Bhojpuri language

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Bhojpuri
भोजपुरी bhōjapurī
Spoken in: India, Nepal, Mauritius, Netherlands, Fiji, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Singapore, United States, United Kingdom, Réunion, Suriname 
Region: Nepal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Assam, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal
Total speakers: 25 million (1997)
Language family: Indo-European
 Indo-Iranian
  Indo-Aryan
   Eastern Group
    Bihari
     Bhojpuri 
Writing system: Devanagari, Kaithi
Language codes
ISO 639-1: bh
ISO 639-2: bho
ISO 639-3: bho
Indic script
 This page contains Indic text. Without rendering support you may see irregular vowel positioning and a lack of conjuncts. More...

Bhojpuri (pronunciation (help·info)) 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 the Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh, as well as an adjoining area of southern plains of Nepal. Bhojpuri is also spoken in Guyana, Suriname, Fiji, Trinidad and Tobago and Mauritius. The language of the Surinamese Hindus, however, is seldom referred to as Bhojpuri but usually as Sarnami Hindi or just Sarnami.

Others, including 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 languages of northern India. Bhojpuri and several closely related languages, including Maithili and Magadhi, are together known as the Bihari 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 eminent scholar and polyglot, Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan had written some works in Bhojpuri. There have been other writers who have written in Bhojpuri but the number is abysmal compared to the number of speakers. The eminent nationalist, writer, scholar, dandi sanyasi Swami Sahajanand Saraswati belonged to the Bhojpur region of Uttar Pradesh. Some notable Bhojpuri personalities are the first president of India, Rajendra Prasad, Manoj Bajpai, and former Indian prime minister Chandra Shekhar.

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[edit] Number of speakers

According to an article published in Times of India, an estimated 70 million people of Uttar Pradesh and a further 80 million people in Bihar speak Bhojpuri as their first or second language. There are 6 million Bhojpuri speaking people are living outside the Bhojpuri heartlands of Bihar and Purvanchal. These areas include Nepal, Mauritius, Fiji, Suriname, Guyana, Uganda, Singapore, Trinidad & Tobago, Great Britain, and United States. This makes the total Bhojpuri speaking population in the world close to 150 million.

However, the official figures as per the Census of India 2001 are much lower. The census counts 33 million people in India to be speakers of the Bhojpuri dialect under the Hindi language sub-family.[1]

Bhojpuri dialects, varieties, and creoles are also spoken in various parts of the world, including Brazil, Fiji, Guyana, Mauritius, South Africa, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. During the late 1800s and early 1900s, many colonizers had faced labor shortages and were unable to obtain slaves from Africa due to the abolition of slavery; thus, they imported many Indians as indentured servants to labor on plantations. Today, many Indians in the West Indies, Oceania, and South America still speak Bhojpuri as a native or second language.

The Bhojpuri language has been heavily influenced by other languages in many parts of the world. Mauritian Bhojpuri includes many Creole and English words, while the one spoken in Trinidad & Tobago has picked up some Caribbean words along with English.

[edit] Bhojpuri literature

The Bhojpuri-speaking region, due to its rich tradition of creating leaders for building post-independence India such as first President Dr. Rajendra Prasad followed by many eminent politicians and humanitarians like Dr. Krishna Dev Upadhyaya, was never devoid of intellectual prominence which is evident in its literature.

Bhojpuri became one of the bases of the development of the official language of independent India, Hindi, in the past century. Bhartendu Harishchandra, who is considered the father of literary Hindi, was greatly influenced by the tone and style of Bhojpuri in his native region. Further development of Hindi was taken by prominent laureates such as Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi and Munshi Premchand from the Bhojpuri-speaking region. Bhikhari Thakur, known as the Shakespeare of Bhojpuri, has also given theater plays including the classics of Bidesiya. Pioneer Dr. Krishna Dev Upadhyaya from Ballia district devoted 60 years to researching and cataloging Bhojpuri folklore. Dr. H. S. Upadhyaya wrote the book Relationships of Hindu family as depicted in Bhojpuri folksongs (1996). Together they have cataloged thousands of Bhojpuri folksongs, riddles and proverbs from the Purvanchal U.P, Bihar, Jharkand and Chotta Nagpuri districts near Bengal.

The Bhojpuri literature has always remained contemporary. It was more of a body of folklore with folk music and poems prevailing. Literature in the written form started in the early twentieth century. During the British era, then known as the "Northern Frontier Province language", Bhojpuri adopted a patriotic tone and after independence it turned to community. In later periods, following the low economic development of the Bhojpuri-speaking region, the literary work is more skewed towards the human sentiments and struggles of life.

In the present era, the Bhojpuri literature is marked by the presence of writers and poets like Anand Sandhidoot, Pandey Kapil, Ashok Dwivedi, Editor of the popular Bhojpuri magazine Paati (Ballia) and others. In Maurititus, Dr. Sarita Boodhoo from the Mauritius Bhojpuri Institute has done volumes of work in following the Bhojpuri culture and language and documenting the indentured labourers' arrival on the island. Manoj Bhawuk came into limelight for his literary work in Bhojpuri Tasveer Zindagi ke and for his contributions in development of Bhojpuri Literature. In the United States, Sailesh Mishra, another contemporary Bhojpuri activist, poet and writer has been credited as the founder of Bhojpuri Association of North America (BANA) and for his contributions in promoting Bhojpuri language and culture aross the globe.

[edit] Bhojpuria cinema

Bhojpuri cinema has become the largest film industry inside India after Hindi language cinema. In 2005, the BBC reported that the industry caters for up to 200 million people in large parts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Bhojpuri fims have had huge commercial success at the box office. For example, a film made on a budget of $65,000, Sasura Bada Paisawela took in over $3m at the box office. Daroga Babu took almost $900,000 on a similar budget. As of 2008, BBC reports that Bhojpuri songs have also become very popular. MeriNews adds that in some districts of Bihar, theatre owners prefer to screen Bhojpuri films rather than Hindi films as they get more spectators for those films.


Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan, himself a Bhojpuri native from Purvanchal administrative zone of Uttar Pradesh, has been a big supporter of the cinema and has acted in the acclaimed film Ganga. Ajay Devgan is another major Bollywood cinama figure who is closley associated with the people of this region. Saroj Khan, Tinnu Verma, Udit Narayan are all growing their involvement in the film industry. Actors like Ravi Kishan, Manoj Tiwari are superstars of Bhojpuri film industry and are as popular as Shahrukh Khan. While actresses Nagma and Rambha, who earlier failed to create an impact in Bollywood are doing very well in Bhojpuri cinema.


The Bhojpuri industry is now large enough in terms of revenue, Rs 200 crores according to Tehelka in their issue dated 15 March 08, that is also attracting foreign talent too. The BBC reported that Ukrainian model Tanya has already played a Russian girl in love with a Bihari boy in Firangi Dulhania (Foreign Bride) and 24-year-old Cambridge-educated British actress Jessica Bath has signed for two Bhojpuri films.


In 2008 there are expected to be 70 new Bhojpuri releases, up from 2007’s one a week. The Bhojpuri Film Awards have become a major cinematic event in India. In addition, Tehelka reports that Bhojpuri films have revived up to 50 single-screen cinema halls in Mumbai and Delhi from financial ruin. Cinema owners have removed B-grade Hindi films fetching Rs. 80,000 a week, and replced them with Bhojpuri films that average Rs 3 lakh a week says the magazine.


Furthermore, stars earn upwards of Rs 15 lakh per film, and Ravi Kisan is deemed to be the highest paid Bhojpuri cinema star claiming 30 to 40 Lakhs Rupee's per move.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Census of India 2001"

[edit] External links

Wikipedia
Bhojpuri language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhojpuri_language"
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