On #InternationalMotherLanguageDay, a thread on my own - a variant of Hindustani spoken by more than a half million people in Coastal Odisha, but one that lacks a recognised name and is often subsumed into Hindi or Urdu. This however ignores the significant impact of Odia on it
The grammar of Odia Hindustani is that of simplified Hindi/Urdu. Beames and O'Malley infact called it 'corrupt Hindustani'. Its origins are unclear - but broadly has to do with migration of Khari Boli or Persian speaking soldiers to Odisha since the 13th century
Records speak of Afghans who served the Odia Gajapati kings as mercenaries. Even after the Mughal conquest, they kept rebelling and were exiled from the cities to small land tenures in undivided Cuttack and Balasore districts. Their names live on in mouzas throughout the area.
The language is distinguished by the merger of words. Eg - हमरे instead of हम लोग - similar to Eastern Hindi and prob. influenced by Odia ଆମର. The use of स and न to shorten verb phrases is often seen. खाइस instead of खा लिया है, कहिन instead of कहा. Nasalisation is very common
The influence of Odia is clearly seen in the filler words. हां मो is an expression denoting assent, quite like Cuttack Odia. Odia words are also used for food, agriculture, outfits etc. In the opposite direction, words like सुर्ख़रु, तर्जुमा & खारिज have entered Odia
The max speakers are to be found in Cuttack city where it is often understood as a second lang. Muslim communities in Kendrapada, Bhadrak and Jajpur use it too. The more rural the setting, the greater is the Odia influence. Conversely, standard Hindi has a major impact in towns
Being a dialect, there is no prestige associated with it. Speakers only use formal Urdu/Hindi in any respectable setting and are almost always bilingual in Odia. Similar is the fate of related dialects in East India - Calcutta Urdu, Dhakaiya and Andhra Urdu.
This also means it is rarely recorded in visual media. However, Kuna Tripathy does a pretty good impression here! See from 8:30 onwards
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