LWM 386: Mewati

Mewati

Lakhan Gusain
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Mewati, a dialect of Rajasthani language of Indo-Aryan family, is spoken by about five million speakers in Alwar, Bharatpur and Dholpur districts of Rajasthan, and Faridabad and Gurgaon districts of Haryana states of India. Extensive linguistic research work has not carried out on this dialect so far. It had contributed profoundly to Rajasthani literature in medieval periods.
This grammar includes chapters on phonology, morphology, syntax, and sample texts. The introductory section includes information on Mewati, its speakers, and geographic and sociolinguistic data on Mewati and its subdialects. There are 9 vowels, 31 consonants, and 2 diphthongs. Suprasegmentals are not so prominent as they are in the other dialects of Rajasthani. There are two numbers--singular and plural, two genders--masculine and feminine; and three cases--direct, oblique, and vocative. The nouns decline according to their final segments. Case marking is postpositional. Pronouns are traditional in nature and are inflected for number and case. Gender is not distinguished in pronouns. Two types of adjectives are there. There are three tenses--past, present, and future. Participles function as adjectives. Sentence types, word order, coordination, subordination, and particles have been described analytically. The chapter sample texts presents free and interlinear translations of some selected texts.

ISBN 9783895864001. Languages of the World/Materials 386. 88pp. 2003.