Desia language

Desia
Desiya, Desia Odia
ଦେଶିଆ
Native toIndia
RegionOdisha (Koraput, Malkangiri, Rayagada, Nabarangpur) & Andhra Pradesh ( Vizianagaram District, Alluri Sitharama Raju district , Visakhapatnam District, Anakapalli district)
EthnicityOdias
Native speakers
230,000 (2011 census)
Odia
Language codes
ISO 639-3Either:
dso – Desiya
ort – Adivasi Oriya
Glottologadiv1239

Desia,[1] also Desiya or Desia Odia or Koraputi Odia or Southwestern Odia, is an Indo-Aryan language variety (sociolinguistically considered as a dialect of Odia) spoken in Koraput, Nabarangpur, Rayagada, Malkangiri districts Odisha and in the hilly regions of Vishakhapatnam and Vizianagaram districts of Andhra Pradesh.[2] The variant spoken in Koraput is called Koraputia.

Desia serves as the lingua franca among the different ethnic groups in the area[3] and is the major regional tribal-non-tribal dialect continuum of the undivided Koraput district of the Southwestern Odisha region.[4][5][6][7][8]

Phonology[edit]

Desia variety has 21 consonant phonemes, 2 semivowel phonemes and 6 vowel phonemes.[9]

Desia vowel phonemes
Front Central Back
High i u
Mid e o
Low a ɔ

There are no long vowels in Desia just like Standard Odia.

Desia consonant phonemes
Labial Alveolar
/Dental
Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n ŋ
Stop/
Affricate
voiceless p t ʈ k
voiceless aspirated
voiced b d ɖ ɡ
voiced aspirated
Fricative s ɦ
Trill/Flap ɾ ɽ~ɽʰ
Lateral approximant l
Approximant w j

Desia shows loss of both voiceless and voiced aspirated consonants as well as retroflex consonants like retroflex unaspirated nasal(voiced retroflex nasal) ɳ () and voiced retroflex lateral approximant [ɭ] () which are present in Standard Odia.

References[edit]

  1. ^ Masica (1991:426)
  2. ^ "Desiya", in Eberhard, David M., Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig, eds. (2020). Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Twenty-third edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International.
  3. ^ Gustafsson, Uwe (1978). "Procedural discourse in Kotia Oriya". In Joseph E. Grimes (ed.), Papers on discourse, 283-97. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
  4. ^ Mohan, Shriya (January 10, 2018). "Speak up, India". The Hindu.
  5. ^ Vishnu, Uma (May 15, 2016). "This way to school: How dismal indicators for education in Odisha's Nabarangpur are slowly changing". The Indian Express.
  6. ^ "Census of India : Linguistic survey of India Orissa".
  7. ^ Mahapatra, B.P. (2002). Linguistic Survey of India: Orissa (PDF). Kolkata, India: Language Division, Office of the Registrar General. p. 2. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
  8. ^ Mahapatra, B.P. (2002). Linguistic Survey of India: Orissa (PDF). Kolkata, India: Language Division, Office of the Registrar General. p. 20. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
  9. ^ Mahapatra, B.P. (2002). Linguistic Survey of India: Orissa (PDF). Kolkata, India: Language Division, Office of the Registrar General. p. 94,95. Retrieved 5 August 2020.

Further reading[edit]

  • Masica, Colin (1991). The Indo-Aryan Languages. Cambridge Language Surveys. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-29944-2.