Mithilanchal · Middle & Lower Gangetic Plain
Maithili has what few Indian regional languages have kept: a script of its own. Tirhuta, also called Mithilakshar, is a sister of Bengali and Assamese script and was in ordinary use for manuscripts and land records into the twentieth century. It is now used mainly ceremonially and in a deliberate revival. Maithili itself was added to the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution in 2003, after a long campaign, and is the second-most spoken language of Nepal.
Speech varieties
The Darbhanga–Madhubani register, the basis of the literary language and of the Sahitya Akademi's Maithili canon.
Speakers: About 1.35 crore in India in the 2011 Census, and roughly 3 million in Nepal
Spoken in Muzaffarpur, Vaishali, Sitamarhi and East Champaran — between Maithili and Bhojpuri, claimed by both, and counted as Hindi in the census.
The eastern variety of Saharsa, Supaul and Madhepura, shading towards Angika beyond the Kosi.
Spoken across Nepal's Madhesh province; standardised separately, written in Devanagari, and politically far more assertive than its Indian counterpart.
Indigenous terminology
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Tirhuta / Mithilakshar तिरहुता | Mithila's own script, related to Bengali and Assamese, used for manuscripts and documents until the twentieth century and now taught deliberately to keep it alive. |
| Paag पाग | The sloping Maithil turban, and by extension the honour conferred by presenting one. |
| Kohbar कोहबर | The wedding chamber, and the painting made on its walls — a lotus-and-bamboo composition that is explicitly a fertility diagram and the origin of the whole Mithila painting tradition. |
| Makhana मखान | The popped seed of the prickly water lily. Also a unit of the pond economy — a pond is described by how much makhana it yields. |
| Pokhar पोखरि | A dug pond. Villages are laid out around them, they are named after their diggers, and rights to fish them are inherited. |
| Chaur चौर | A permanent shallow wetland in an old river channel — grazing in the dry months, fishery in the wet. |
| Dhaar and dhaari धार | A live river channel and its abandoned trace; in the Kosi country the difference can reverse within a season. |
| Panji पंजी | The Maithil genealogical register, maintained by hereditary panjikars, used to check permitted marriages across generations. One of the most complete kinship record systems anywhere. |
| Sama-Chakeva सामा-चकेवा | The Kartik festival of clay bird figures, in which sisters make, sing to and finally break images of a brother and sister of legend. |
| Mauni मौनी | A lidded sikki-grass basket given to a bride and used to carry ritual offerings. |
Sayings
| Saying | Literally | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Desil bayana sab jan mitthi | The language of the country is sweet to all | Vidyapati's own defence of writing in Maithili rather than Sanskrit — quoted six centuries later in every argument about the language's status. |
| Pag pag pokhar, machh makhan | A pond at every step; fish and makhana | The standard description of Mithila, and close to literally true — the phrase continues in praise of the paan, the sweets and the language. |
| Kosi ke kop | The Kosi's wrath | Said of any disaster that arrives annually and cannot be prevented, only prepared for. |
| Jekar beti tekar dhan | Whose daughter, his wealth | A saying about the dowry system that means the opposite of what it appears to — quoted bitterly, about the cost of marrying daughters in a region where it has been ruinous. |
Speech varieties, indigenous terminology and sayings of Mithilanchal. (14)