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Many outside of Bihar take it for granted that a Bihari speaks Bhojpuri or Biharian and believe that both are an aberrant form of Hindi. Often, Bihari is used as a synonym for Bhojpuri.
The truth is, Biharis do not speak Bihari because it is a geographic identity, not a language. An Irishman by the name of George Abraham Grierson, during the first modern linguistic study of India, grouped all the languages of Bihar into a single category called Bihari languages. This is how the languages spoken in this particular geography Bhojpuri, Maithili, Magahi, Angika, Bajjika, etc. became known as the Bihari language (s).
Over the following years, the Indian government officially used the term Bihari dialect (s) in several censuses to list dialects in Hindi. Later, the Grierons classification and government enumeration of Bihar languages generated expressions like Bihari languages, Bihari Hindi or simply Bihari. Bihari Languages is academic jargon that primarily represents the languages of Bihar. Bihari Hindi, in this context, is the result of the government categorization of the languages of Bihar, except Maithili, as dialects of Hindi. Bihari, on the other hand, is a general, non-academic term that refers to any or all of the languages of Bihar for the rest of India.
Ironically, most Biharis who have not migrated to other parts of India are still unaware that the language they speak has a different name, namely Bihari, other than the traditional name. Those who have migrated to other states find this colonial currency insignificant or fail to muster the strength required to counter the established narrative.
The only language of Bihar recognized by the Indian Constitution is Maithili, in accordance with the 92nd Amendment of 2003. Bhojpurii is recognized as a dialect. However, for a linguist, the distinction between language and dialect is controversial. The artificial distinction is more political than linguistic. Because each dialect corresponds to the language settings, it can be easily considered a language. Therefore, in this article, any linguistic system, including Bhojpuri, has been referred to as a language and not a dialect.
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Not another form of Hindi
The misconception associated with bhojpuri that it is just another form of Hindi creates a situation where authenticity is seen as a distortion, which then becomes a ground for ridicule.
The pronunciation of the palatine fricative consonant () is a nightmare for a bihari language because the speaker often substitutes his articulation with dental fricative consonants (). This notorious substitution, which is purely based on the nature of the acquired language as a mother tongue, causes amusing moments for listeners and perpetual annoyance for the speaker, who can only be a Bihari.
The mere articulation of simple Bhojpuri sentences generates a smile on the faces of the ignorant as well as educated Indians who neither understand nor speak it. If by any chance a Bihari doesn’t sound like a stereotypical Bihari phonetically, his colleagues never fail to make him understand that he must look like a typical Bihari. Additionally, a linguistically conscious Bihari like me (although I am often overcorrected) hears comments as if you are not speaking or sounding like a Bihari. Surprisingly, I still haven’t decided whether to take it as a compliment or a comment.
This happens because the pronunciation of a Bihari is marked by territorial nativeness, which seems non-standard compared to Hindi phonology. However, Bhojpuri is an independent linguistic system. It has its own phonological branch which creates such phonotactic constraints that give unique phonetic forms to various Bhojpuri words. To put it simply, Bhojpuri has more suction sounds than Hindi, which affects the standard pronunciation of common Hindi words. For example, standard Hindi does not recognize aspirated forms of / l / (), / m / () or / n / () as phonemes, whereas in Bhojpuri / l / (), / m / () or / n / () appear as a minimal pair and not as allophones or two distinct phonemes in joint form.
Therefore, this notion of a non-standard form of Hindi is just a misconception. Moreover, it is the limit of our biological capacities that we could not acquire and articulate the phonemes of these languages which are not our mother tongue. For example, we Indians don’t sound like native English speakers because our mother tongue still influences the articulation of the phonemes of English language words. In this context, a Bhojpuri speaker has already acquired a different phonological system, which by default, if not consciously controlled, will influence and affect the articulation of Hindi sounds.
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Bhojpurisation of the Bihari identity
Apart from Bhojpuri, Biharis speak various other languages Maithili, Magahi, Angika, Bajjika to name a few. When Jharkhand was not separated from Bihar, several rich tribal languages like Kurukh, Mundari, Santali or Ho were also part of this geographic region. I still consider these languages as languages of Bihar. It’s personal and has nothing to do with geopolitics.
If little attention is paid to it, one could easily identify that there is a glaring phonological difference between Hindi spoken by a Bhojpurian speaker and a Maithili or Magahi speaker. However, educated non-Bihari Indians only confused the Bhojpuri language with the Bihari identity, when in reality Bihari is not a homogeneous identity. It contains various sub-identities, marked by distinct linguistic characteristics. For example, Maithili speaking Biharis are Maithil-Biharis, Magahi are Magahi-Biharis or Bhojpuri are Bhojpuriya-Biharis. These sub-identities retain their unique clothing, culinary or painting styles. The veneration of historical figures is also specific to the region. For example, the Maithils revere Vidyapati, a multilingual scholar of the medieval period, while the Bhojpuriyas revere the 1857 freedom fighter Babu Kunwar Singh. Moreover, the ritual ceremonies, with obvious overlaps, are even sui generis in their performance.
However, it is exclusively Bhojpuri that has been subject to derogatory treatment in Bollywood or in television serials because for them, a Bihari speaks only Bhojpuri. Therefore, theoretically, it is the Bhojpuriya-Bihari identity that is in deep crisis and demands serious deferential attention.
The author is Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Regional Director of the Central Institute of Hindi (Shillong Center), Meghalaya. Opinions are personal.
(Edited by Prashant Dixit)
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