Rarh · Middle & Lower Gangetic Plain
Standard colloquial Bengali — the chalit bhasha that replaced the Sanskritised sadhu bhasha in print in the early twentieth century, and the register in which Bengali is now taught, broadcast and written across two countries — descends from the Rarhi group of dialects, and specifically from the prestige speech of the Nadia–Shantipur tract at that group's eastern edge. That matters for two reasons. It means the grammar spoken by something over two hundred million people is this region's grammar and not the delta's. And it means the Rarh's own western varieties, in Bankura and Purulia, are heard in Kolkata as rustic while belonging to the same dialect group as the standard — the prestige attached to one end of a continuum and withheld from the other. West of that continuum the language changes family entirely: Kurmali is Indo-Aryan of the Bihari group, and Santali is Munda, part of the Austroasiatic family, related to nothing else spoken nearby.
Speech varieties
Spoken across Bardhaman, Birbhum, Bankura, Hooghly and Howrah, and eastward into Nadia. Its Nadia–Shantipur variety is the historical basis of the modern written and spoken standard.
Speakers: The dialect group underlying standard Bengali
The Purulia and western Bankura variety, with heavy Kurmali and Santali contact influence in vocabulary and intonation. It carries the Jhumur, Tusu and Bhadu repertoires.
Spoken across the Purulia–Jharkhand fringe by Kurmi and neighbouring communities, and used alongside Bengali rather than instead of it. There is a long-standing demand for its inclusion in the Eighth Schedule.
A wholly different language family from everything around it, with its own script — Ol Chiki, devised by Raghunath Murmu in the 1920s — and included in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution in 2003. In this region it is spoken in villages that are otherwise indistinguishable from Bengali ones.
Speakers: Around 73 lakh in the 2011 Census across the eastern states
Present in the western Purulia villages and shading into the Jharkhand and Odisha plateau, with Bhumij now largely bilingual in Bengali.
Indigenous terminology
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Rarh রাঢ় | The red laterite country west of the Bhagirathi. The word is old — it appears in Jain and early Sanskrit sources as a name for this tract — and is generally read as meaning the hard or stony land. |
| Danga and bahal ডাঙা / বাহাল | The high dry upland and the low wet hollow. A Rarh village is built on the first and eats from the second, and land is bought and sold by which of the two it is. |
| Khoai খোয়াই | The eroded badland gullies cut into the laterite by monsoon runoff. At Santiniketan the khoai is a named landscape, written about by Tagore and now the site of a weekly market. |
| Chala চালা | The curved roof form of a Bengal temple, copied in brick from the sagging thatch of a bamboo hut. Ek-chala, do-chala, char-chala, at-chala and jor-bangla name the number and arrangement of roof slopes. |
| Ratna রত্ন | A tower on a temple roof. Ek-ratna, pancha-ratna and nava-ratna count them, and a Bishnupur temple is described first by its ratna count and second by anything else. |
| Deul দেউল | The tall curvilinear tower form borrowed from Odisha, seen on the Ajay at Ichai Ghosher deul — proof that the region's builders had two architectural vocabularies available and chose between them. |
| Akhra আখড়া | Two things with one name. For Bauls it is the gathering place and the seat of a lineage; for Santals it is the village dancing ground at the centre of the settlement. The word does the same work in both — a place where a community assembles to perform itself. |
| Dehatattva দেহতত্ত্ব | Body-philosophy: the Baul doctrine that the divine is to be found within the human body, and the category of songs that teach it in code. |
| Moner manush মনের মানুষ | The person of the heart — the Baul term for what is sought, and the phrase most quoted from the songs. |
| Nolen gur নলেন গুড় | Date-palm jaggery from the first winter tapping. Patali is the set cake form; jhola is the liquid. Ten weeks a year and no more. |
| Posto পোস্ত | Poppy seed, and by extension any dish built on its ground paste. |
| Bori বড়ি | The sun-dried lentil-batter droplet that goes into shukto and jhol, and the winter labour of making it. |
| Jaher than ᱡᱟᱦᱮᱨ ᱛᱷᱟᱹᱱ | The Santal sacred grove at the edge of a village — a stand of old sal trees, left uncut, where the bongas are worshipped. It is the only structure in a Santal village that is not a building. |
| Bonga ᱵᱳᱸᱜᱟ | A spirit or deity in Santal practice, resident in a place, a grove, a hill or a household. |
| Handia ᱦᱟᱰᱤᱭᱟ | Home-brewed rice beer, named for the pot it ferments in. It is a ritual offering and a social obligation before it is a drink. |
Sayings
| Saying | Literally | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Baro mase tero parbon | Thirteen festivals in twelve months | Bengal's description of its own calendar. In the Rarh it is close to literally true — Tusu, Bhadu, Gajan, Chhau, Sohrai, Baha, Poush Mela and the Kenduli mela sit on top of the Bengali festival year. |
| Jole kumir, dangay bagh | A crocodile in the water and a tiger on the land | Danger on both sides, with no safe option. In common use across Bengali. |
| Khnachar bhitor ochin pakhi kemne ashe jay | How does the unknown bird come and go inside the cage | The best-known line in the Baul repertoire — the soul in the body, asked about rather than explained. It is sung at Kenduli every January. |
| Age darshandhari, pore gunobichari | Appearance first, merit afterwards | People judge by what they see before they judge by what is there. A standard Bengali proverb. |
| Ek hate tali baje na | One hand does not clap | No quarrel and no agreement has only one party to it. Used in village dispute settlement across the region. |
Speech varieties, indigenous terminology and sayings of Rarh. (20)