Vidarbha · Deccan Inland Plateau
Vidarbha's Marathi is the variety that standard Marathi teaching most enjoys correcting, which is a reliable sign that it is doing something systematic. Varhadi replaces the standard dative forms mala and tula with male and tule, uses kahun where the standard uses ka for why, and builds its present continuous with a participle plus the verb to remain — karun rahylo, literally having done I remain, for I am doing. That last construction is the single most recognisable Vidarbha marker in the language, and it is a stable grammatical feature rather than an error. East of the Wainganga, Zadi Boli sits on top of centuries of contact with Halbi, Chhattisgarhi and Gondi and has its own literature and its own theatre. Nagpur, having been a Central Provinces capital, speaks more Hindi in public than any other Marathi city.
Speech varieties
The speech of Buldhana, Akola, Washim, Amravati and Yavatmal, and loosely of the whole cotton plain. Marked by male and tule, kahun, bhakar for bhakri, and the participle-plus-remain progressive.
Speakers: Returned as Marathi in the census, so no separate count exists
Bhandara, Gondia, Chandrapur and Gadchiroli — the forest and tank country. Heavily influenced by Halbi and Chhattisgarhi, with its own writers' association and the Zadipatti theatre repertoire written in it. Speakers generally treat it as Marathi and outsiders generally cannot follow it.
Urban Marathi with a much heavier Hindi load than any other Marathi city carries, a legacy of Nagpur's century as the capital of a Hindi-majority province. Code-switching between the two mid-sentence is unremarkable here.
A Dravidian language spoken in a Marathi state, and in Gadchiroli the first language of whole blocks. Madia is its local variety. Gondi has no single accepted script and the standardisation question is live.
Speakers: Around a million and a half returned across central India, with a large share in this region
A contact language of the Marathi–Chhattisgarhi–Gondi meeting ground, spoken in the far east and continuing into Bastar. It works as a trade tongue between speakers of unrelated languages.
Spoken by Kolam communities in Yavatmal and across into the Telangana border districts, and unrelated to the Marathi around it. Small and under pressure.
Indigenous terminology
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Male, tule मले, तुले | To me, to you — where standard Marathi has mala and tula. The most immediately audible Varhadi feature and the one most often imitated for comic effect. |
| Kahun काहून | Why. Standard Marathi uses ka. A Varhadi speaker asking a question announces the region in one word. |
| Karun rahylo करून राह्यलो | I am doing — a present continuous built from a participle plus the verb to remain, where standard Marathi uses karat aahe. Grammatically systematic, and treated by prescriptivists as an error for a century. |
| Tarri तर्री | The spiced oil skimmed off the top of a pot of usal or rassa and served separately. In Nagpur it is a noun, a measure of how hot you want something, and a breakfast. |
| Khanaval खानावळ | An eating house serving one fixed menu at fixed hours, usually run out of a family home. The savji khanavali is the institution through which saoji cooking left the community that invented it. |
| Malguzar मालगुजार | The revenue landholder of the Central Provinces, responsible for the village's land tax and for its tank. The tenure was abolished after Independence; the tanks it built are still there and are still called malguzari. |
| Zadipatti झाडीपट्टी | The forest belt of the four eastern districts, from zad, tree. Also the name of its theatre circuit and its dialect. |
| Bahar बहार | A flowering flush in a citrus orchard, and the practice of forcing one by withholding irrigation until the tree drops its leaves. Ambia bahar and mrig bahar are the two the Nagpur orange is worked on. |
| Tendupatta तेंदूपत्ता | The leaf of Diospyros melanoxylon, collected in bundles in April and May for rolling beedis. In the forest districts it is the largest single cash event of the year for a household with no land. |
| Persa Pen पेरसा पेन | The Gond clan deity, held by a clan rather than a village and cared for by named ritual specialists. Clan membership and marriage rules are organised around it. |
| Ghotul घोटूल | The youth dormitory of some Madia and Muria communities, in which unmarried young people of a village lived, worked and learned collectively. Much written about by outsiders, considerably reduced in practice. |
| Deeksha दीक्षा | Ordination or initiation. Here it refers specifically to the taking of the Buddhist refuges and precepts, and Deekshabhoomi is the ground on which it happened. |
Sayings
| Saying | Literally | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| दुरून डोंगर साजरे | Hills look handsome from a distance | Things improve with distance from them. |
| उथळ पाण्याला खळखळाट फार | Shallow water makes a great deal of noise | The least informed speak loudest. |
| बुडत्याचा पाय खोलात | The drowning man's foot goes deeper | Trouble compounds itself. Heard often in the cotton districts, where a bad season is paid for out of the capacity to plant the next one. |
| उचलली जीभ लावली टाळ्याला | Lifted the tongue and slapped it to the palate | Speaking without thinking, said of someone who has just done it. |
| गाढवाला गुळाची चव काय | What does a donkey know of the taste of jaggery | Refinement offered to someone with no use for it. |
Speech varieties, indigenous terminology and sayings of Vidarbha. (17)