Gutob language
| Gutob | |
|---|---|
| Bodo Gadaba | |
| ଗଦବା | |
| Native to | India |
| Region | Odisha, Andhra Pradesh |
| Ethnicity | Gadaba people |
Native speakers | 10-15,000 (2008)[1] |
Austroasiatic
| |
| Odia script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | gbj |
| Glottolog | bodo1267 |
| ELP | Gutob |
 Gutob is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger[2] | |
The Gutob or Bodo Gadaba language is a south Munda language of the Austroasiatic language family of India, with the greatest concentrations of speakers being found in Koraput district of Odisha and Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh. It is also known simply as the Gadaba language, but it is different from the Dravidian Gadaba language. Other names for the Bodo Gadaba language include Gadba, Gutop, Gudwa, Godwa, Gadwa, and Boi Gadaba.
Classification
[edit]The Gutob language belongs to the South Munda subgroup of the Munda branch of the Austroasiatic language family. It is most closely related to the Bondo language.[3]
Distribution
[edit]Gutob is spoken across southern Odisha and adjacent districts of northern Andhra Pradesh, and is concentrated primarily in Lamptaput block, Koraput district, southern Odisha.[4] In recent centuries, Gutob speakers have also migrated to the plains of Andhra Pradesh as well as Rayagada District, including near the town Majiguda (close to Kalyansinghpur) where they live alongside the Dravidian-speaking Kondhs.
Ethnologue reports the following locations.
- 40 villages of Lamptaput block, Koraput district, southern Odisha
- Khoirput block, Malkangiri district, southern Odisha
- Visakhapatnam district, northern Andhra Pradesh
Language status
[edit]The Gutob language is considered to be either endangered or moribund, due in part to several hydroelectric projects that have displaced Gutob people from their traditional villages and forced them to live as minorities in primarily Desiya-speaking villages. Anderson (2008) estimates the number of speakers at around 10 to 15,000, while the Asha Kiran society, which works in Koraput, estimates the number at less than 5,000. Virtually there are no Gutob monolinguals. The 2011 census most likely counts Gutob and Ollari as the same language, since they are both called Gadaba by outsiders. Although Gutob-language education has been attempted, it has faced stiff resistance and most parents still want their children to learn Desiya only due to being in mixed villages.[5]
Phonology
[edit]Consonant
[edit]| Bilabial | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | voiceless | p | t | ʈ | tʃ | k | ʔ |
| voiced | b | d | ɖ | dʒ | ɡ | ||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | (h) | ||||
| voiced | z | ||||||
| Affricate | voiceless | ts | |||||
| voiced | dz | ||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||
| Approximant | l | j | |||||
| Trill | r | (ɽ) | |||||
- /p/ can be fricativized in initial position to near that of /ɸ/ and /f/.
- In intervocalic position, labial phonemes may be realized as /b/; /ɖ/ as /ɽ/, velars as /g/ and optionally Ø.
- Intervocalic /ŋ/ is dropped in utterance if the following phoneme is a vowel.
Vowels
[edit]| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i [i, ɪ] | u [u] | |
| Mid | e [e, ɛ] | o [o, ɔ] | |
| Open | a [a, ʌ, ɑ] | ||
| Diphthong | /ai, ia, au, ao, oi, io, ou, ei, ie, eu/ | ||
Prosody
[edit]According to Voß, L-H word pattern is found across all Gutob words. Stress usually falls in the second syllable of Gutob disyllables and final syllable in other words. However, in verbal forms with trisyllables, the patterns may be unpredictable.[7]
Morphology
[edit]Nouns and NPs
[edit]Number
[edit]Gutob distinguish two numbers: singular (-Ø) and plural (-nen). The plural is not obligatorily marked.
Person
[edit]Kinship terms in Gutob are marked for inalienable possession by third possessives -ɖei/ɖoi.
Case
[edit]Case marking in Gutob is not an overtly component in the nominals= morphology, but is considered highly important in neighboring Indo-Aryan languages and Dravidian languages. According to Griffiths, there are three postpositions (suffixes) that always attach to pronouns and NPs to show cases: the unmarked subjective, the genitive/attributive/possessive -nu, and objective/oblique -pulai on nominals and pronouns, and o- on pronouns. In some cases, if the indirect object and the direct object in the same clause are both animate, the former will be marked.
Pronouns
[edit]| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st person | niŋ | nei/naj |
| 2nd person | nom | pen |
| 3rd person | maj | majnen |
Verbs
[edit]Pronominal markers
[edit]Like Kherwarian languages (such as Santali), Kharia, and Remo, person indexation (subject) in Gutob verb (TAM/person-syntagma) is achieved solely through enclitics.
| singular | plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st person | =niŋ | =nei/=naj |
| 2nd person | =nom | =pen |
| 3rd person | =Ø | =nen |
The placement of subject enclitics in Gutob predicates is extremely variable, unlike fixed positions in Kharia, Remo, and Kherwarian. Study by Just & Voß (2023) found that subject enclitics are also highly sensitive to discourse; they are often placed wherever the topic is the most prominent. These sets Gutob person indexation system apart from the normal clines of Munda indexation.[8]
In complex predicates with the presence of an auxiliary verb, the person markers are repeated not only for the lexical verb but also for the auxiliary. However the AVC double marking pattern in Gutob may have considerable variation regarding the placement of the subject enclitics due to pragmatic discourse-oriented factors.
sobu
all
paiʈi
work
niŋ
I
ɖem=oʔ=niŋ
do=MID.PST=1SG
beɽbe?=niŋ
AUX=1SG
'I did all the work.'
loʈei=oʔ=niŋ
have.sex.with.woman=MID.PST=1
beɽ=oʔ=su
AUX=MID.PST=SS
'After I had sex with her.'
Tense-mood-aspect-aktionsart
[edit]| Gutob TAM paradigm | Affirmative | Negative | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Valency | Transitive | Intransitive | Transitive | Intransitive |
| Imperfective | =loŋ | =tu | =a | =Ø |
| Past | =gV | =oʔ | =to | |
| Imperative | =a | =Ø | =gV | =oʔ |
| Habitual | =to | – | ||
| Optative | =e | =e | ||
Voice
[edit]In Gutob as well as other Munda languages, the active and the middle voices are morphologically fused with TAM markers (per transitivity of the TAM/person-syntagma showed in the above table, respectively).
Noun incorporation
[edit]Gutob, like Remo, has fossilized and unproductive lexical noun incorporation with the head verb is always placed in the initial position, then followed by nouns (mostly body parts).
iŋmoʔ
shut.eye
'eye-closing'
Syntax
[edit]The general word order in Gutob is SOV. Areally, Gutob NPs have all modifiers and demonstratives put before the noun, but there is evidence pertaining a different NP structure in an earlier stage of this language.[9]
References
[edit]- ^ Voß, Judith (2015-01-01). "Person markers in Gutob". Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics. 2 (2): 215–240. doi:10.1515/jsall-2015-0011. ISSN 2196-0771. S2CID 151570154.
- ^ Moseley, Christopher; Nicolas, Alexander, eds. (2010). Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (PDF) (3rd ed.). Paris: UNESCO. pp. 46–47. ISBN 978-92-3-104096-2. Archived from the original on 23 July 2022.
- ^ Ethnologue report on the Bodo Gadaba language
- ^ Griffiths (2008:634)
- ^ "Literature development in minority language: Case study of Gutob–Gadaba Language Revitalization Project in India" (in .pdf format)
- ^ Griffiths (2008:638)
- ^ Hildebrandt, Kristine; Anderson, Gregory D. S. (2023). "Word Prominence in Languages of Southern Asia". In Hulst, Harry van der; Bogomolets, Ksenia (eds.). Word Prominence in Languages with Complex Morphologies. Oxford University Press. pp. 520–564. doi:10.1093/oso/9780198840589.003.0017. ISBN 978-0-19-884058-9.
- ^ Just, Erika; Voß, Judith (2023). "Variable index placement in Gutob from a typological perspective". Studies in Language. 47 (4): 870–899. doi:10.1075/sl.21042.jus – via University of Zurich.
- ^ Griffiths (2008:665)
- Griffiths, Arlo. 2008. In Anderson, Gregory D.S (ed). The Munda languages, 633–681. Routledge Language Family Series 3.New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-32890-X.