Indo-Aryan language spoken in India
Surjapuri is an eastern Indo-Aryan language of the Bihari branch,[2] spoken in Eastern India including North Bengal, West Bengal, and some eastern parts of Purnia division of Bihar, as well as Jhapa District in Nepal, Goalpara Division of Assam in India and Rangpur Division in Bangladesh. Among speakers in some regions, it is known as 'Deshi Bhasa'. It is considered a mix of Hindi, Maithili and Bengali.[3]
Geographical distribution
Surjapuri is mainly spoken of Surjapuri Bengali in the parts of Purnia division (Kishanganj, Katihar, Purnia, and Araria districts) of Bihar.[4] It is also spoken in West Bengal (Uttar Dinajpur and Dakshin Dinajpur districts, and in North Malda of Malda district, specially in Harishchandrapur and Chanchal area and Siliguri city of Darjeeling district – part of the North Bengal region within the Jalpaiguri division), Bangladesh (Thakurgaon District) as well as in parts of eastern Nepal of Jhapa District and Morang District. As of 2011, it had 18,57,930 speakers in Bihar.[3]
Related languages
Surjapuri is associated with the Kamtapuri language (and its dialects Goalpariya, Rajbanshi and Koch Rajbangshi) spoken in North Bengal and Western Assam,[5] as well as with Hindi, Bengali, and Maithili.[3]
Pronouns
|
|
Singular
|
Plural
|
| nominative |
oblique
|
nominative |
oblique
|
| 1st person
|
mũi
|
mo-
|
hāmrā
|
hāmsā-, hāmcā-
|
| 2nd person
|
tũi
|
to-
|
tumrā, tomrā
|
tumsā-, tomsā-
|
| 3rd person
|
proximal
|
yāhāy
|
yahā-
|
emrā, erā
|
ismā-, isā-
|
| distal
|
wahā̃y
|
wahā-
|
amrā, worā
|
usmā-, usā-
|
Surjapuri has the oblique plural suffixes: sā (hamsā-, tomsā-) and smā (ismā-, usmā-). They are also seen in Early Assamese as: sā (āmāsā-, tomāsā-) and sambā (esambā-, tesambā-) and their occurrences are similar.[9]
