Munda languages
| Munda | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution: |
India, Bangladesh |
| Linguistic classification: |
Austroasiatic
|
| Subdivisions: |
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| ISO 639-2 / 5: | |
| Glottolog: | mund1335 |
Distribution of Munda language speakers in India
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The Munda languages are a language family spoken by about nine million people in central and eastern India and Bangladesh. They constitute a branch of the Austroasiatic language family, which means they are distantly related to Khmer (Cambodian) and, to a lesser extent, Vietnamese, and also the minority languages in Thailand, Laos and Southern China. The origins of the Munda languages are not known, but they predate the other languages of eastern India. Ho, Mundari, and Santali are notable languages of this group.
The family is generally divided into two branches: North Munda, spoken in the Chota Nagpur Plateau of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, and Odisha, and South Munda, spoken in central Odisha and along the border between Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.
North Munda, of which Santali is the most widely spoken, is the larger group; its languages are spoken by about ninety percent of Munda speakers. After Santali, the Mundari and Ho languages rank next in number of speakers, followed by Korku and Sora. The remaining Munda languages are spoken by small, isolated groups of people and are poorly known.
Characteristics of the Munda languages include three grammatical numbers (singular, dual and plural), two genders (animate and inanimate), a distinction between inclusive and exclusive first person plural pronouns and the use of suffixes or auxiliaries to indicate tense.
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