Bundeli language

Bundeli
बुन्देली
Native to India
Native speakers
 Estimates up to 20 million (no date)[1]
Census results conflate many speakers with Hindi.[2]
3.1 million  (2001 census)[3]
Indo-European
Devanagari script
Official status
Official language in
 India (Madhya Pradesh and parts of Uttar Pradesh)
Language codes
ISO 639-3 bns
Glottolog bund1253[4]

Bundeli (Devanagari: बुन्देली or बुंदेली; Nastaliq: زبان بندیلی) or Bundelkhandi is a Western Hindi language (often considered a dialect of Hindi) spoken in the Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh and in southern parts of Uttar Pradesh. Bundelkhandi is related to Braj Bhasha, which was the literary language in Central India until the 19th century.It is hard to say how old the language is, as typical Bundeli has words which are unique and have been in use for centuries. Several words are difficult for to understand for people who know only Sanskrit or Hindi.

There are abundant records that in ancient times Bundeli was used in government correspondences, messages, invoices, Gazette and friendship treaties. Bundelkhandi literature includes the writings of Alha-Khand and the verses of Bhaddari.

References

  1. ↑ Bundeli language at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009)
  2. ↑
  3. ↑ Bundeli at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  4. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Bundeli". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

External links