MP Language, Dialects and Literature: Exam Notes

Hindi is the official language of Madhya Pradesh and is written in Devanagari, but the Hindi of the state is spoken through a belt of regional dialects, each tied to a historical region, and alongside them stand tribal languages that do not belong to the Indo-Aryan family at all. Examiners build questions on three things: which dialect belongs to which region, which language family a tribal tongue belongs to, and which writer or award belongs to the state.

The five main dialects and their regions

The five dialects usually counted for Madhya Pradesh are Malwi, Nimadi, Bundeli, Bagheli and the Braj or Kannauji speech of the northern districts. Malwi belongs to the Malwa plateau, that is Indore, Ujjain, Dewas, Ratlam, Mandsaur and Shajapur. Nimadi belongs to the Nimar tract south of the Vindhyas along the Narmada, in Khargone, Khandwa, Barwani and Burhanpur. Bundeli, also called Bundelkhandi, belongs to Bundelkhand in the north, in Sagar, Damoh, Chhatarpur, Tikamgarh and Panna. Bagheli, also called Baghelkhandi or Riwai, belongs to Baghelkhand in the east, in Rewa, Satna, Sidhi and Shahdol. In the Gwalior, Bhind and Morena country the speech shades into Braj and Kannauji.

How Grierson classified them

George Abraham Grierson, who directed the Linguistic Survey of India, did not group these dialects as one. He placed Bagheli in Eastern Hindi, along with Awadhi and Chhattisgarhi. He placed Bundeli, Braj and Kannauji in Western Hindi, along with Khari Boli and Bangru. Malwi and Nimadi he placed under Rajasthani, along with Marwari and Jaipuri. This split is a favourite question, because students assume that all the dialects of one state must sit in one group.

Tribal languages of the state

Madhya Pradesh has the largest tribal population of any state, and its tribal languages come from three different families. Gondi, spoken by the Gond people of the Satpura and Mahakoshal belt, belongs to the Dravidian family, which is why it stands apart from the Hindi dialects around it. Bhili and Bhilali, spoken by the Bhils of the western districts such as Jhabua, Alirajpur and Dhar, belong to the Indo-Aryan family and are close to Gujarati and Rajasthani. Korku, spoken in the Betul, Chhindwara and Khandwa hills, belongs to the Munda branch of the Austroasiatic family. In the census these are returned as separate mother tongues, and Bhili and Gondi are the largest of them in the state.

Sanskrit and medieval literature

Ujjain, the capital of ancient Avanti and the seat of the Vikramaditya legend, is the city with which Kalidasa is associated, and his Meghaduta describes Ujjayini with affection. His Abhijnanashakuntalam, Raghuvamsha, Kumarasambhava, Ritusamhara, Vikramorvashiyam and Malavikagnimitram make him the central figure of Sanskrit poetry and drama. The Sanskrit dramatist Bhavabhuti, author of Uttararamacharita, Malatimadhava and Mahaviracharita, is linked with Padmavati, identified with Pawaya in Gwalior district. In the medieval period Keshavdas, the acharya of the riti school, served the court of Orchha and wrote Ramchandrika, Kavipriya and Rasikpriya. The Bundeli bard Jagnik is credited with the Alha Khand, the ballad cycle of Alha and Udal, and Isuri is the poet of the Bundeli chaukadiya fag songs.

Modern Hindi writers and state awards

Makhanlal Chaturvedi, born at Babai in the Narmadapuram country, wrote Pushp ki Abhilasha and Him Tarangini, and the Sahitya Akademi Award for Him Tarangini was the first Sahitya Akademi Award given in Hindi. Bhavani Prasad Mishra of the same district wrote Satpura ke Ghane Jungle and received the Sahitya Akademi Award for Buni Hui Rassi. Harishankar Parsai, the master of Hindi vyangya or satire, received the Sahitya Akademi Award for Viklang Shraddha ka Daur. Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh, born in the Sheopur area and long associated with Ujjain, wrote Chand ka Munh Tedha Hai, and Sharad Joshi of Ujjain carried satire into journalism; Subhadra Kumari Chauhan, author of the ballad on the Rani of Jhansi, spent her working life in Jabalpur.

The state gives a set of national awards through its culture department: the Kalidas Samman for the classical arts, instituted in 1980 and centred on Ujjain, the Kabir Samman for poetry, the Tulsi Samman for folk and tribal art, the Tansen Samman for music, and the Iqbal Samman for creative writing in Urdu. Bharat Bhavan at Bhopal, opened in 1982 and designed by Charles Correa, houses the poetry centre Vagarth, and the state also runs an academy for the development of tribal folk art and dialects.