Bhojpuri Language

Bhojpuri  is a regional language spoken in parts of north-central and eastern India. It is spoken in the western part of state of Bihar, the northwestern part of Jharkhand, and thePurvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh, as well as an adjoining area of southern plains ofNepal. Bhojpuri is also spoken in Guyana,Suriname, Fiji, Trinidad and Tobago andMauritius. The variant of Bhojpuri of the Surinamese Hindustanis, is also referred toSarnami Hindi or just Sarnami when it is mixed with (Creole) English or Dutch words. In Guyana and Trinidad a smaller percentage of the Indians know Bhojpuri compared to Suriname.

The Bhojpuri language is part of the Eastern-Hindi or Begali continuum of languages which once exended from Assam and Begal to Benares. While the rest of Bihar and Up slowly adopted the new Hindi standard, the language remained strong in the areas between Patna and Benares. The government of India while taking census, disagree, and consider Bhojpuri to be a dialect of Hindi. But now the government of India is preparing to grant it statutory status as a national scheduled language.

Bhojpuri shares vocabulary with Sanskrit,Hindi, Urdu and other Indo-Aryan languagesof northern India. Bhojpuri and several closely related languages, including Maithiliand Magadhi, are together known as theBihari languages. They are part of the Eastern Zone group of Indo-Aryan languages which includes Bengali and Oriya.

There are numerous dialects of Bhojpuri, including three or four in eastern Uttar Pradesh alone.

The scholar, polymath and polyglot Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan had written some works inBhojpuri.^[1] Other eminent writers include Viveki Rai. There have been other writers who have written in Bhojpuri but the number is small compared to the number of speakers. Some other notable Bhojpuri personalities are legendary freedom fighter Swami Sahajanand Saraswati, firstpresident of India Rajendra Prasad, Manoj Bajpai, and former Indian prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, Chandra Shekhar. Bihar Kokila Padma Shri Sharda Sinha is a famous Bhojpuri folk singer.