Bagri
बागड़ी, باگڑی[1]
Bagri in Devanagari and Arabic Nastaliq scripts.
Native to	India Pakistan
Region	Bagar
Ethnicity	Bagri
Native speakers	1,890,815 (2011 census)[2] 2001 Census 2,081,044 speakers of Bagri Rajasthani and Punjabi Bagri.[3]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Western Rajasthani–Marwari Rajasthani Bagri
Writing system	Devanagari, Arabic Script (Nastaliq)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bgq
Glottolog	bagr1243

The Bagri language (باگڑی/बागड़ी) is a language that forms a dialect bridge between Haryanvi, Rajasthani, and Punjabi and takes its name from the Bagar tract region of Northwestern India.^[4] The speakers are mostly in India, with pockets in the Bahawalpur and Bahawalnagar districts of Punjab in Pakistan.

Bagri is a typical Indo-Aryan language akin to Haryanvi, Punjabi and Rajasthani with SOV word order. The most striking phonological feature of Bagri is the presence of three lexical tones: high, mid, and low, akin to Punjabi.^[5] The language has a very high (65%) lexical similarity with Haryanvi. According to the 2011 Census, there are 234,227 speakers of Bagri Rajasthani and 1,656,588 speakers of Punjabi Bagri.^[6]

Features

Phonology

Bagri distinguishes 31 consonants including a retroflex series, 10 vowels, 2 diphthongs and 3 tones.

Declension

• There are two numbers: singular and plural.
• Two genders: masculine and feminine.
• Three cases: simple, oblique, and vocative. Case marking is partly inflectional and partly postpositional.
• Nouns are declined according to their final segments.
• All pronouns are inflected for number and case but gender is distinguished only in the third person singular pronouns.
• The third person pronouns are distinguished on the proximity/remoteness dimension in each gender.
• Adjectives are of two types: either ending in /-o/ or not.
• Cardinal numbers up to ten are inflected.
• Both present and past participles function as adjectives.

Verbs

• There are three tenses and four moods.

Syntax

• Sentence types are of traditional nature.^{[clarification needed]}
• Coordination and subordination are very important in complex sentences.
• Parallel lexicon are existing and are very important from sociolinguistic point of view.^{[clarification needed]}

Samples

Work on Bagri

• Grierson, G. A. 1908. (Reprint 1968). Linguistic Survey of India. Volume IX, Part II. New Delhi: Motilal Banarasidass
• Gusain, Lakhan. 1994. Reflexives in Bagri. M.Phil. dissertation. New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University
• Gusain, Lakhan. 1999. A Descriptive Grammar of Bagri. Ph.D. dissertation. New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University
• Gusain, Lakhan. 2000a. Limitations of Literacy in Bagri. Nicholas Ostler & Blair Rudes (eds.). Endangered Languages and Literacy. Proceedings of the Fourth FEL Conference. University of North Carolina, Charlotte, 21–24 September 2000
• Gusain, Lakhan. 2000b. Bagri Grammar. Munich: Lincom Europa (Languages of the World/Materials, 384)
• Gusain, Lakhan. 2008. Bagri Learners' Reference Grammar. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Northside Publishers
• Wilson, J. 1883. Sirsa Settlement Report. Chandigarh: Government Press

Gallery

Regions where Bagri is spoken: