I HISTORY AND LINGUISTIC CLASSIFICATION
The communities in India are linguistically diverse. They speak not only the scheduled but also non-scheduled languages and dialects. The people of India linguistically are divided into different language families, such as Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic, Tibeto-Berman & Andamanese. The present study about the Korku language belongs to Austro-Asiatic language family, mainly spoken by the Korku tribes of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. The word Korku means simply ‘men’ or ‘tribesmen’, koru being their term for a man and ku a plural termination (Russel and Hiralal, 1916). Thus the word Korku means ‘people’. The word Korku is the plural of kōrō, which is identified with Mundari hãrã, Santali hãṛa (man) (Grierson, Linguistic Survey of India, Vol-IV). It is a Western most language of this group i.e., there is no other Munda language spoken to its west in India. It is spoken in the vast area of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.
In the Ramayana they are called rakshas (demos). Guptas were the one who ruled Korku people first, later Rajputs, Mauryas, Rastrakutas, Vakatakas, Mughals and Britishers also had ruled them in different stages of time. After 12th Century Korkus were ruled by Gond Rajas (cf. Stephen Fuch, The Korkus of the Vindhya Hills).
Earliest work on Korku language
Since Eighteenth Century European Scholars have taken note of this language. Voysey published a vocabulary of this language in 1844 A.D. Dalton published an account of Korku People in 1872 in his Ethnology of Bengal. Drake wrote a grammar (probably for the first time) in 1903. Linguistic Survey of India (1906) has a very brief skeleton on this language. In 1914, Ramsey published a vocabulary of this language, and later in 1940 a Korku – Hindi – English dictionary. In the early sixties of this century Zide worked on this language (under the so-called Munda project). Almost at the same time Bhattacharya collected materials on this language from several points, which he used in his various articles and a monograph (1975). Also a recent study on Korku language by K.S. Nagaraja is worth praise. Korku described by Nagaraja is from Maharashtra and there are gaps in his description.
[Link to Bibliography]
LINGUISTIC CLASSIFICATION
Genetic Classification
In 1906 for the first time Wilhelm Schmidt discovered the Austro-Asiatic family. Korku language is concluded under Austro-Asiatic language family. Austro-Asiatic language family is divided into two groups, i.e Mon-Khmer and Munda group. Again Munda group is divided into two sub-groups, i.e., South Munda group and North Munda group. Korku language is considered as a language of North-Munda group.
Austro-Asiatic
Munda
North Munda
Korku
Muwasi
Another classification:
Austric Language Family
Austro-Nesian Austro-Asiatic
Munda Mon-Khmer
Nicobarese
South Munda North Munda Khasi
Kharia
Juang Kherwari Korku
Mundari (Muwasi)
Santali
In 1975 S. Bhattacharya provided a classification based mainly on his own fieldwork on different Munda languages. He identified ten independent Munda Languages and six important dialects. These languages are grouped into two branches and sub grouped further. This classification is graphically represented in the following.
Munda Lower Munda Upper Munda Gutob- Bonda Parengi - Sora Juang- Kharia Kherwari Korku Gutob –Bonda Didey Parengi Sora Juang Kharia Kherwari Korku (Remo) (Gtah) (Gorum) 1.Santali (Muwasi) (Birhor) (Asuri) 2. Mundari (Ho) (Korwa)
Areal Classification
Korku language is mainly spoken in a vast area of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. Korku inhabitants are found in Nimar, Betul, Khandwa, Berar, Hoshangabad, Chhindwara and also in small numbers in Indore, Dewas and Bhopal districts of Madhya Pradesh and in Amravati, Akola, Wardha, Yeotmal and Chanda districts of Maharashtra. It has only one dialect named as Muwasi, which is spoken in Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh. Grierson states Nahali dialect of Nimar is now a mixed form of speech and it has some connection with Korku. It does not differ much from general Korku. Due to the influence of Hindi and Marathi, most of the Korku speakers are bilingual and also a large number of vocabularies of Hindi and Marathi are found in this language. A few Korku speakers are also found in other states like Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Punjab etc.
Typology:
‘Korku’ is a language of North-Munda group of Austro-Asiatic family. Thus, it exhibits many common features with other Austro-Asiatic languages, like, three way number system (Singular, Dual and Plural) with animate and inanimate distinction. Except kinship terms gender is not marked for nouns. In case of numerals it has vigesimal system of counting like other Munda languages. The use of affixes makes this language an inflectional language. Suffixes also are more grammatical, such as the marker /-tɓen-/ is used for both instrumental and ablative case inflection as well as formation of adverbs too. Basic sentence word order is Subject-Object-Verb (SOV). Only Past vs. Non-Past tense distinction have been found in Korku.
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