Halbi language

Halbi (also Bastari, Halba, Halvas, Halabi, Halvi) is an Eastern Indo-Aryan language, transitional between Odia and Marathi.^[2] It is spoken by at least 766,297 people across the central part of India.

Halbi
हलबी / ହଲବୀ
Native to	India
Region	Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, and Maharashtra
Ethnicity	Halba
Native speakers	766,297 (2011 census)[1]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Eastern Halbic Halbi
Writing system	Odia, Devanagari
Language codes
ISO 639-3	hlb
Glottolog	halb1244  Halbi
Linguasphere	59-AAF-tb
Halbi-speaking region

The Mehari (or Mahari) dialect is mutually intelligible with the other dialects only with difficulty. There are an estimated 200,000 second-language speakers (as of 2001). In Chhattisgarh educated people are fluent in Hindi. Some first language speakers use Bhatri as second language.

Halbi is often used as a trade language, but there is a low literacy rate. It is written in the Odia and Devanagari scripts.^{[citation needed]} It uses SOV word order (subject-object-verb), makes strong use of affixes, and places adjectives before nouns.

Phonology

Vowels

Halbi has 6 vowels: /i, e, ə, a, o, u/. All vowels show contrastive vowel nasalization.^[3]

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal	voiced	m	n	(ɳ)	(ɲ)	ŋ
	breathy	mʱ	nʱ
Stop/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	ʈ	tʃ	k
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	ʈʰ	tʃʰ	kʰ
	voiced	b	d	ɖ	dʒ	g
	breathy	bʱ	dʱ	ɖʱ	dʒʱ	gʱ
Fricative			s				h
Approximant	voiced	ʋ	l		j
	breathy		lʱ
Rhotic	voiced		r	(ɽ)
	breathy		rʱ	(ɽʱ)

• /n/ is heard as a palatal [ɲ] when preceding palatal affricates, and as retroflex [ɳ] when before retroflex stops.
• Voiced retroflex stops /ɖ, ɖʱ/ are heard as retroflex flaps [ɽ, ɽʱ] when in word-medial positions.