Sunday, December 14, 2008

THE BHILI GRAMMARS



The Bhili language is the great oral and ancient language of over 70 million Bhil speakers of the Bhilanchal spread over this vast Bhil region of Western India. These different Bhil folks or the peoples of Bhilanchal densely inhabit in the adjoining region of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Their negligible population is even found in various other parts of the country including in North East and Pakistan. Today due to the facilities provided by the Constitution of India, in the form of reservations in educational institutions, jobs, political representation, migration and education, they are loosely also found not only all over India, also in some parts of the world in the countries like England, Canada, USA, Germany, Japan, Portugal, etc looking towards very much for the cultural and social identification in the context of their origin. As such the Bhils all over India will be over 150 millions. Today one should excavate a Bhil territory for their human survival, for the due promotion, protection and innovation of their largely denied cultural, linguistic, human and other rights. Hence it is good to envisage a Bhil territory like Bhilanchal or Bhil Desh within the 5th and 6th Schedule of the Great Indian Constitution, establish language links with each Bhil group especially in densely populated Bhil regions and other areas throughout the country. Doing this for the Bhils shall be a great and noble job by the genuine NGOs.

In this context of the present day, it is good to search, research and restore the great Bhil linguistic, social and over all their rich cultural heritage, which is vastly under damage and distortions’ by non tribals, due to large ignorance and also denial of recognition for Bhil cultural heritage, which was and is the prideful historical wealth of their antique Bhil society in whose language, values, oral literatures and folklore the Bhils found securities, consolation, rejuvenation in all through their suppressed and oppressed centuries from the time of Eklavya, in the great upheaval their social and cultural history, in which context not much is being done even the best of NGOs working in the Bhilanchal.

To start with the first Bhili Grammar was prepared by a Dutch missionary called Leo Jungblut SVD in early thirties of the last century and published in Mission Press, at Mhow, Indore (MP) India in 1937. It had less than 100 pages but the small volume served well the purpose for the linguists, administrators, scholars, missionaries, admirers of Bhili as a language, colleges, universities, research institutes, individuals, etc. The author Leo Jungblut SVD who lived and worked among the antique Bhils of Jhabua (MP) India, Rambapor, studied meticulously like a professionally trained linguist, even the nuances of Bhili phones and morphemes’ together with their syntax. Much more than this he brought out the beauty of Bhil culture, language, literature and their living Bhil folklore. The Bhili Grammar prepared by the author Leo Jungblut SVD served it purpose till his death, while he was revising the manuscript with M. Bhuriya. Now the same Bhili Grammar due its demand in the scientific, administrative and popular fields will have its second enlarged and revised edition by Mahipal Bhuriya. Later Dr. Nemichand Jain a scholar, Hindi Pandit, writer, Hindi critic and linguist brought out a sort of two volumes of Bhili Grammars, with similar nature but for different and vaste felt need among the members of the tribe and also in the mainstream society. Then in early eighties, later Deveprasad Ganava a Bhil from the same region of Jhabua, inspired by the beauty of the Bhili language and Bhil culture, published from Meghnagar, an important volume of Bhili grammar, called BHILI Vyakaran (Bhili Grammar).

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