Gujarati

Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian state of Gujarat. It is part of the greater Indo-European language family. Gujarati is the 26th most spoken native language in the world, with 46.1 million speakers worldwide. It is the 8th most widely spoken language in India.

History

The history of Gujarati language can be traced back to the 12th century. It evolved from a dialect of the Gurjara Apabhramsa. It reached a distinctive form by the 16th century. The first grammar of the language was written by Jain monk and scholar Hemachandra Suri in the reign of Solanki king Siddharaj Jaisinh of Anhilwara.

Dialects

Gujarati has about 11 dialects, broadly classified into two categories: Saurashtra Standard, and Non-Saurashtra Standard. The former includes the standard dialect, while the latter includes the Surati, Pattani, Kharwa, Kathiawari, and East African Gujarati dialects.

Script

The Gujarati script was adapted from the Devanagari script to write the Gujarati language. The earliest known document in the Gujarati script is a manuscript dating from 1592, and the script first appeared in print in a 1797 advertisement.

Phonology

Gujarati has a relatively small vowel inventory that is common among Indo-Aryan languages. It has 7 vowel phonemes, i.e., sounds that differentiate word meaning.

Grammar

Gujarati is a highly inflected language with a rich verbal morphology. Like all Indo-Aryan languages, Gujarati is agglutinative, i.e., it adds suffixes to nominal stems to mark grammatical categories.

Vocabulary

The core vocabulary of Gujarati is Indo-Aryan. It has also borrowed words from Persian, Arabic, Portuguese, English and other languages.

Literature

Gujarati literature's history may be traced to 1000 AD. The history of Gujarati literature includes the folklore, the saint-poets, the Bhakti movement, the social reform movement, trends of modernization and cultural cross-currents.

See also

• Indian languages
• Indo-Aryan languages
• Gujarat

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