Native to India ISO 639-3 pcj | Region Orissa, Andhra Pradesh | |
Ethnicity 12,600 in Orissa (2001 census) Native speakers possibly extinct (1997) Language family Austroasiatic
Munda
Koraput
Savara
Parengi | ||
Gorum, or Parengi, is a minor Munda language of India. Speakers are shifting to Oriya.
Contents
Names
The name Gorum most likely comes from an animal/people prefix go- and root -rum meaning 'people', and is possibly related to the ethnonym Remo (Anderson 2008:381).
Parengi, or Parenga, is of obscure origin.
Status
Gorum is 60% endangered, it is very likely that it will soon be dead because no one who speaks or understands it is under 30 years old. In addition those who know it are likely to deny knowing it. This language seems to have been first researched in 1933, that being the earliest scholarly reference.
Origins
While Gorum is a member of the Munda family, it has taken some things from Dravidian, a language spoken nearby. For example, they tend to doubly inflect on certain types of AVC structures. Another derivation from the Munda language is the use of some Glottals being "creeky voiced"
Distribution
Gorum speakers are located in the following areas of eastern India (Anderson 2008:381).
Gutob is spoken to the north of Gorum, and Gta to the west of Gorum.