LINGram 33: A Grammar of the Gujarātī Language

A Grammar of the Gujarātī Language

Clair Tisdall

The Gujarati language belongs, like the Marathi, Hindi, Panjabi, Oriya, and many other Indian dialects, to the Aryan family, being a daughter of the Sanskrit. Its closest affinities are with the Western Panjabi on the one side, and the Braj Bhasha, an old form of Hindi, on the other. Besides various local dialects of Gujarati, there are three main varieties of the written and spoken language. First, Hindi Gujarati, which is that adopted—and rightly so—by the Government as the Standard, and taught in the schools. Second, Parsi Gujarati, the language as spoken and written by the Parsis.

This differs from ordinary Gujarati in that it admits pure Persian words in considerable numbers, especially in connexion with religious matters, besides a host of Arabic and other words taken from the Urdu language, and that its grammar is in a very unfixed and irregular condition. Thirdly, Muhammadan Gujarati, which, like Parsi Gujarati, employs a great number of words borrowed from the Hindüstani (and through it from Persian and Arabic). But, though the vocabulary of the language varies considerably according as the Speaker is a Hindu, a Parsi, or a Muslim, yet its grammar—when spoken correctly—is practically one and the same. We have taken Hindi Gujarati as our Standard in this Grammar, for, if that is learnt, the few variations of form used in the other dialects will present no difficulty, especially as they are to a great degree mere matters of spelling.

Contents: Alphabet, parts of speech (nouns, adjective, pronouns, verb, indeclinables, numerals), syntax, reading lessons.

This re-edition has been published as no. 33 in the LINCOM Gramatica (LINGram) series (originally published 1892, London, written in English).

ISBN 9783862900671. LINCOM Gramatica 33. 189pp. 2011.