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Maithili is an Indic language belonging to the group of the modern Prakrit nactilars. It is spoken both in Nepal and India. In this book an attempt la mule to present an account of some aspects of the phonetics and phonology of a variety of the `standard' dialect of this language, of which the author is a native speaker. Before we embark upon the description of the various aspects of the phonetics and phonology of this language, we roust first present in this introductory chapter some background notes ()It such issues as: (1) its speakers and linguistic boundaries; (2) its genetic chrssificalion and place among modern Indo-Aryan languages; (3) lin¬ prlisylic and phonetic studies done on it both in India and Nepal; and (4) the euwrgcncc of a standard in Maithili and its present-day situation.
1.1 Maithili: Its Speakers and Linguistic Boundaries Maithili is spoken mainly in the eastern and northern regions of the state of llihar in India and in the Tarai districts of Nepal. According to some estimates (e.g. Davis, 1973: 316; R. Yadav, 1984: 1), this language is spoken by a total of more than 21 million people in India and Nepal. Map I shows the main languages of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent and the tognipliical boundaries of their native speakers. In the map an arrow used to show the Maithili-speaking area. The exact dimensions of the rtrea have been fluctuating from age to age (e.g. see Mishra, 1976: 1-5, (irr' wore details); it has nevertheless managed to keep itself always dis¬lillp'ui,tihed in common parlance as a distinct "country with its own tra¬dilions, its own poets, and its own pride in everything belonging to itself' (t iriersou, 1881: 2). Today this area is known as Tirhut or Mithila. But in the earliest known period of history it was called Videha and it in¬eluded several kingdoms in it-- --Milhila and Vaishali being the most nlpollant ones (see for more details, Sharwa, 1979: 5 72).It was about a century ago Ihat ( iricrsorn ( 1883a: 16) took pains to dcl-ine and (lei aIrcate in exact terms the Iiuguistic boundaries of Maithili¬s;lu•aknlp, areas:
Maithili was originally the language of the ancient Mithila, the kingdom of Janaka, the father of Sita, which was bounded on the west by the, river Gandak, on the north by the Himftlaya mountains, un the east by the Kosi, and on the south by the Ganges. It has, however, in later times been encroached upon by Bhojpuri on the west, and in revenge has itself crossed the Ganges and occupiedNorth Patna and so much of the Munger and Bhagalpur districts as lie to the south of that river. It has also crossed the Kosi and occupied Purnea.
Map 2 given earlier is based on the above geographical boundary of the Maithili-speaking community and it demarcates an area of about 30,000 square miles. According to Mishra's (1976: 2) estimates, out of this total area of 30,000 square miles "roughly 10,000 square miles lie in the kingdom of Nepal (Tarai) and 20,000 square miles in India". Map 2 thus includes roughly the districts of Muzaffarpur, Sitamarhi, Vaishali, Darbhanga, Madhubani, Samastipur, Saharsa, Supaul, North Munger, North Bhagalpur and parts of Champaran and Pumea in the Indian Republic, and those of Rautahat, Sarlahi, Mahottari, Dhanusha, Siraha, Saptari and Morang in the kingdom of Nepal. These geographical boundaries include all those principal areas where the main concentration of the Maithili¬speaking population lies these days.
1.2 Maithili: Its Genetic Classification and Its Place Among Modern Indo-Aryan Languages During the last one hundred years or so, various linguists have attempted to classify the Indo-Aryan languages (e.g. Grierson, 1883a and 1918; Chatterji, 1926/1970; S. Jha, 1958; G. Jha, 1974; Jeffers, 1976; Mishra, 1976). But in their classification these linguists do not always agree with one another. In some cases there still prevails a good deal of controversy, and on some points the opinions of these linguists are still divided.
To begin with, one of the earliest classifications of the modem Indo¬Aryan languages is that of Grierson (1883a)-as shown in Figure 1.1¬where he categorises Maithili as one of the three dialects of what he used to call the `Bihari' language. In his later publications, Grierson (e.g. 1918, 1919 and 1927/reprint 1967) provided a somewhat different group¬ing of the Indo-Aryan languages. Figure 1.2 shows Grierson's three main divisions-i.e. (1) Outer Sub-branch, (2) Mediate Sub-branch, and (3) Inner Sub-branch-that he later made of the Indo-Aryan languages (see Grierson, 1918 and 1927/reprint 1967, for more details). But even here he still grouped Maithili as a dialect of the so-called `Bihari' lan¬guage.
Ever since Grierson's major publications on the so- called `Bihari' language, it has been customary-especially among western linguists-to refer to Maithili as a dialect of the `Bihari' language. This name (i.e. `Bihari') of an imaginary language seems to have been given by Grierson perhaps on his assumption that the existence of the state of Bihar in India justifies the existence of a Bihari' language-in the same way perhapsas Guja at has Gujarati, Punjab has 1'1-mjabi, Bengal has Bengali, or, for that matter, Nepal has Nepali. But in classifying the languages of Bihar, it was rather unfortunate that Grierson committed an error of over¬generalisation.
For, there never was in the past nor is there at present any `Bihari' language spoken either in Bihar or in Nepal. Most later writers on Maithili (e.g. S. Jha, 1958; Mishra, 1969 and 1976; G. Jha, 1974; R. Yadav, 1979a and 1981) have therefore justifiably resented the use of the term `Bihari' language. Mishra (1969: 270) discusses and defends the case of Maithili in his scholarly article and sums up the general feelings of modern Maithili writers in the following forceful terms: There never was in the past nor exists- to-day a language called Bihari. There is no mention of it in any literature, any document or any record. There is not a single individual who speaks or writes in the Bihari language as defined by Grierson. It has no script, no literature, no actual existence. It is purely a creation of Grierson's mind and lives in the philological works of the scholars who thought¬lessly copy Grierson's classification.
It was very unfortunate that about a century ago even various reputed scholars sadly misunderstood the case of Maithili and grouped this lan¬guage in all sorts of way. For example, Kellogg (1876/1893) and Hoernle (1880) regarded it as a dialect of Eastern Hindi; Beames (1872/reprint 1966: 84-85), on the other hand, thought of it as a dialect of Bengali; and, as stated earlier, Grierson (e.g. 1881, 1883a, 1885 and 1903/reprint 1968) grouped it as one of the three dialects of what he called the `Bihari' language-the remaining two dialects of `Bihari' being Bhojpuri and Magahi.
The criteria which are generally used, especially in historical linguis¬tics, for the establishment of language `sameness' or language `split' are mainly two: (1) the notion of shared innovation, and (2) the criterion of phonological restructuring. A brief mention of the linguistic principles involved in these two criteria must be made here in order to clarify the situation concerning the position of Maithili among the modern Indo¬Aryan languages.
In the first place, if innovations are shared by two or more languages in a larger family of languages, it may be tentatively assumed that, at some points in their histories, these languages shared a period of common development, and that such innovations were already a feature of some intermediate ancestor from which the languages involved may be derived.
The establishment of genuine shared innovalions is basic to genetic sub¬grouping within a large family of languages. Many kinds of changes may represent instances of potential shared innovations. For instance, some languages-such as, Hindi, Maithili, Oriya, Bengali, Assamese, and so on-by virtue of being the languages of Aryan origin naturally have in them a prominence of words of Sanskrit stock, although one may find that the same word has rather different meanings in all these languages. Hence, at some higher level of generality, Maithili can be grouped with these Indic languages, which ultimately belong to the Indo-European family of languages. But it would undoubtedly be inappropriate to regard Maithili as a dialect of Hindi or Bengali (or `Bihari'?) simply on the basis of only a few similarities of lexicography.
Secondly, the criterion which is generally used for the establishment of language `split' is one of phonological restructuring. Phonological restructuring occurs when the system of phonological contrasts is altered in a language. Phonological restructuring, especially phonological merger (coalescence), is for many linguists (e.g. Gumperz, 1957/ reprint 1962; Hoenigswald, 1960, 1964 and 1966; Fairbanks, 1969a) the fundamental criterion for language split, because once it has taken place the innovation is indeed irreversible. Jeffers (1976), for example, made a compa-rative study of the phonological development of Sanskrit, Maithili, Magahi, Hindi, Bhojpuri and Bengali. His study was based mainly on the strict principles of historical and comparative linguistics. The main conclusions that he finally drew are:
(1) that among the so-called `Bihari' languages there was a split "between Bhojpuri on the one hand, and Maithili and Magahi on the other" (Jeffers, 1976: 223); and
(2) that As far as a split of Maithili and Magahi is concerned, it is difficult to say much that is definite due to a lack of Magahi data in print. However, from the information available, it seems safe to assume that these two languages are extremely similar in their phonological development. It is in aspects of grammar other than the phonological that these two languages are differentiated. and
(3) that Maithili shares no major phonological innovations either with Hindi or with Bengali and that it has its own distinct status within the Indo-Aryan languages, "independent of the Hindi languages on the one hand, and of the Bengali languages on the other" (Jeffers, 1976: 224). Gumperz (1957/reprint 1962: 82), too, rightly came to a similar conclusion regarding the distinctiveness of the Maithili language:The greatest amount of linguistic difference within the Hindi-speak¬ing area is found between Maithili and Hindi. Maithili has a .. . system of verbal inflection in which the verb is inflected for person and according to the social status of both the subject and the object, and not according to person and number as in HindiIt must also be pointed out that although Grierson grouped Maithili as one of the three dialects of his imaginary aginary `Bihari' language, elsewhere even he firmly held (e.g. Grierson, 1881: 2) that "Maithili is a language and not a dialect. . .
It differs from both Hindi and Bengali, both in vocabulary and in grammar, and is as much a distinct language from either of them as Marathi or Uriya". This observation shows in most emphatic and unequivocal terms that Grierson did after all regard Maithili as a distinct language. But it is rather unfortunate that a great philologist like him should have grouped Maithili and Bhojpuri together as dialects of a common `Bihari' language-especially when he himself was aware of the fact that Bhojpuri "belongs rather to the United Provinces than to Bihar ... and all its associations and traditions point to the west and not to the east" (Grierson, 1903/reprint 1968: 40).
The linguistic, cultural and literary traditions of Maithili and Bhojpuri are separate, and so are the geographical boundaries of their native speakers. Chatterji (1926: 99) rightly points out that Bhojpuriya territory has always been under the influence of the West, and Western forms of speech, like Brajbhaka, and Awadhi, and literary Hindustani (Hindi and Urdu) in later times, have been cultivated by poets and others who spoke Bhojpuriya at home.
In Chatterji's classification of the modern Indo-Aryan languages-as presented in Figure 1.3-Bhojpuri is therefore grouped with western languages. As for Magahi, even though ethnically Maithili and Magahi are different, yet philologically the two are so close to each other that even Grierson (1903/ reprint 1968: 40) held that Magahi "may very easily be classed as a dialect of Maithili rather than as a separate (speech)".
In his classification of the New Indo-Aryan (NIA) languages, Chatterji (1926/reprint 1970) shows that Maithili belongs to the group of Magdhi¬Apabhransa. Most native Maithili scholars of the latter half of the twen¬tieth century (e.g. S. Jha, 1958; G. Jha, 1974; Mishra, 1976; R. Yadav, 1979a and 1984) appear to. have agreed to Chatterji's view-of course,with a few minor modifications. For instance, S. Jha (1958: 20) holds that Maithili is very closely related to Bengali, Oriya, and Assamese; like them, it has certain Magdhan traits still present in it, all of them being the offspring of the Magdhan Apabhramsa.
S. Jha's (1958: 21) classification of the modern Indo-Aryan languages is presented in Figure 1.4. Most Maithili scholars of today accept S. Jha's classification, as it helps them to emphasise, among other things, two major points of immense importance: (1) that Maithili is not a dialect either of Hindi or of Bengali; and (2) that, as Maithili is not a dialect of the so-called `Bihari' language either, this language should not there¬fore be grouped with Bhojpuri.
It should also be pointed out that Maithili does have its own script, variously known as 'Maithili Lipi', `Mithilaksara or `Tirhuta'. This script is of the same family as the scripts of Bengali, Assamese, Oriya and Newari (see, for example, Mishra, 1969: 268 and 1976: 24-25, for more details in this respect). It is a sad fact that the. growth and devel¬opment of Tirhuta has hardly been investigated in detail. But it is also a fact that in the past Maithili writers used to write in this script-as shown in Table 1.1-and we still have thousands of valuable manuscripts written in this script. Even these days on some sacred occasions several Maithili-speaking families, especially Maithil Brahmin families, use this script. It was primarily due to introducing simplicity and a sort of sameness adopted in the writing systems of most of the Indic languages that the Maithili writers later gradually started using the Devanagari script of Sanskrit.
It must also, in addition, be mentioned that Maithili has a very rich literature, the growth and development of which follows quite closely the political and cultural history of Mithila. The antiquity of Maithili as a literary language goes back to the eighth century A.D., and it has had a continuous literary tradition during the last 700 years or so. Grierson (1882: 2) was aware of this tradition, and about a century ago he observed that "the only one of all the dialects of Eastern Hindustan which pos¬sesses any literature is Maithili, a dialect of north Bihar".
Today Maithili is recognised as a distinct language and there are provisions for it to be taught as such both in India and in Nepal. Presently,Maithili is taught and studied in various universities of both India and Nepal. Demographically, Maithili is the second most widely spoken language of Nepal. And, according to the International P.E.N. (Poets, Essayists and Novelists), it is the sixteenth major language of India.
1.3 Linguistic and Phonetic Studies on Maithili: A Brief Sketch Maithili is clearly a member of the North Indian group of Indo-Aryan languages which includes -Nepali, Hindi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali, and so on, and its development has been closely related to the changes which have occurred in all these languages. Yet there is a great paucity off early written materials in Maithili, and it would indeed be true to say that the reconstruction of Maithili linguistic history still involves a great deal of speculation. In this section an attempt is made to put forward a brief survey of linguistic and phonetic studies done on Maithili both in India and Nepal.
1.3.1 Studies on Maithili done in India Up to a few centuries ago there was no unanimously agreed one parti¬cular name for the language of Mithila. For example, at some periods it used to be called `Avahattha' or `Mithila-Apabhramsa', at other periods as 'Desh-Bhasa' or `Tirhutia' (e.g. see, Mishra, 1976: 16-18, for more details). According to Mishra (1976: 16), it was Colebrooke who for the first time named the language of Mithila as Maithili in 1801--although this language was then spelt as 'Mithelee' or 'Mythili'. It was in fact Grierson who finally and permanently fixed the name of this language as Maithili, with its present spelling in the early 1880s.
In India it was indeed Grierson who for the first time began serious studies on Maithili linguistics and published a series of scholarly papers and books on this language. In'1881 he published: An Introduction to the Maithili Language of North Bihar, Part 1, `Grammar'. This piece of work is divided into four parts; it is the first elaborate synchronic description of Maithili, although the whole description is based upon only a few Maithili forms obtained from translations of a few Hindi and Sanskrit passages by "the Pundits, Village School Masters and educated Native Gentlemen of Northern Mithila" (Grierson, 1881: 1).
Later, in 1882 Grierson published: An Introduction to the Maithili Language of North Bihar, Part 2, 'Chrestomathy and Vocabulary'. This piece of work in¬cludes perhaps the earliest published word-list of the Maithili languageand, to put it in Grierson's (1882: 1) words, "nearly all the Maithili Literature I have been able to collect". Still later-i.e. between 1883 and 1887-Grierson published: Seven Grammars of the Dialects and Subdialects of the Bihar i Language. This piece of work is divided into eight parts, each of which presents an extensive dialectal survey of what he called Bihari'. During this period, Hoernle and Grierson also pub¬lished in two parts: A Comparative Dictionary of the Bihari Language (Part 1, 1885; Part 2, 1889). Afterwards, quite a few years later, Grierson (1903/reprint 1968) again published: Linguistic Survey of India 5:2, which includes a detailed summary of Grierson's major findings on Maithili and on some other Indian languages as well.
Another earliest publication, which includes some phonological inter¬pretations on Maithili as well, is Kellogg's (1876/1893) A Grammar of the Hindi Language. Although Kellogg here treats Maithili as a dialect of Hindi, the importance of his work lies in the various illustrations that he gives from Maithili, together with several insightful phonological notes. It must, however, be stated that throughout his book Kellogg presents lengthy discussions primarily on Hindi rather than on Maithili.
Quite a few years later in 1941 there appeared an elaborate article by S. Jha on Maithili phonetics in a journal, Indian Linguistics, where the author presents mainly a phonemic summary of the so-called `standard' dialect of the Maithili language. Again, in 1958 appeared S. Jha's book: The Formation of the Maithili Language. This book gives a very exhaus¬tive diachronic description of Maithili: it is indeed the first most detailed attempt to trace the history of Maithili from the Old Indo-Aryan (OIA) period. Based on thorough acquaintance with the Maithili language itself and with its antecedents, S. Jha's (1958) publication did make a signifi¬cant advance in furthering our knowledge of Maithili. However, it is to be regretted that, as the author himself points out, the book was begun in 1935 and during the period of about twenty-two years that have elapsed in the meantime many changes have taken place in the circumstances. Consequently on so many points the present work has already become out of date (S. Jha, 1958: vi). In his review of S. Jha's (1958) book, Southworth (196_ 1) makes some fair comments and criticisms and he rightly sums up his opinion by stating that S. Jha's (1958) bookas a research tool would have been enhanced by the addition of a word index and a bibliography, as well as English glosses of the Maithili words cited in the text. The lack of glosses for most of these words not only impairs the value of Jha's work as aa source of material for historical-comparative research, but also makes it difficult to evaluate his etymologies (Southworth, 1961: 169).
Nevertheless, as far as the early materials on Maithili are concerned, S. Jha's (1958) book still remains as a significant source of material for historical-comparative research.
In 1958 there also appeared G. Jha's article on the conjugation of verbs in Maithili. In this article G. Jha (1958) made an attempt to trace out the origin and development of some verb forms in Maithili. Quite later in 1974 appeared G. Jha's book: Maithili Bhasa ka Vikds (The Development of the Maithili Language). This piece of work is written in Hindi: it presents a brief history of the development of Maithili and also gives a glimpse of some of its synchronic descriptions. Still later in 1979 ap¬peared G. Jha's book: Uccatar Maithili Vyakarana (A Higher Grammar of Maithili). This book is written in Maithili and it gives an account of some grammatical aspects of this language.
In addition to these studies, there have also been some other compar¬atively less exhaustive studies on the origin and development of the Maithili language (e.g. Sh. Jha, 1957). On the origin and development of the Maithili script, too, there have been some studies (e.g. R. Jha, 1971). Relatively recently, there have been some comparative studies on some grammatical aspects of Maithili together with other Indo-Aryan languages (e.g. Junghare, 1972; Jeffers, 1976; Singh and Bandhopadhyay, 1978). Following some transformational-generative approaches, there have also been a few studies on some aspects of the Maithili syntax (e.g. Singh, 1979a, 1979b and 1980).
In the 1970s quite a few publications have come out on the history and development of Maithili literature (e.g. Mishra, 1976; Chaudhary, 1976; D. K. Jha, 1979). There have also been some comparative studies of Maithili linguistics and of the history and culture of its native speakers (e.g. V. Iha,1977; Sharma, 1979). Most of these works have concentrated on the study of documents and inscriptions. A great deal of useful in¬ formation about the history of Maithili and Mithila as well as about thee relationship between Maithili and other modern Indo-Aryanlanguages can now be obtained from these studies carried out primarily in India.
1.3.2 Studies on Maithili done in Nepal The 1971, 1981 and 1991 census reports of Nepal list up to 37 languages spoken in this country. All these 37 languages can be grouped in one or the other of the following four language families-i.e. (i) Indo-European (Indo-Aryan Group), (ii) Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman Group), (iii) Austro-Asiatic (Munda Group), and (iv) Dravidian (Northern Kudux Group)-as shown in Figure 1.5. All census reports clearly show that Nepali is the main language of Nepal and Maithili is the second most widely spoken language in the country.
It is only from the previous three decades or so that serious linguistic and phonetic studies on Maithili have begun in Nepal. For example, in 1973 two encouraging papers were published (i.e. Davis, 1973; Williams, 1973) by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) on Maithili syntax, both written in the tagmetic framework. In the same year, the SIL also published a detailed word-list (Trail, 1973a), which includes a fairly large number of Maithili words. Later, in 1973-74 the Royal Nepal Academy published Paryayavaca Shavdakosha (Dictionary of Synonyms),. which includes the words of Maithili together with those of some 13 other languages of Nepal. Afterwards, R. Yadav (1976) published a paper on the aspirated consonants of colloquial Maithili.
A few years later, Ingemann and Yadav (1978) published a scholarly article in which they discuss the results of their study of the voiced aspirated consonants of a number of languages, including those of Hindi and Maithili. A year later R. Yadav (1979a) submitted his doctoral dissertation on Maithili phonetics and phonology at the University of Kansas, and he published his dissertation in 1984. R. Yadav's (1979b, 1979c, 1980a, 1980b, 1981, 1982 and 1991) other studies contain much interesting work with findings which will prove useful to linguists and phoneticians in general, as well as to those working in the area of Maithili and related studies.
Another dedicated scholar working on Maithili, Y.P. Yadav (1981, 1982a, 1982b and 1984) has also published a number of articles, each of which deals with areas concerning Maithili syntax. Y.P. Yadav (1983) also submitted his doctoral dissertation at Hyderabad in which he made a comparative study of Movement Rules in Maithili and English. In 1984 B.K. Jha also submitted his doctoral dissertation entitled "A DescriptiveStudy of Maithili Language of Nepal" at Poona University. Baidyanath Jha is another researcher currently engaged in ongoing doctoral research on Maithili. The present author (S.K. Jha, 1984) submitted his doctoral dissertation at the University of Essex; his study presents an account of some phonetic and phonological aspects of a variety of the standard dialect of Maithili. In addition, S.K. Jha (1985, 1986, 1990, 1991a, 1991b, 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1999) also published a number of articles on different phonetic and phonological aspects of this language. At present various other scholars are working on different aspects of Maithili at Tribhuvan University as well as at a number of other universities in other countries.
1.4 The Emergence of a Standard in Maithili and Its Present-day Situation An exhaustive survey of Maithili dialects has not yet been published, and few dialects have been analysed by linguists. For this reason, most dia¬lects remain undefined and no system for their classification has yet proved widely acceptable. The standardisation of the Maithili language was seriously begun a little more than a century ago. In that entire process of standardisation the contributions of G.A. Grierson and his associates are undoubtedly immense. After some considerable research and survey carried out more than a century ago, Grierson (1881: 2) observed that Maithili. .. is emphatically a spoken language. There is no standard to which it can be referred, and hence no form can be put aside as vulgar or impure. It is hoped, not only by myself, that the publi¬cation of a treatise like the present will tend to fix a standard ... The dialect which I have adopted as a standard is that of the Madhubani Sub-division, which is centrally situated, and which is admitted by all . . . to be the head-quarters of Mithila. In his later publications on Maithili, Grierson (e.g. 1882, 1883a, 1883b, 1884b, 1885, 1886, 1887a, 1887b, 1909/reprint 1967) concentrated on the above-mentioned standard dialect of this language. It is that same dialect of Maithili which S. Jha (1941: 39) also regarded as the standard one:
It is the `sista-bhasa', the language of the highest groups of Mithila, and has been described as the Standard Form of Maithili, as it has been adopted by speakers of all the other Maithili dialects as themost elegant form of their mother tongue; and, moreover, it is the only accepted literary form of the language.
The speakers of Maithili are today particularly sensitive to variations in the pronunciation of their language. The `wrong accent' may still be an impediment to social intercourse or to advancement or entry in certain professions. There is now very little controversy regarding the written form of standard Maithili-the spelling of this form was largely fixed by the end of the first half of this century (e.g. Grierson, 1882; D. Jha, 1952); the conventions of grammatical forms and constructions (e.g. Grierson, 1881, 1883a, 1883b, 1883c, 1884a, 1884b, 1885, 1886, 1887a and 1887b) as well as of the greater part of the vocabulary of Maithili have for the last five decades or so been accepted and adhered to by the majority of educated Maithili speakers. Although written Maithili is now quite standard, like any other language, there has always existed a great diversity in the spoken realisations of this language, in terms of the speech sounds used in different parts and by different sections of the Maithili-speaking community.
With such publications as S. Jha's (1941 and 1958) article and book on Maithili phonetics and philology, G. Jha's (1958, 1974 and 1979) article and books on Maithili grammar, J. Mishra's (1969 and 1976) publications on the Maithili language and literature, with the spread of education in the Maithili-speaking community, and with the advent of radio and television broadcasts in Maithili by some radio and television stations of both India and Nepal, what has been of immense signifi¬cance-social as well as linguistic-is the attitude of the Maithili-speak¬ing communities both in India and Nepal, which regards a certain set of speech sound values as more acceptable, even more `beautiful' than another. Judgements of this kind suggest that there is some kind of `standard' for comparison; and it is clear that such a standard pronun¬ciation of Maithili does exist, although it has never been explicitly imposed by any official body, whether in India or in Nepal, nor has it so far been clearly and elaborately described by any Indian or Nepalese linguists. A consideration of the origins and present nature of this unofficial standard of Maithili goes some way towards explaining the controversies and emotions which it arouses at the present day. Whatever the controversies, it cannot be denied that great prestige is still attached to this implicitly accepted social standard of the pronunciation of Maithili.It must be emphasised that the variant of Maithili implicitly accepted by the majority as the standard form of this language is the result of a social judgement rather than of any explicit official decision or inherent reason as to what is `correct' or 'wrong'. This standard has become more widely known and accepted through the advent of radio and television.
The Indian and Nepali radio stations broadcasting in Maithili formerly reconzme17tJed tJhjc fOrln OfprOrfurlciation forits znrJOUrseers ma~i~l - de¬ eatrse If rr-a'c the type which was most widely understood and which excited least prejudice of a regional kind. Indeed, it is said that attempts to use announcers who had a mild regional (i.e. `non-standard') accent provoked protests even from the region whose accent was used.
Thus, over the last five decades or so, the standard pronunciation of Maithili often became identified in the public mind with the pronuncia¬tion of that form of the language which the Indian, and of late even the Nepali, radio stations and print media have been using, and which the Indian and Nepali educational institutions have been using for the teach¬ing of this language. It is this form of the language that has led to its being the standard form of pronunciation in Maithili. Apart from Grierson's publications, D. Jha's (1952) lexicographic work entitled Maithili Bhdsd Kos (Maithili Dictionary) further established the spelling system of this language by bringing the spelling closer to pronunciation. At present Maithili grammar is reasonably well standardised. It would therefore be true to say that written Maithili is now almost entirely standard in its grammatical structure, spelling and vocabulary throughout Nepal and India.
1.5 Summary Maithili is a modem Indo-Aryan language spoken by more than 21 million people in India and Nepal. Up to the early 20th century, the place of this language among the modern Indo-Aryan languages was very much misunderstood and misrepresented. But today Maithili is recognised as a distinct language and it is being taught and studied as such both in India and Nepal. Demographically, it is the second most widely spoken lan¬guage in Nepal, and it is regarded as the 16th major 'language of India, according to the International P.E.N.
In the past there have been some substantial diachronic studies on Maithili, but synchronic studies on this language really started from the 1970s only.
Mithila is the name of that part of the state of Bihar which is situated to the north of the Ganges and lies to the east of the famous land of Bhojapur. In ancient India Mithila formed a state by itself, and one of its names was Videha, so called after the name of the family of its illustrious rulers. References to this name are found in the Vedas also. Mithi was one of the rulers of this family and he is said. to have carried out the asvamedha yaj-iza over every step of this land, thereby rendering it holy.
The area over which this famous sacrifice was performed. is described as bounded on the north by the Himalayas, and on the south by the Ganges, with the Kosi and the Gandaka rivers flowing to the east and the west respectively. This area became known by the name Mithila. References to this name are found in the Yajfiavalkyasmp•ti and the Ramayana. The word Mithila was derived from -/manth., to churn, by the author of the Unadisiitra (U.S. 60). Mithila was the name of a sage (mithilaica mahatejah., Matsyapurana, section 132, 113th verse, quoted by Muir in the Original Sanskrit Texts, vol. i, p. 278). The name of Mithila may have some connection with the name of this great sage.
The explanation given by 9a.katayana that Mithila is a country where enemies are vanquished, can at once be dismissed as merely conjectural. It may not sound unreasonable to say that Mithila has some connection with Skt. mitha-together. Hence Mithila may mean " attached together " inasmuch as Mithila is the name of that part of the country which is made up of not less than three ancient principalities ; namely, Vaisali, Videha, and Anga. Thus it would be likethe United Provinces of Agra and Awadha, popularly known as United Provinces, now constituted into the state of Uttar Pradesh. But on account of the shifting course of the three rivers mentioned above, particularly of the Kosi, it is difficult to fix the boundary lines of Mithila except on the north, where the Himalayas are immovable. (For an account of changes in the course of the Kosi, ' For a detailed account of Mithila, see Syam Narayan Singh's History of Tirhut, Calcutta, 1922. The word Avahata seems to be a derivative from apabhrasta, a synonym of Apabhramsa. According to the testimony of Mm. H. P. gastri, old-fashioned Bengali pandits used to call their vernacular simply "Prakrit ".
The two words, i.e. Apabhrainsa and Prakrit, were used for current languages. Locana (seventeenth century), the author of Ragatarangini, who has quoted several verses from the Paddvali of Vidyapati, calls the language of the latter Maithila Apabhramsa. The passage runs thus : desydmapi sudesdyatvdt prathaniam rnaithild -pabhramsa- bhdsayd sri vdydpati-kavini¬baddhastdstd maithilagita- gatayah pradarsyante : even among the country songs, on account of their being of a good country, first of all, several examples of modes of songs of Mithila, composed by the poet Vidyapati in the Maithila-Apabhratitsa language are given below (R., p. 37). The practice of referring to Maithili as Apabhratnsa continues even to this day amongst the pandits of Mithila. Pt. Mukunda Jha, who published his translation of the Amarakosa very recently, also called this Maithili Apabhratiisa. (Cf. Introduction to Amarakosa, p. 5, Madhubani, 1924.) This explains the absence of reference to the name "Maithili " in earlier works. But this remark may hold good for all the modern Aryan languages of India. A comparison may be made with the use of the terms Prakrit for Bengali as noticed above, and Aryabhasa for Hindi amongst the Aryasamajists. Amongst the uneducated people, Maithili is called Hindi also.
Such persons reckon Hindi to be Urdu. This seems to have been due to the fact that Maithili was generally used by the Hindu population of Mithila,"while educated Mussulmans spoke Hindusthani or Urdu, the language used in law courts. It is interesting to note that documents written in the Persian script and in the Urdu language are said to be written in Fdrasi, Persian. But the revival of Maithili literature and the discussions on the question of medium of instruc¬tion in the schools of Mithila are putting an end to the practice of calling Maithili by this name, i.. Hindi.. (No reference will be made in the following pages to any name other than Maithili, other¬wise confusion will be caused and no useful purpose served ) Though there are several Mai. dialects, only three of them have received distinctive names.
(1) Chikachiki of south Bhagalpur, so called on account of frequent use of the words chika and child in it.
(2) Jolahi, the language used by the Mussulmans of places INTRODUCTION 5 other than Madliubaiii - subdivision of Darbhanga district. It is so called as the majority of Mussulmans living in Mithila are Joiahas, weavers.
(3) Khotta, the language of iMalda, spoken as far as the Mahanattda river in the east. (For other dialects see below.)
3. AREA WHERE MAITHIL! IS SPOKEN The language is spoken in the whole of the districts of Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur, Purnea, Monghyr, and Bhagalpur. In the district of Champaran it is current in its eastern part, and it merges into Magahi in the eastern parts of Patna and the northern parts of Santal Parganas districts. It is the language of the people of the Tarai of Nepal on the borders of Bhagalpur and Tirhut divisions. It is, besides, the speech, of the non-Bengali residents of the districts of Malda and Dinajpur in Bengal. Maithila Brahmans living in C.P. use it to some extent, although for all practical purposes they have adopted Hindi as their language.
4. LINGUISTIC BOUNDARIES OF MAITHILI On the boundaries of Maithili are current Bhojapuri, Bengali, Nepali or Knr< , and Magahi in the west, the east, the north, and the south respectively. In its own tract it meets the non-Aryan languages, Sang li and Mut' ida. Needless to say it merges into its neighbouring languages on its boundaries, and in those areas it is difficult to say whether the language spoken is or is not a Maithili dialect influenced by them. 5. DIALECTS OF MAITHILI Maithili has the following seven dialects
(1) The standard,
(2) The southern,
(3) The eastern,
(4) The Chikachiki,
(5) The western,
(6) The Jolahi,
(7) The central colloquial.
The a with lip-rounding of Mai. and Mag. is absent front Bhojapuri. But the three dialects possess the long drawled a. (Cf. L.S.I., vol. v, part 2, pp. 40 ff.) Bhojapuri differs in intonation from Mai. Thus " I shall speak in Mai. will be hdma kahdba with a level rising and falling intona¬tion; while in Bhojapuri it will be h(bib kahab pronounced with a continuously rising intonation. In Mai,, intonation causes some semantic difference in certain verbal forms, but it has no significance in Bhojapuri. (See Maithili Phonetics, Intonation.) Morphological Mai. words do not end in consonants but BhojapuH words end in both vowels and consonants. Both have two organic cases, i.e. the instrumental and the loca¬tive, and such case forms are identical in. the two dialects. Both employ oblique bases in the genitive of substantives. Ehojaparl post¬positions, to a great extent, are similar to those of High Hindi, but Mai. post-positions are to some extent different.
Thus in the abl., -se-. Bhoj. and Hind!, -sd- Mai. But in a largee number of cases they are identical. The two languages employ short, long, and redundant or longer bases of nouns in declension. Conjugation is very sirople in. Bboj., only the nominative affecting the verb, but in Mai. the conjugation is very complex owing to the influence of other cases as well on the verb. ahd, hon. pron. of the 2nd pers., which characterizes Mai., is absent from Bhoj., although both employ apaw., in the, same sense. The most distinctive character of the two is that Bhoj. abounds in forms like ban-'E, bare, etc., derived from 01A. - Ivi,t = to be, while Mai. uses forms like chi, achi, etc., derived from MIA. -\Iach, to be. Western Mai. uses forms in lc, la, etc., and so does Bhoj,, in thee present tense. It seems that thee presence of such forms in Mai. was due to the influence of Bhoj. on it. Adjectives change their forms to the same extent in the two languages with the change of gender of substantives.
(c) Maithili and the Eastern MYdgdhan Maithili-Oriyi Phonological and Phonetic. In Oriya, single MIA. -1- is changed to + by cerebralization, while it is changed to l in early Mai., which becomes r or r in later INTRODUCTION Mai. (See Phonology, Consonants, History of r.) Excepting thee pronunciation of cerebrals and r in Skt. tsm. words all sounds of the two languages are pronounced in the same way, as distinct from Bengali or Assamese. (Cf. L.8.1., vol.. v, part 2, pp. 376 ff.: for other points, see Chatterji, Bengali Language, p. 95.) Thus c, ch, are es, csh in Beng., but they are is, tsh in Mai. and Or. However, in. the pronunciation of ks in atsm. words.. Mai. has cch, while in Or., Beng., As., it is kh that is used. In Beng., the second element of a dissimilar conjunct consonant is not pronounced, but the first element is doubled. In Mai. and Or. both of them are distinctly pronounced. Thus dtvid is dad in Beng., but the Sanskrit pronunciation is preserved in these two languages. In Oriy5., Skt. r is pronounced like ruin atsm. words ; in Mai. and Beng. it is always -ri. In Or., it is due to southern influence.. Even in Oriyd the treatment of the OIA. r in tadbhava words is the same as in Bengali, Maitbili or Assamese.
The pronunciation of the cerebrals is purer in Oriya than in Beng. and Mai., where they are, to some extent, palatalized retroflex sounds. In the pronunciation of two more sounds Mai. and Or. differ: y is always 9 in Or., but it is kh or s in Mai. ; mh is pronounced as in Oriyd, but Mai. possesses the mh sound. also. (Cf. L.S.I., vol. v, part 2, p. 37a.) In the matter of stress, Mai. agrees with Oriya in stressing the last long vowel. In both, this accent cannot go back farther than the third syllable from the end: where all the vowels are short, the penultimate syllable receives the accent. Oriya does not possess the very short vowels of Mai. The rule of shortening of the vowel of the pre-accentual syllable does not hold good in Oriyd. (This account of accent in is based on an examination of some speakers thereof living in Patna.) Morphology. In Bhojal)u6, at least in the case of pronouns, the forms of the organic plural are available. That is so also in Bengali of to-day. Bengali had also the agglutinated plural forms. Thus for imana of modern Beng. &nhard sabha is found in early Beng. This may be compared with Mai. hamara sabha, used. to-day. Or. has only the agglutinated plural forms.
Thus :¬ Or. I = m4, we == mdmdne, etc. But Bhoj. hamani we, ham = I. the earliest writer of vernacular dramas in Assam, employed Maithili in his plays. So did several writers following him. The following are some additional points of difference between Mai. and Ass. As we advance towards the cast from Bengal we find ch pro¬nounced as 9 and j as z. In Ass. s is always heard as h. Like Bengali, the genitive in Ass. is formed with -ar, -er, but in Mai. the forms in -ka predominate. (Genitive forms in -era or -era are found in early Mai.) Ass. uses four different inflexional forms according as the relation is " mine " ; " yours--non-hon. " ; " yours--bonorific " ; or " his " ; in nouns of relationship. While Alai. like other Mdgadhan languages, uses only one form. (Cf. L.S.I., vol. v, part 1, p. 402.) In comparison of Alai. with other languages, only the points of resemblance will be noted. Other languages do not belong to the Mdgradhan group. Therefore, it is natural that differences should be more numerous than similarities.
An exception has been made, however, in the case of Hindi, as there are persons, nay even philo-, logists, who consider Mai. a dialect of Ifindi or Hindusthdni, Rev. Kellogg did so in his Hindi Grammar, and Dr. Baburam Saksena has shown Maithili as a dialect of Hindi in the language map attached to his Evolution qf A-wadhT. (d) Maithili-Eastern Hindi Eastern Hindi has three dialects :--Awadbi, Bagliell, and Chattis¬garhi. (L.S.L, vol. vi, p. 1.) Of them Awadhi is the most important, and the others may be considered to be subsidiary. Chattisgarhi differs a little more than Bagbeli differs from Awadhi inasmuch as the former is greatly influenced by Mardthi and Oriyd, the neighbouring speeches. Eastern Hindi is the modern representative of the Ardhamagadhi Prdkrit, and its area lies between the old huraseni and the Mdgadhi areas.
Eastern Hindi resembles Maithili and other M5.gadhan speeches in some respects, and it is closely connected to Western Hindi in some other aspects. Pronunciation. There are three whispered vowels, i, zz, and e in the Awadhi language, none of which is found in Alai." where corresponding to INTRODUCTION 15 them are found the very short vowels. (Cf. Saksena, Evolution of Awadhi, §§ 113-18.) s in tsm. words is pronounced as kh in both. (Cf. ibid., § 36.) Aspirated liquids, lb, rh, and rh occur in both the languages. (Cf. ibid., §§ 72, 73, and. 75.) s represents the three sibilants in both. (Cf. ibid., § 87.) In matter of stress, Maitlffli and Awadhi agree entirely except that in the latter vowels which are long by position also get it. (Cf.- ibid., §§ 137,-138.) In Maitbill it is not always so.
Morphological. In morphology, Eastern Hijidi closely resembles Bhojapuri in the declension of nouns. E.H. is allied to Mai. in the following respects:¬ The dative-accusative affixes in both are derivatives from Skt. -ka- ; they are k4 and ke respectively in E.H. and Mai. In the loc. Mai. follows its western neighbour in having me as its post-positional affix, which is allied to ma used in the same case in E.H. ; it is curious to note that the cognate forms are missing in the eastern Magadhan languages. Mai. agrees with E.H. in the use of the two organic cases, the ins. and the loc. ending in -e and -J (cf. Saksena, Evolution of -4v)ad.hi, pp. 13-1, ff.). Forms ending in -j in the ins. were found in early Mai. In mod. Mai. only -e is used.. The use of the post-positional affixes -kara, -kera, etc., characterizes both the languages. (Cf. Saksena, Evolution of Awadhi, pp. 217 ff.)
The plural affixes -nha, -vhi of Aw. correspond to -nhi found in early Mai. Thus Aw. pava sakhinha, the friends obtained, rajanha suni = the kings having heard (cf. ibid., § 189, and see below, Declension of Nouns, Number, § 493). The pronominal forms ending in -j, such as jj, se, etc., are identical in Mai. and Aw. In conjugation, E.H. and Mai. both use the -b- future, and such forms are in many cases identical in the two languages. E.H. employs forms in -h- also, and in this case it is more allied to W.H. (Cf. ibid., pp. 261 ff., and see below, Conjugation Verbs, Future Indicative Tense.)Pre-accentual syllables are shortened in both. Mai. abdsa, Guj. avds, Skt. dvasa-, Mai. and Guj. kapasa, Skt. karpdsa-. In both, single MIA. -1- undergoes some modification. It becomes r in Mai. and I in Guj., as there is no l in mod. Mai, Thus: Mai. anura, Guj. dgl7, Skt. anzguli-; Mai. phdra, Guj. phal, Skt. phala-; Mai. kerd, Guj. kel, OIA.* kela-, cf. Skt. kadala-, Morphological. Verbal nouns are formed in the same way in both, i.e. by -aw in Guj. and by -aba in Mai. (w, all alone, does not occur intervocalically in mod. Mai.).
Again, both the languages agree in the formation of oblique bases from such nouns, by -awd in Guj. and --abd in Mai. The auxiliary verbs, which form the present tense, are chic, che, cho, and chic in Guj., while their cognate forms are current in Maithili. -keri is one of the genitive post-positions of Mai., while its cognate form (cede occurs in Guj. Phonetic. (h) Maithili-Sindhi . Very short vowels, inaudible to ears not accustomed to hear these sounds, nevertheless semantically significant, are found in both the languages. Like Sindhi, Mai. is also " fond of inserting a short vowel between two contiguous consonants ". But this is a feature of some other languages also. (Cf. T.S.P., vol. viii, part 1, p. 23.) Instances of dropping of intervocalic m occur in both. (Cf. Trumpp, Sindhi Gram., Introduction, P.V., on Sindhi jdtro.) me and ma-njhe are the post-positional locative affixes in Sindhi, while me and mdjha are their Mai. equivalents. In the voc., e, he, ho, etc., are current in both. Sindhi and Mai. agree in the use of some .forms of the pronoun of the 2nd person, in which respect the latter differs even from its neigh¬bouring dialects.
Thus : Mai. ahd and disc, lion. forms of the pronoun of the 2nd person, have their following cognate forms found in Sindhi : avhd, ahd, ahf, af, etc. (Cf..L.S.I., vol. viii, part 1,,p. 35.) The emphatic forms of demonstrative pronouns are identical in the two languages ; iho, uho, found in Mai. in some dialects, are current in both. The pronominal forms sdbha and o occur in both. In Sindhi the past participle is formed by addition of -alb, and in Mai. by addition of -ala. (Cf. ibid., p. 55.) Sindhi cldithalu, Mai. INTRODUCTION 19 dekhdla ; " see ". The conjunctive participle is formed by the affix or e in Mai. and i or e in Sindhi. (Cf. ibid., p. 56.) Thus : Sindhi, suyi, Mai. su,ni having heard ; Sindhi, kare, Mai. hoe = having done. In Mai. dhi == is, occurs as a principal and also as an auxiliary verb, so does -ahe in Sindhi, in the singular of the 3rd pets. (Cf. ibid., p. 56.) occurs as an auxiliary verb in Mai. in the 1st pers. and in the hon. sense of the other persons.
It may have some connection with dhiyd, dhe, due of Sindhi, used in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd persons respectively in the present tense in the sense of the verb " to be " of English. In the formation of causatives, Mai. and Sindhi agree to a great extent. Both add an -a to form causatives. Thus : -/dho = to carry 1/dhod = to cause to carry. In this respect, Mai. and Sindhi agree with other languages, such as Hindi, Guj., Nep., etc., also. (i) Maithili-Panjabi They agree on one point at least. In Panjabi MIA. double con¬sonants are retained, and in Maithili the, case is similar in some accented syllables. (Cf. J ain, Pa)?lab7 Phonology, pp. 70 ff., and see below, :phonology, Consonants, Long Consonant §181.) (j) Maithili-Kashmiri Both the languages possess very short, short, and long vowels. (Cf. Grierson, .Kdsh-mir7 Grammar, p. 15.) In both the languages y and v become e and o respectively. (Cf. ibid., p. xii.) The most striking morphological point of similarity is that, in both, the personal terminations attached to the verb are indicative of the person, not only of the nom. but of the ace., etc., as well. (k) Maithili-Marathi The points of resemblance are the same as those existing between the different languages of the " outer group ". Characteristic is the use of the auxiliaries derived from MIA. ,/ach = to be (see Grierson, in _ the Bulletin of the Schoal o f Oriental Studies, vol. i, No. 3, pp. 78 ff.), as well as the formation of the adjectival forms in -1, etc.
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