Nihali language

 ( Language Isolates Of Asia ) 

Nihali, also known as Nahali, is an endangered language isolate that is spoken in west-central India by approximately 2,500 people as of 2016. The name of the language derives from nahal, meaning "tiger".

Nihali has not been definitively proven to be related to any other surrounding language family of South Asia, such as Munda languages, Indo-Aryan, and Dravidian languages, nor to other language isolates like Burushaski and Kusunda language.

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Linguistic situation The Nihali tribal area is just south of the Tapti River spanning the border between Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh around Buldhana district and Burhanpur district. However, only the villages in the Buldhana district - Jamod, Sonbardi, Kuvardev, Chalthana, Ambavara, Wasali, and Cicari - still use the Nihali language today. There are dialectal differences between the Jamod-Sonbardi and the Kuvardev-Chalthana varieties.

K.S. Nagaraja (2025). 9788173431449, Manasagangotri, Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages.. ISBN 9788173431449

Historically, Nihali was spoken around the village of Tembi in Burhanpur district as well.

Today there are no longer any monolingual speakers of the language, as Nihali speakers are likely to speak varieties of Korku, Marathi, or Hindi among others.

There is no established writing system for the language.

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History The early history of Nihali is unclear, as there are no direct attestations of the Nihali language prior to the modern era. One theory suggests that the Nihali people might trace back to the ancient community of Nahalka, an offshoot of the Nishadas tribe mentioned in the Mahabharata and the Padma Purana.

K.S. Nagaraja (2025). 9788173431449, Manasagangotri, Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages.. ISBN 9788173431449

Franciscus Kuiper was the first to suggest that Nihali may be unrelated to any other Indian language, with the non-Korku, non-Dravidian core vocabulary being the remnant of an earlier population in India. However, he did not rule out that it may be a Munda languages, like Korku. Kuiper suggested that Nihali may differ from neighbouring languages, such as Korku, mostly in its function as an anti-language. Kuiper's assertions stem, in part, from the fact that many oppressed groups within India have used Argot to prevent outsiders from understanding them.

For centuries, most Nihalis have often worked as agricultural labourers, for speakers of languages other than their own. In particular, Nihali labourers have often worked for members of the Korku people, and are often bilingual in the Korku language. Because of this history, Nihali is sometimes used only to prevent non-Nihali speaking outsiders from understanding them.

Some commonalities between Nihali and Gondi language vocabulary also suggest that the Nihali people may have historically lived with the Gondi people or another Dravidian-speaking peoples in the area, before reaching the present settlements.

K.S. Nagaraja (2025). 9788173431449, Manasagangotri, Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages.. ISBN 9788173431449

The Nihali live similarly to the Kalto people. That and the fact that the Kalto language has often been called Nahali led to confusion of the two languages. Some Korku-speakers refuse to acknowledge the Nihali as a distinct community, and describe the emergence of the Nihalis as resulting from a disruption of Korku civil society.

Linguist Norman Zide describes the recent history of the language as follows: "Nihali's borrowings are far more massive than in such textbook examples of heavy outside acquisition as Albanian." In this respect, says Zide, modern Nihali seems comparable to Mixed language dialects of Romani language spoken in Western Europe. Zide claims that this is a result of a historical process that began with a massacre of Nihalis in the early 19th century, organised by one of the rulers of the area, supposedly in response to "marauding". Zide alleges that, afterwards, the Nihalis "decimated in size", have "functioned largely as raiders and thieves ... who have disposed of ... stolen goods" through "outside associates". Zide adds that Nihali society has "long been multilingual, and uses Nihali as a more or less secret language which is not ordinarily revealed to outsiders" and that early researchers "attempting to learn the language were, apparently, deliberately rebuffed or misled".Norman Zide, "Munda and non-Munda Austroasiatic languages". In Current Trends in Linguistics 5: Linguistics in South Asia, p 438

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Phonology

+Vowel phonemes of Nihali

Lengthening of vowels is phonemic. The vowels e and o have lower varieties at the end of morphemes.

Nasalization is rare and tends to occur in borrowed words.

+ Consonant phonemes of Nihali

There are 33 consonants. Unaspirated stops are more frequent than aspirated stops.

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Lexicon

The language has a very large number of words adopted from neighboring languages, with 60–70% apparently taken from the Munda languages Korku language language, from Dravidian languages ( ṭoːl "skin"; coːpo "salt"), and from Indo-Aryan languages. However, much of its core vocabulary, such as corṭo "blood" and kalen "egg", cannot be related to them nor any other languages. Less than 25% of the language's ancestral vocabulary seems to be in use.

K.S. Nagaraja (2025). 9788173431449, Central Institute of Indian Languages. ISBN 9788173431449

Below are some Nihali basic vocabulary words without clear external parallels (in Korku, Hindi, Marathi, Dravidian, etc.) listed in the appendix of Nagaraja (2014).

Body parts

peːñ

kuguso

jikit

cigam

coːn

menge

kaggo

bakko

ṭ/tagli

koṭor

bumli

gadri

corṭo

paːkṭo

Animals and plants

poe, pyu

kalen

koːgo

caːn

keːpe

kaːn

eḍ(u)go

aːḍḍo

Natural phenomena

joppo

maːnḍo

caːgo, caːrgo

Material culture, kinship

ḍãːy

aːwaːr

jumu

Verbs

In Nihali, many verbs are suffixed with - be.

ṭyeː-, tyeː-

ḍelen-

haru-

bigi-, bhigi-

betto-, beṭṭo-

paḍa-

haːgo-

aːpa-

eːr-, eṛe-

paːṭo, pya

beː-

ara-

cakni-

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Pronouns and demonstratives

The personal pronouns in Nihali are:

K.S. Nagaraja (2025). 9788173431449, Central Institute of Indian Languages. ISBN 9788173431449

The table below compares the demonstrative paradigm between Nihali and Korku, the surrounding Munda languages language.

K.S. Nagaraja (2025). 9788173431449, Central Institute of Indian Languages. ISBN 9788173431449

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Morphosyntax Nihali morphosyntax is much simpler than that of Korku and other Munda languages, and is unrelated to that of Munda languages.

K.S. Nagaraja (2025). 9788173431449, Central Institute of Indian Languages. ISBN 9788173431449

Word order is SOV.

Sample sentences

K.S. Nagaraja (2025). 9788173431449, Manasagangotri, Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages.. ISBN 9788173431449

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See also

• (207 most basic words)
• (1,694 words)
• Burushaski language
• Kusunda language
• Substratum in Munda languages

Bibliography

• K. S. Nagaraja (2025). 9788173431449, Central Institute of Indian Languages. ISBN 9788173431449

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External links

• Audio sample of Nihali language

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