Ahirwati

Not to be confused with the Ahirani and Ahiri dialects, spoken in other parts of India.

Ahirwati (Ahīrvāṭī, sometimes also known as Hīrwāṭī)^[1] is an Indo-Aryan dialect of India. It is spoken within the Ahirwal region located to the south-west of the capital Delhi. It belongs to the Rajasthani language group and is commonly taken to be a dialect of Mewati,^[2] but in many respects it is intermediate with the neighbouring varieties of Haryanvi and Bagri, and is especially close to Shekhawati.^[3]

Ahirwati
Native to	India
Region	Ahirwal
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Rajasthani Mewati Ahirwati
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Ahirwati
Coordinates: 28.3°N 76.5°E / 28.3; 76.5

There are no reliable census figures for the number of speakers.^[4] In the past it was variously written in either Devanagari, Gurmukhi, or the Perso-Arabic script.^[5]

A peculiar feature of the grammar of Ahirwati is the use of the same postposition to mark both the agent (in certain tenses) and the object.^[6]

Geographic distribution

60km
37miles

Behror

Bawal

Najafgarh

Jhajjar

Sohna

Loharu

   

Haryana and surrounding areas with some of the locations mentioned in this section. Places where Ahirwati is spoken are in dark red.

Ahirwati is spoken mostly in the south of Haryana. At its maximal extent, its territory extends from Loharu in the west to Sohna in the east, and from Jhajjar and Najafgarh in the north to Bawal and Narnaul to Behror in the south. It encompasses partially or fully the districts of Mahendragarh, Jhajjar, Rewari, and Gurgaon, as well as the areas of Taoru in Nuh district (all in Haryana), Behror, Mundawar (in the district of Alwar, Rajasthan), Kotputli (in the district of Jaipur, Rajasthan), Najafgarh (in Delhi), and additionally an enclave further to the north in the region of Hansi, in Hisar district.^[7]

Ahirwati folk song sung by elderly women

Ahirwati's neighbouring dialects are Bangru and Bagri to the north, Shekhawati and Torawati to the west, and Mewati to the south.^[8]