) chokriun lerki (f) lerkiain (p)
woman also wife byree (f) byreeun (p) ? ? bairi/patni/wavh aurat (f) aurtein (p)

[edit] Articles and determine

The is no equivalency for a definite article ‘the’ and indefinite article ‘a’ is further inflected with masculine or feminine with is object.

[edit] Pronouns

The subject pronouns second person (s) ‘You’ is expressed two different way one is polite form ‘aaen’ use for a respect generally for a stranger, elderly and well respected persons including parent and relatives and the second ‘tu’ is informal use among close friends and addressing to subordinate The object, possessive and reflexive pronouns are often inflected for masculine and feminine and must agree to its object.

See Urdu Pronouns

[edit] Example

English Memoni Sindhi Kutchi Gujrati Hindi/Urdu Hindi/Urdu
I aaun ? ? hoN मैं میں mein
We asaan ? ? ha.may हम ہم hum
You (polite) singular or

plural

 aaen ? ? te.may आप آپ aap
you (informal or intimate) tu ? ? tu तू تو तुम تم tu tum

In most Indic lanagues the third person such as, he, she, it and they and the demonstrative pronouns this, these, that, those same pronouns are used and they are divided into two category one for near object or person and othe for far object or person

[edit] Example 2

English Memoni Sindhi Kutchi Gujrati Hindi/Urdu
She,He,it,they,this,these (near) ee ? ? aa ae
She,He,it,they,that,those (far) ou ? ? pela aa

No significant differences are among the object, possessive and reflexive pronouns. In addition these pronouns are further inflected for masculine and feminine and must agree to the object (noun, pronouns, adjective and adverbs)

[edit] Verbs

The verbs generally conjugated (in form, according to many factors, including its tense, aspect, mood and voice. It also agree with the person, gender, and/or number of some of its arguments (subject, object, etc). The verb generally appears at the end of the sentence.

[edit] Adjectives

Like English, the position of the adjectives nearly always appear immediately before the noun and they are modified and often inflected for masculine and feminine and must be agree to the noun that followed.. the proposition is generally comes after a noun or a verb

[edit] Script

In the past there was some attempt to write Memoni dialect in using Gujrati and later in Urdu script with little success. Lately some attempt has been made to write Memoni using roman script.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Memoni Language Project [1]

[edit] External links

Reference: Origin of Memoni Language a Memoni Language Project by Siddique Katiya

Category:Sindhi language Category:Kutchi language

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