ISO 639-3 khr Native speakers 240,000 | Glottolog khar1287 | |
Region | ||
The Kharia language (autonym: kʰaɽija or kʰeɽija) is a Munda language that is primarily spoken by indigenous Kharia people of eastern India.
Contents
Classification
Kharia belongs to the Kharia–Juang branch of the Munda language family. Its closest extant relative is the Juang language, but the relationship between Kharia and Juang is remote.
The most widely cited classification places Kharia and Juang together as a subgroup of the South Munda branch of the Munda family. However, some earlier classification schemes placed Kharia and Juang together, as an independent branch deriving from the root of the Munda languages, which they named Central Munda.
Kharia is in contact with Sadri (the local lingua franca), Mundari, Kurukh, Hindi, and Odia (in Odisha) (Peterson 2008:434).
Distribution
Kharia speakers are located in the following districts of India (Peterson 2008:434).