Saurashtra language

Saurashtra belongs to the western branch of the Indo-Aryan languages, a dominant language family of the Indian subcontinent. It is part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is also classified as being part of a Gujaratic languages that, alongside Saurashtra includes the languages like Gujarati (see SIL Ethnologue).

Saura is a Sanskrit term meaning flame or dawn of Surya and the people worshiping Surya or Saura are called as Saurashtrians, the speakers of Saurashtra were once sun worshipers and have built sun temples dedicated to the Hindu deity Surya.[7][8]

As per one school of thought, “Saurashtra” means 100 nations (Sau + Rashtra), but as per another school of thought, this is a fractured speech of “Su-Rashtra” and its Prakrit name Sorath, which literally means "good country".[9] Many Sanskrit words are coined from the Prakrit language of Sauraseni or Shauraseni language now called as Saurashtra.[7]

The oldest available inscriptions in Saurashtra are found in Mandasaur, which is a city in the Malwa region (present day Madhya Pradesh). The language is the modern living and active form of ancient Sauraseni Prakrit. However, it also shows some similarities with Maharashtri Prakrit, the ancestor of Marathi and Konkani.[3]

Saurashtra was once commonly spoken in the coastal areas of Mahi and Tapti rivers, which extends throughout the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh and Saurashtra region of southern Gujarat. It was also spoken by the people living along Konkan region, which extends throughout the western coasts of Maharashtra, Goa and Karnataka.[3]

Saurashtra is a amalgamation of various present day Indo-Aryan languages like Marathi, Konkani, Gujarati and the older dialects of Rajasthani and Sindhi. However, the current spoken form of Saurashtra is mixed with the Dravidian languages like Kannada, Telugu and Tamil and it might have originated in 16th or early 17th century.[3]

Speakers of the Saurashtra language, known as Saurashtrians, maintain a predominant presence in Madurai, Thanjavur, Salem, Dindigul, Tiruchirappalli, Tirunelveli, Kanchipuram, Ramanathapuram, Kanyakumari, Chennai, Tiruvannamalai and Vellore Districts of Tamil Nadu.[4] They are also present in significant numbers in Tirupati of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.[4] Though official figures are hard to come by, it is believed that the Saurashtra population is anywhere between one-fifth and one-fourth of the city's total population.

In the course of migration, Saurashtrians moved in groups and settled in different regions of South India and that caused a slight dialect variation between each group and is noticeable by a Saurashtrian speaker when interacting with another group. Saurashtra language has two dialects, which are broadly similar, with slight variations.

The two dialects are:

1. Northern Saurashtra[4]
2. Southern Saurashtra[4]

However, there are numerous variations and dialects of the Saurashtra language. The different dialects can be based off the location within northern and southern parts of Tamil Nadu. Those are Madurai, Thanjavur, Salem, Tirunelveli and Kanchipuram dialects and Tirupati dialect of Andhra Pradesh.

The phoneme inventory of Saurashtra is similar to that of many other Indo-Aryan languages, especially that of the Konkani language. An IPA chart of all contrastive sounds in Saurashtra is provided below.

The language itself is more similar to modern day Gujarati and Marathi as both originated from Prakrit. However, in the course of migration to South India, the language was influenced by Dravidian Languages such as Telugu and Kannada and accumulated words from those language in its vocabulary as loanwords.

In recent times, the rising awareness about Saurashtra language among the young generation has led to the publication of magazines. The following are the list of magazines currently published-[9]

• Bhashabhimani
• Sourashtratime e-journal
• Zeeg
• Sourashtra Mithran
• Sourashtra Samachar

The literature of Saurashtra is not as large as the literature of other literary languages such as Sanskrit, Tamil and Telugu. The earliest available Saurashtra literature that survives to this date is the Saurashtra translation of the great Sanskrit epic of Ramayana. It was written by Venkatasoori Swamigal (1800 AD), a Sanskrit scholar and disciple of Venkataramana Bhagavathar who lived in Ayyampettai of Thanjavur district.[13]

Other important literary works in Saurashtra are:

• Bhagavad Gita (Bhagavat Giito) 1953 AD - written by T.R.Padmanabhaiyer
• Tirukkural (Saurashtra Thirukural Payiram—Pitika Pragaranam) 1980 AD - translated by Sankhu Ram[14]
• Mahabharata (Paandavun Khetho) 2013 AD - written by Kasin Anantham[15]
• Silappatikaram 2018 AD - translated by S.D.Gnaneswaran[16]

Besides Tirukkural, Sankhu Ram has done many literary works in Saurashtra like Gnanamritha Geetham, Shiddhashrama Prabhaavam and so on. The first Saurashtra dictionary was brought out by T.M. Rama Rai, the author of Vachana Ramayana, in 1908. It was printed in Saurashtra script and was in the form of slokas. Apart from these he is also credited for Niti Sambu and Natanagopala Nayaki Swami's Kirthanas.[11]

The Sahitya Akademi Award is given to authors writing in the Saurashtra language since 2007. A former Sanskrit Professor of Sourashtra College in Madurai, T.R. Damodaran won the award for his book Jiva Sabda Kosam, a compilation of 1,333 Saurashtra words with English and Tamil meanings. However, Saroja Sundararajan, was also awarded for Yogendran Monnum Singaru Latun (in Tamil, ‘Yogendra Thalaivarkalin Manathiley Ezhuntha Azhagiya Alaigal’), a rendition of works of Adi Sankara’s Soundaryalahiri, Kanagadhara stotra and Mahishasuramarthini stotra, Natana Gopala Nayagi Swami’s ‘Mooschi Deshad,’ ‘Subramanian Mahatmiyam’ and songs of Sai Baba.[13]

• Saraostus
• Saurashtra Kingdom
• Saurashtra (region)
• Saurashtra (state)
• Saurashtra people
• Saurashtra script
• Saurashtra (Unicode block)
• Gujarati languages

• Sourashtra World

Saurashtra language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator