Bagri language

The Bagri language (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. The speakers are mostly in India, in the Anupgarh, Hanumagarh and Sri Ganganagar district of Rajasthan , Sirsa and Fatehabad district of Haryana, Fazilka district of Punjab in India. 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. The language has a very high (65%) lexical similarity with Haryanvi. According to the 2011 Census, there are 234,227 speakers of Bagri in Rajasthan and 1,656,588 speakers of Bagri in Punjab. Bagri distinguishes 31 consonants including a retroflex series, 10 vowels, 2 diphthongs and 3 tones. 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. There are three tenses and four moods. Sentence types are of traditional nature. Coordination and subordination are very important in complex sentences. Parallel lexicon are existing and are very important from sociolinguistic point of view. There are two varieties of Bagri, Bagri Rajasthani and Bagri Punjabi. During the census, Bagri Rajasthani, spoken in Haryana and Rajasthan, is considered a Hindi dialect while Bagri Punjabi, spoken in Punjab, is considered a Punjabi dialect. Grierson, G. A. 1908. (Reprint 1968). Linguistic Survey of India.