Indo-Aryan language spoken in India
Surjapuri is an Indo-Aryan language of the Bengali-Assamese branch , spoken in Eastern India including North Bengal , West Bengal , and some eastern parts of Purnia division of Bihar, as well as Jhapa District in Nepal , Goalpara Division of Assam in India and Rangpur Division in Bangladesh. Among speakers in some regions, it is known as 'Deshi Bhasa'. It possesses similarities with Kamatapuri , Assamese , Bengali , and Maithili .
Geographical distribution
Surjapuri region or Varandrakhand is mainly spoken of Surjapuri Bengali in the parts of Purnia division (Kishanganj , Katihar , Purnia , and Araria districts) of Bihar .[3] It is also spoken in West Bengal (Uttar Dinajpur and Dakshin Dinajpur districts, and in North Malda of Malda district , specially in Harishchandrapur and Chanchal area and Siliguri city of Darjeeling district – part of the North Bengal region within the Jalpaiguri division ), Bangladesh (Thakurgaon District ) as well as in parts of eastern Nepal of Jhapa District and Morang District .
Related languages
Surjapuri is associated with the Kamtapuri language (and its dialects Goalpariya , Rajbanshi and Koch Rajbangshi) spoken in North Bengal and Western Assam ,[4] as well as with Assamese , Bengali , and Maithili .
Singular
Plural
nominative
oblique
nominative
oblique
1st person
mũi
mo-
hāmrā
hāmsā-, hāmcā-
2nd person
tũi
to-
tumrā, tomrā
tumsā-, tomsā-
3rd person
proximal
yāhāy
yahā-
emrā, erā
ismā-, isā-
distal
wahā̃y
wahā-
amrā, worā
usmā-, usā-
Surjapuri has the oblique plural suffixes: sā (hamsā-, tomsā-) and smā (ismā-, usmā-). They are also seen in Early Assamese as: sā (āmāsā-, tomāsā-) and sambā (esambā-, tesambā-) and their occurrences are similar.[8]
Phonology
Consonants
Vowels
Nasalization is also phonemic.
/i, e/ in medial and initial form are heard as [ɪ, ɛ].
Notes
References
Bez, Gitanjali (2012). Grammatical Categories in Madhav Kandali's Ramayana (Ph.D.). Gauhati University. hdl :10603/116370 .
Kakati, Banikanta (1941). Assamese: Its Formation and Development . Gauhati, Assam: Government of Assam.
Srivastava, S P; Perumalsamy, P (2021), Surjapuri (PDF) , archived from the original (PDF) on 3 Nov 2021, retrieved 15 May 2023
Toulmin, Mathew W. S. (2006). Reconstructing linguistic history in a dialect continuum: The Kamta, Rajbanshi, and Northern Deshi Bangla subgroup of Indo-Aryan (Ph.D. thesis). The Australian National University. hdl :1885/45743 .
External links