This set consists of 2 titles:
It was in the Oriental Conference at Patna when I had a chance to come in close contact with Prof. Suniti Kumar Chatterji and other great linguisticians for the first time that an ardent desire to study my mother tongue, Bhojpuri, on scientific lines arose in my mind. Back from Patna, I approached Dr. Dhirendra Varma of the University of Allahabad who introduced me to Dr. Babu Ram Saxena. He was then writing his thesis on THE EVOLUTION OF AWADHI. Dr. Saxena in consultation with Prof. Suniti Kumar Chatterji advised me to prepare a monograph on the 'Bhojpuri dialect' on the lines of his 'Lakhimpuri'. The work that I produced after this advice was written out in 1932 and published in the Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, Vols. XX, XXI and XXI, Part III, under the title 'A Dialect of Bhojpuri' (1934-35).
During the years 1933 to 1935.I made extensive tours throughout the Bhojpuri area-Ballia, Shahabad, Saran, Champaran, Gorakhpur, the Nepal tarai, Basti, Azamgarh, Banaras, Mirzapur and other places-and collected specimens of Bhojpuri. Grammatical peculiarities were noted down and detailed systematic grammars of the different dialects were prepared. The exact limits of the Bhojpuri-speaking area were investigated and accordingly a map was prepared which is appended herewith. During this period, the following contributions were published in the 'Hindustani'-journal of the Hindustani Academy, Allahabad, namely: 'The Bhojpuri Proverbs' (Bhojpuri Lokoktiya) (April, 1939), and July, 1939), 'Bhojpuri Idioms' (Bhojpuri Muhaware) (April, 1940, October, 1940, and January, 1941), and 'The Bhojpuri Riddles' (Bhojpuri Paheliya) (October-December, 1942).
I worked for about three years under the able supervision of Dr. Babu Ram Saxena who gave me every kind of help in the early stages of my work, and but for whose encouragement this work could never have been undertaken.
The thesis was accepted by the Allahabad University for the degree of Doctor of Letters in 1945. It was the first thesis on a dialect, which claims to be the biggest dialect of our country, with about 30 million speakers in and outside India. It has inspired a number of scholars to work on other aspects of Bhojpuri-Dr. Vishwa Nath Prasad on Bhojpuri phonetics, Dr. Krishna Dev Upadhyaya on Bhojpuri songs, and Dr. Satya Vrata Sinha on Bhojpuri ballads. A few others are still pursuing their studies on some aspects of the dialect.
The present thesis aspires to make some new contributions to Indian dialectology. The chief among them are:-(1) Historical and comparative treatment of the materials.
(2) Phonology in a manner quite different from Hoernle's treatment.
(3) Affixes in fuller detail than in Hoernle.
(4) Pronouns
(5) Compounds mainly new.
(6) Verbs
The sources of information utilized by me for the thesis are the materials collected by me during my tours, plus those listed on pages 22 to 24 of the thesis and a few forms in the writings of Kabir and other writers.
The system of transliteration followed in the thesis is that of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. For the portion on phonology, however, the scheme of the International Phonetic Association has been adopted.
I am especially indebted to Prof. Suniti Kumar Chatterji for all that I am. My pet subjects were Mathematics and Economics. I passed my M. A. in Economics and much later in Hindi and Pali. It was Prof. Chatterji who gave me the first lessons in Linguistics. He gave me inspiration and time and invaluable guidance during the preparation of this thesis (1940-44). He patiently read the whole work and gave me the benefit of his critical observations. He even partly corrected the proofs and suggested improvements while it was passing through the press. I have to suggested improvements while it was passing through the press. I have to thankfully acknowledge obligations to Shri Rahul Sankrityayan, Shri S. N. Chaturvedi, Late H. K. Ghosh of Indian Press, Allahabad, Prof. K. Chattopadhyaya, Prof. Sukumar Sen and many others for particular favors conferred on me during my studies at Calcutta and work at Allahabad. I must express my gratefulness to my colleague and friend Dr. Hardev Bahri for the assistance he gave me in proof correcting. Thanks are also due to a long line of philologists and teachers, whose works have benefited me in general, and to many known and unknown poets of Bhojpur Pradesh whose compositions have enabled me to make a critical and scientific analysis of Bhojpuri.
Inspired by the advice of Professor Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, Udai Narain Tiwari produced the valuable treatise entitled 'A Dialect of Bhojpuri.' This work was the outcome of Tiwari's well acquaintance with the various specimens of Bhojpuri dialect. He gathered knowledge of this language after touring extensive part of the Bhojpuri area. It is due to the initiative of Professor S. K. Chatterjee that the book in a modified form, with the title of 'The Origin and Development of Bhojpuri', was published by the Asiatic Society in 1960. The book having critical and scientific analysis of Bhojpuri is in great demand to the teachers and students of Linguistics. For a few years the book is out of stock, but because of the non-stopped demand for this book from persons of different parts of our country, we are glad to announce the republication of Tiwari's labored creation.
I have tried to investigate in this book, the relationship between Bhojpuri and Bengali. Since Bhojpuri and Bengali are the descendants of the same source, Magadhi Prakrit, their comparative study is significant. The speeches originating from Magadhi Prakrit have been classified into three groups:
1. Eastern Magadhan - Bengali, Assamese, Oriya
2. Central Magadhan - Maithili, Magahi
3. Western Magadhan - Bhojpuri with Nagpuri or Sadani Whereas Bengali is the language spoken by the largest number of people in the Indian subcontinent, being spoken in Bangladesh as well as West Bengal, Bhojpuri is a dialect spoken in a widespread area spread over Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Western Bihar.
While the Bhojpuri area is closely related to Uttar Pradesh in terms of society and culture, it has close affinity with Bengal in terms of language. But there has been no consciousness among the people of Bengal and Bihar that their language has originated from the same source. On the contrary, Bihar is considered today to be a part of the so- called Hindi-belt.
The book has been divided into ten chapters. The first chapter gives an introduction of both the speeches, their origin and mutual relationship and the purpose of comparing them. The second and third chapters give the comparative study of the phonology of the two speeches.
Chapter III to IX deal with the morphology of the two speeches, i.e., the nominal declension, the pronoun, the numeral, the verb, the prefix, the indeclinable and the suffix. E.g., in phonology, a major point of similarity between Bhojpuri and Bengali is the rounded pronunciation of (a). Grammatical gender has been preserved in all New Indo- Aryan speeches except the Magadhan speeches. In Bhojpuri, the gender has been partially preserved. In Bengali, the gender distinction is totally lost. Regarding verb, both in Bhojpuri and Bengali-I- is used for the past base and -b- for the future base.
There are many more such features which are common to Bhojpuri and Bengali. However, since the Bhojpuri area has always been under the influence of the western speeches, there are differences too. These similarities and differences have been discussed in the book. The summary and findings have been presented in the tenth and final chapter.
The development of one dialect in particular can be taken up for discussing the development of Bengali, and the dialect that can be taken to be the representative dialect of Bengal: is the dialect of west central Bengal (the standard colloquial), "the dialect par excellence" in the word of Chatterji.
As far as Bhojpuri is concerned, the dialect of Balia is accepted as the standard Bhojpuri by scholars. Therefore, this dialect has been used as the standard Bhojpuri in this book.
The Khariboli form of Western Hindi, which is accepted as the National Language, has been referred to as Hindi and not Khariboli in the book.
I am indebted to all the thinkers, authors and linguists whose views I have studied and quoted in this book. I wish to pay my highest and sincere regards to my respected teacher Late Prof. Satya Swarup Misra for his constant help and support.
I cannot express in words, my gratitude to my honourable mother Prof. Sheila Mookherjee for her encouragement and moral support imparted to me at every step.
It is my pleasure to express my gratitude to my husband Dr. M.P. Pandey for his noble cooperation and inspiration.
Finally, I express gratitude to all my family members and friends for their contribution.
For privacy concerns, please view our Privacy Policy
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist