Juang language

The Juang language is a Munda language of the Austroasiatic language family spoken primarily by the Juang people of Odisha state, eastern India.

Juang
ଜୁଆଙ୍ଗ
Native to	India
Region	Odisha
Ethnicity	Juang
Native speakers	30,000 (2011 census)[1]
Language family	Austroasiatic Munda South Juang
Writing system	Odia
Language codes
ISO 639-3	jun
Glottolog	juan1238
ELP	Juang
Coordinates: 20°9′0″N 85°30′0″E

Classification

The Juang language belongs to the Munda language family, the whole of which is classified as a branch of the greater Austroasiatic language family. Among the Munda languages, Juang is considered to be most closely related to Kharia, although Anderson considers Juang and Kharia to have split off from each other relatively early.^[1]

Juang can be roughly divided into the Hill and Plains varieties, both of which are spoken in Odisha (Patnaik 2008:508).

• Hill Juang: Gonasika Hills (in Keonjhar district) and Pallara Hills
• Plains Juang: about 147 villages in southern Keonjhar district and eastern Dhenkanal district

Distribution

Juang is spoken by about 30,875 people according to the 2001 Indian census, 65% of ethnic population^[2] In Odisha state, it is spoken in southern Keonjhar district, northern Angul district, and eastern Dhenkanal district (Patnaik 2008:508).

Juang is currently an Endangered language and is considered to vulnerable, or (not spoken by children outside of home).

Juang currently has roughly under 20,000 speakers remaining

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a	ɔ

Consonants

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	voiceless	p	t	ʈ	tʃ	k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d	ɖ	dʒ	ɡ
Fricative			s
Nasal		m	n	ɳ	ɲ	ŋ
Approximant			l,s	ɭ	y
Flap			r

Prosody

Stress in phonological words is always released on the second syllable. In sentence, intonation falls on the last word, usually a verb.

Grammar

Being in state of assimilation into larger Indo-Aryan populations, Juang speakers have borrowed a significant portion of vocabulary from Hindi and Oriya, while the head-marking feature of the language is eroding.

Nominal

Juang differentiates three numbers: singular (unmarked), dual (-kia), and plural (-ki).

The number system is divided into two sets which are used depending on degree of honorificity. For examples, muinʈo ('one') is used to refer something in non-honorific expression, and minog (one.HON) is used to address something in respectful way.

Numeral classifier goʈa is used when numerals occur prenominally.

tini

three

goʈa

CLF

uaɭi-ɖi-ki

child-DEF-PL

tini goʈa uaɭi-ɖi-ki

three CLF child-DEF-PL

'three children'

Juang is a nominative-accusative language; pronouns and noun phrases are unmarked or marked by case markers to indicate syntactic roles.

• Nominative case: unmarked.
• Accusative/Dative cases: -te, sometimes -bo or -bɔ.
• Genitive case: -a/-rɔ/-ra/-ka (-ka for emphatic expressions)
• Locative cases: -bɔ/-ya/-ɖa/-e/-ra/-re
• Ablative case: -ta/-tasun

Gender in Juang is marked by several affixes.

Verb

In Juang a number of roots are clearly exempt from the Transitive verb/Intransitive verb opposition, so that the function of the root can be determined only from its co-occurrence with the particular set of tense markers.

For Example,

pag- Set I 'to break' -Set II 'to be broken1

rag- Set I 'to tear' - Set II 'to be torn1

guj- Set I 'to wash' - Set II 'to be was

Juang verbs are increasingly becoming similar with those of Kharia: object indexing is being lost gradually due to superstratum pressure from Aryan. Nowadays, as it is, Juang object indexing is no longer obligatory or productive as compared to other Munda languages or at the time when Matson (1964) made his observation.^[3][4]

Transitive verb paradigm

		patient
		1SG	1DU	1PL	2SG	2DU	2PL	3SG	3DU	3PL
agent	1SG				Ø-Σ/V/-m[a]	Ø-Σ/V/-pa	Ø-Σ/V/-pe	Ø-Σ/V/-Ø	(-kia)	(-ki)
1DU.INCL				ba-Σ-m	ba-Σ-pa	ba-Σ-pe
1PL.EXCL				nV-Σ-m	nV-Σ-pa	nV-Σ-pe
2SG	mV-Σ-ŋ	mV-Σ-ŋba	mV-Σ-ɲeniɲ
2DU	a-Σ-ŋ	a-Σ-ŋba	a-Σ-ɲeniɲ
2PL	V-Σ-ŋ	V-Σ-ŋba	V-Σ-ɲeniɲ
3SG	Σ/mV/-ŋ	Σ/mV/-ŋba	Σ/mV/-ɲeniɲ	Σ/mV/-m	Σ/mV/-pa	Σ/mV/-pe
3DU	Σ-ŋ-kia	Σ-ŋba-kia	Σ-ɲeniɲ-kia	Σ-m-kia	Σ-pa-kia	Σ-pe-kia
3PL	Σ-ŋ-ki	Σ-ŋba-ki	Σ-ɲeniɲ-ki	Σ-m-ki	Σ-pa-ki	Σ-pe-ki

Writing System

The writing system used by people who speak the Juang language is Odia.

Notes

1. Ø:unmarked, /V/–infixing a vowel, /mV/–infixing m(vowel of the verb stem).