What Are Munda Languages?
The Munda language family is a subgroup of the Austroasiatic family. The Munda peoples are generally believed to represent indigenous tribal populations over much of their current areas of residence in India. The original Munda-speaking territory was rather large, and was subsequently settled or colonized by Indo-Aryan speakers and Dravidian speakers, and Munda speakers were marginalized into the relatively remote hill country and (formerly) forested areas.
What Is the Munda Languages Initiative?
While some Munda languages are stable, many are currently endangered. Almost all aspects of every Munda language require more analysis before we have an adequate consensus understanding of even their basic features, in particular, syntactic issues and phonetic analysis are in urgent need of further systematic investigation.
In 2005, Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages began the Munda Languages Initiative, a multi-year project to comprehensively document the lexica and grammars of the modern Munda language family. The initiative is led by linguist Dr. Gregory D. S. Anderson, with local projects being coordinated by tribal Indian scholars Dr. Bikram Jora, Mr. Opino Gomango, and Dr. Luke Horo. Archival efforts are coordinated by Dr. Gregory D. S. Anderson and Anna Luisa Daigneault.
Korku language elicitation session in Malargar village, Madhya Pradesh, India.
Where Are the Munda Languages Spoken?
Munda languages are spoken by around ten million people total, primarily in the eastern and central Indian States of Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Chhatisgarh, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh, as well as in adjacent regions of Nepal and Bangladesh.
From Gregory D. S. Anderson, 2007. “The Munda Verb: Typological Perspectives” Mouton de Gruyter. p. 7. (Reproduced with permission.)
Munda languages range from Koda, which has fewer than one thousand speakers, to Santali, with over seven million speakers (and, as of 2004, is an official language of India). Munda is the westernmost constituent family of the Austroasiatic language phylum. Munda languages, however, appear to be autochthonous to India. The major languages of the family include Santali (7 million+ speakers), Mundari (1.5 million+), Ho (1 million+), Korku (400,000+), Sora (300,000+), Kharia (200,000+), Bhumij (150,000+), Juang (50,000+), and Gutob (50,000+).
Minor languages of the Munda family range between several hundred speakers to a few thousand. These include such languages as Korwa, Asuri, Birhor, Turi, Koda, Gtaʔ (a.k.a. Didey), Remo (a.k.a. Bonda), and Gorum (a.k.a. Parenga/Parengi). The internal classification of Munda remains controversial. Most Munda languages remain unwritten; some others (e.g., Santali, Mundari, Ho, Kharia, Sora) have developing literary traditions, but orthographic issues remain controversial for most if not all the Munda literary languages.
Presentations and Publications
Linguistic data and research findings from the Munda Languages Initiative has been presented around the world,. Between 2016 and 2018, we presented at conferences such as the Symposium About Language and Society (SALSA), Documentary Linguistics: Asian Perspectives (DLAP-2), the 7th International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics (ICAAL 7), New Ways of Analyzing Variation Asia-Pacific (NWAV-AP5), the International workshop on typological profiles of language families of South Asia, the 1st International Conference of Munda Linguistics, the International Conference on Indian Languages in Contact Situations: Historical, Typological and Sociolinguistic Perspectives, and many others.
The research has also resulted in the publication of books and journal articles. See our complete list of Munda Publications.
Grants and Support
The Munda Languages Initiative would not have been possible without the generosity of private donors and scientific granting agencies. This support is gratefully acknowledged.
2015-2017. Documentation of Gutob, an endangered Munda language. National Science Foundation/Documentation of Endangered Languages Grant (Award #1500092).
2013-2015. Documentation of Hill Gta’–a seriously endangered Munda language. National Endowment for the Humanities/Documentation of Endangered Languages Grant (Award #PD-50025-13).
2010-2011. Documentation of Remo (Bonda). National Science Foundation/Documentation of Endangered Languages Grant (Award # 0853877) for work on a talking dictionary of Remo (Bonda), a language of the Munda language family spoken in Malkangiri District, Odisha, India.
Earlier dedicated funding for the Munda Languages Initiative was received from Ironbound Films in 2007 to help support our work on Ho, Remo and Sora, during the course of making the documentary film The Linguists which highlights the documentation work of Gregory D. S. Anderson and K. David Harrison.