Koraput–Kalahandi Uplands · Central Highlands & Forest Belt
The defining linguistic fact of this upland is not any one language but the coexistence of two entire families inside a day's walk. Dravidian languages — Kui, Kuvi, Parji, Ollari — and Munda languages — Sora, Gutob, Remo, Gorum — are spoken in adjacent valleys, and neither family is an intrusion into the other's territory; both have been here long enough that the boundaries are village-by-village rather than block-by-block. Over that sits Desia, an Odia contact variety with simplified verb morphology and heavy borrowing from both families, which almost nobody claims as a mother tongue and almost everybody uses in the market. The state's multilingual education programme teaches early primary classes in several of these languages, which is one of the few places their orthographies are settled at all.
Speech varieties
Also called Koraputia. A trade and inter-community speech with a reduced verb system, Odia core vocabulary and Dravidian and Munda loans. Being nobody's first language is precisely what makes it usable.
Speakers: Used as a second language across the highland; rarely returned as a mother tongue
The language of the largest Adivasi population in this belt. Written in the Odia script where written at all, and closely related to Kuvi and to Gondi further west.
Speakers: Several lakh, concentrated in the Kondh uplands
Spoken by the Kondh of the Koraput and Rayagada hills, including the Dongria of Niyamgiri. Mutually partially intelligible with Kui, and treated locally as the same speech with a different accent.
Speakers: Well over a lakh
The Paraja language, spoken across the plateau and continuing into Bastar. Many people identified as Paraja now speak Desia as their first language, so the community and the language no longer map onto each other.
Two communities both called Gadaba speak languages from two different families — Gutob is Munda, Ollari is Dravidian. It is the single clearest illustration that community names in this region were assigned from outside and do not track descent or speech.
The Bonda language. Remo means simply "man" and is what its speakers call themselves; Bonda is the name used from below the hill.
Speakers: A few thousand, in the Bonda hills
Spoken in the eastern uplands towards Gunupur and Puttasingi. It has its own script, Sorang Sompeng, devised in the 1930s for the language rather than adapted from an existing one — a rare thing among Indian languages of this size.
The speech of the Bolangir and Kalahandi lowland, also called Sambalpuri, with its own literature, its own festival calendar and a long-running claim to separate language status.
Indigenous terminology
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Desia ଦେଶିଆ | "Of the country" — both the contact language and the way highland people of many communities describe themselves collectively when speaking to outsiders. |
| Dongar ଡଙ୍ଗର | The hill slope, and by extension the sloping plot cultivated on it. Dongar chasa is slope cultivation, sown as a mixture of a dozen or more crops in one plot so that something survives whatever the year does. |
| Mandia ମାଣ୍ଡିଆ | Finger millet — the grain, the flour and, by shorthand, the meal itself. |
| Torani ତୋରାଣି | The soured water of fermented cooked rice, drunk on its own and used as the household's sour agent. |
| Kai | The red weaver ant, and the chutney made from it with its eggs. |
| Salap | The fishtail palm and the sap tapped from its cut inflorescence — sweet at dawn, sour by noon, alcoholic by evening, the same liquid at three stages. |
| Ranu | The dried starter cake of pounded rice and forest roots used to ferment landa. Each household keeps its own combination of plants and it is not written down. |
| Disari | The village astrologer-diviner who fixes the dates for sowing, harvest, marriage and travel. The agricultural calendar of a village is his reading, not an almanac's. |
| Jani | The Kondh village priest, who makes the offerings at the earth shrine on behalf of the whole village. |
| Bejuni | A woman medium among the Kondh, consulted in illness and misfortune; she speaks in the voice of the agency identified as the cause. |
| Idital | The Sora wall painting, made to house a spirit after a divination. The word names the picture and the act together. |
| Kapdaganda | The embroidered Dongria Kondh shawl, and by extension the embroidery itself. |
| Haat ହାଟ | The weekly market, held on a fixed day at a fixed crossroads. It is the region's calendar, bank, news service and marriage market as much as its shop. |
Sayings
| Saying | Literally | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Jete guda debu, sete mitha | The more jaggery you put in, the sweeter it will be | A common Odia saying used for effort and result, and for what a bargain is worth. |
| Nuakhai juhar | New-rice greeting | Not a proverb but the formula of the lowland's principal festival — juhar is a greeting made with joined hands, and on Nuakhai day it is offered to every elder in turn before anyone eats. |
| Bara masare tera parba | Thirteen festivals in twelve months | Used across Odisha, half in complaint and half in pride, about a calendar with more observances than months to hold them. |
Speech varieties, indigenous terminology and sayings of Koraput–Kalahandi Uplands. (16)