Bundeli language

Bundeli (Devanagari: बुन्देली or बुंदेली; Nastaliq: زبان بندیلی), or Bundelkhandi, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Bundelkhand region of central India. It belongs to the Western Hindi subgroup.

A descendant of the Sauraseni Apabhramsha language, Bundeli was classified under Western Hindi by George Abraham Grierson in his Linguistic Survey of India. According to Ethnologue, the dialects of Bundeli are Lodhanti, Khatola, Banaphari, Kundi, Nibhatta, Bhadauri, and Nagpuri. Bundeli is also closely related to Braj Bhasha, which was the foremost literary language in central India until the nineteenth century.

Like many other Indo-Aryan languages, Bundeli has often been subject to a designation as a dialect, instead of a language. Furthermore, as is the case with other Hindi languages, Bundeli speakers have been conflated with those of Standard Hindi in censuses.

The Bundelkhand region comprises regions of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Bundeli is spoken in the Chattarpur, Panna, Tikamgarh, Banda, Hamirpur, Jalaun, Jhansi, Gwalior, Vidisha, Bhopal, Sagar, Ashoknagar, Jabalpur, Lalitpur, Chitrakoot, Mahoba, Damoh, Narsinghpur and Hoshangbad districts.