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Bhojpuri भोजप�री bh�japurī
Spoken in:	India, Nepal, Mauritius, Fiji, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Singapore, United States, United Kingdom, Réunion, Suriname
Region:	Nepal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Assam, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal
Total speakers:	27-140 million
Language family:	Indo-European  Indo-Iranian   Indo-Aryan    Eastern Group     Bihari      Bhojpuri
Writing system:	Devanagari, Kaithi
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	bh
ISO 639-2:	bho
ISO 639-3:	bho
This page contains Indic text. Without rendering support you may see irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. More...

Bhojpuri (pronunciation (help·info)) is a very popular regional language spoken in parts of north-central and eastern India. It is spoken in the western part of state of Bihar, the northwestern part of Jharkhand, and the Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh, as well as an adjoining area of southern plains of Nepal. Bhojpuri is also spoken in Guyana, Suriname, Fiji, Trinidad and Tobago and Mauritius and is often said to be the only Indian language to be spoken on all continents. The language of the Surinamese Hindus, however, is seldom referred to as Bhojpuri but usually as Sarnami Hindi or just Sarnami.

People\'s attitudes towards the Bhojpuri language have evolved over time, and most linguists agree it is not a dialect of Hindi^{[citation needed]}, which is a widespread belief among speakers. Others, including the government of India while taking census, disagree, and consider Bhojpuri to be a dialect of Hindi. But now the government of India is preparing to grant it statutory status as a national scheduled language.

Bhojpuri shares vocabulary with Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu and other Indo-Aryan languages of northern India. Bhojpuri and several closely related languages, including Maithili and Magadhi, are together known as the Bihari languages. They are part of the Eastern Zone group of Indo-Aryan languages which includes Bengali and Oriya.

There are numerous dialects of Bhojpuri, including three or four in eastern Uttar Pradesh alone.

Some notable Bhojpuri personalities are the first president of India, Rajendra Prasad, Manoj Bajpai, and former Indian prime minister Chandra Shekhar.

Number of speakers

According to an article published in Times of India, an estimated 70 million people of Uttar Pradesh and 50 million of western Bihar speak Bhojpuri. Besides this about 6 million Bhojpuri speaking people are living in foreign countries including Nepal, Mauritius, Fiji, Suriname, Guyana, Uganda, Singapore, Trinidad & Tobago and United States. This makes the total Bhojpuri speaking population in the world close to 140 million.

However, the official figures as per the Census of India 2001 are much lower. The census counts 33 million people in India to be speakers of the Bhojpuri dialect under the Hindi language sub-family."Census of India 2001"

Bhojpuri dialects, varieties, and creoles are also spoken in various parts of the world, including Brazil, Fiji, Guyana, Mauritius, South Africa, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, many colonizers had faced labor shortages and were unable to obtain slaves from Africa due to the abolition of slavery; thus, they imported many Indians as indentured servants to labor on plantations. Today, many Indians in the West Indies, Oceania, and South America still speak Bhojpuri as a native or second language.

The Bhojpuri language has been heavily influenced by other languages in many parts of the world. Mauritian Bhojpuri includes many Creole and English words, while the one spoken in Trinidad & Tobago has picked up some Caribbean words along with English.

Bhojpuri Literature

The Bhojpuri-speaking region, due to its rich tradition of creating leaders for building post-independence India such as first President Dr. Rajendra Prasad followed by many eminent politicians and humanitarians like Dr. Krishna Dev Upadhyaya, was never devoid of intellectual prominence which is evident in its literature.

Bhojpuri became one of the bases of the development of the official language of independent India, Hindi, in the past century. Bhartendu Harishchandra, who is considered the father of literary Hindi, was greatly influenced by the tone and style of Bhojpuri in his native region. Further development of Hindi was taken by prominent laureates such as Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi and Munshi Premchand from the Bhojpuri-speaking region. Bhikhari Thakur, known as the Shakespeare of Bhojpuri, has also given theater plays including the classics of Bidesiya. Pioneer Dr. Krishna Dev Upadhyaya from Ballia district devoted 60 years to researching and cataloging Bhojpuri folklore. Dr. H. S. Upadhyaya wrote the book Relationships of Hindu family as depicted in Bhojpuri folksongs (1996). Together they have cataloged thousands of Bhojpuri folksongs, riddles and proverbs from the Purvanchal U.P, Bihar, Jharkand and Chotta Nagpuri districts near Bengal.

The Bhojpuri literature has always remained contemporary. It was more of a body of folklore with folk music and poems prevailing. Literature in the written form started in the early twentieth century. During the British era, then known as the "Northern Frontier Province language", Bhojpuri adopted a patriotic tone and after independence it turned to community. In later periods, following the low economic development of the Bhojpuri-speaking region, the literary work is more skewed towards the human sentiments and struggles of life.

In the present era, the Bhojpuri literature is marked by the presence of writers and poets like Anand Sandhidoot, Pandey Kapil, Ashok Dwivedi, Editor of the popular Bhojpuri magazine Paati (Ballia) and others. In Maurititus, Dr. Sarita Boodhoo from the Mauritius Bhojpuri Institute has done volumes of work in following the Bhojpuri culture and language and documenting the indentured labourers\' arrival on the island. Manoj Bhawuk came into limelight for his literary work in Bhojpuri Tasveer Zindagi ke and for his contributions in development of Bhojpuri Literature. In the United States, Sailesh Mishra, another contemporary Bhojpuri activist, poet and writer has been credited as the founder of Bhojpuri Association of North America (BANA) and for his contributions in promoting Bhojpuri language and culture aross the globe.

See also

• Hindustani language
• Languages of India
• List of national languages of India
• List of Indian languages by total speakers

References

External links

Bhojpuri language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Anjoria:: The First Website in Bhojpuri
• BhojpuriAnjoria:: Website in English for promoting Bhojpuri.
• Bihari
• ChauriChaura.Com:: Bhojpuri- visit for Bhojpuri songs and news
• Bhojpuri.org :: Bhojpuri Sansaar - A Global Network of Bhojpuri Professional
• Bhojpuri Folk Songs - Collection of Bhojpuri Folk Songs
• Bhojpuria: Portal for Bhojpuri Speaking people
• A Global Database of Bhojpuri Professional
• Bhojpuriduniya.com A superhit website in Bhojpuri
• Ethnologue report for Bhojpuri
• Bhojpuri Association of North America - BANA
• Bhojpuri Poems - Blog
• Bhojpuri Basics

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia