# Marwari: to me - postposition



## marrish

I am very interested in how to say some simple sentences in Marwari which include "to me".

E.g.: "give me some water". "I don't know". I've got to go now.

Thanks.


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## tonyspeed

marrish said:


> I am very interested in how to say some simple sentences in Marwari which include "to me".
> 
> E.g.: "give me some water". "I don't know". I've got to go now.
> 
> Thanks.



http://gospelgo.com/q/Marwari Bible - Gospel of John.pdf

Chapter 4: aayat 7 - contains "give me a drink"
Chapter 9: aayat 12 - contains "i do not know "

I think you should be able to figure out if the PDF is really Marwari.


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## marrish

TS SaaHib, thanks a lot. I think it's Marwari or some or other dialect of it but I am not 100% sure. The passage "give me a drink" reads:

"o’e Taa’im saamarii qaum rii hiik lugaa’ii uuth poNRii bharaNR aa’ii. jaDe yasuu3 o’e naa kahyo, “yaa’ii, mhanaa poNRii pii’aaL”."

Which would translate to Urdu this way (just a guess!):

"اُس وقت سامری قوم کی ایک خاتون وہاں پانی بھرنے آئی۔ تب یسوعؑ نے اس سے کہا: "؟؟؟، مجھ کو پانی پلاؤ" _us waqt saamarii qaum kii ek xaatuun wahaaN paanii bharne aa'ii. tab yasuu3 ne us se kahaa: ???, mujh ko paanii pilaa'o"._

Based on this I presume "to me" is mhanaa and Urdu "_ko_" is "_naa_" (_mhanaa, o'e naa_).


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## Qureshpor

^ Punjabi "manuuN/mainuuN paaNRii piyaal".


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## nikmahesh

Looking at the PDF, I see it's written in Urdu script- which means it's most likely a variety of Marwari more common on the Pakistan side e.g. Dhatki or Thari

We are Marwaris, but our family has been spread out of Rajasthan since Mughal times. My grandparents' generation still speaks it fluently:

According to what I hear my grandmother say, 
1) "Give me some water": is either _mhane paaNRii de'o_ or _mhane paaNRii piyaaL _***the L in piyaaL is sometimes retroflex
2) "I don't know": most commonly, _mhane konii pataa/mhane konii malum. _Some also just convert the "konii" to "nahiin/nii". 

here, "mhane" is used rather than mhanaa, and paaNRii/poNRii are interchangeable.


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## marrish

Thank you very much for this. In the attached translation, for "I don't know" it says: _mhanaaN ko'ii xabar konii_. Apparently very similar though a bit different. You must be right about it being some other variety.

In my first post I forgot to put use quotation marks for "I've got to go now" and it looks as if I was saying it myself . Actually I'm also keen to know this sentence too.


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## nikmahesh

See Marwari is very fluid. So one village's language may be different from the next, not to mention that sometimes language even follows caste barriers. And one has to realize that it is also a language surrounded on all sides by one linguistic relative or another- punjabi, siraiki, sindhi, haryanvi, kutchhi, gujarati, and western hindi. So there is some directional gradient as well in terms of what gets said, how, and where. There is absolutely zero standardization. _mhane koi xabar konii _is acceptable Marwari. As is _mhanaaN_ etc.. 

My Grandmother's (Naani's) dialect is sort of founder-effect-ish in the sense that her family left Northern Rajasthan/Shekhawati for various places e.g. Punjab, Haryana, Lucknow/UP, Malwa/MP/Indore, Bundelkhand, and then Maharashtra. 

Basically my Grandma's Marwari will have more than a few Hindi touches so I don't want to tell you I'm particularly "right" but,
"I've got to go now" = _mhane ab/abhi/abhai/abai jaaNRo hai. _Most commonly, using अबै. You could use "hi/ee" for emphasis after this as well. You can switch the word order around in all the same ways as Hindi or Urdu.

Also, for "I'm going to go now" it'll be "m_he/main/Mhun abai jaavaNR waLa"_ (retroflex L), or even just "_jaavelaa/jaawanga" _for future tense.


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## marrish

Perfectly thorough explanation, nikmahesh!


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## nikmahesh

Thanks! I tried!


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## tarkshya

Nice explanation nikmahesh. I am a native Marwari speaker myself, and I too find it difficult to explain  when people ask me what is the "correct" way to phrase a sentence. There is no standardization whatsoever in Marwari. The language literally varies village to village.


Even more amusing is the fact that there actually is a tiny Marwari movie industry. However, the language these movies usually employ is Shekhawati, and traditionally Shekhawati is not even considered a part of Marwar. (Shekhawati was a part of Jaipur princely state, not Jodhpur (Marwar)).


No wonder the language is dying a slow death. Cities all over Rajasthan have taken to speaking Hindi. Even in small towns Hindi dominates. Marwari is now confined to hamlets and small villages.



nikmahesh said:


> Thanks! I tried!


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## tarkshya

Hi nikmahesh,

I am an amateur reader of nastaliq script. I read a few sentences from the attached PDF ( a text from Bible), and I can definitely attest that the document is written by and targeted at Indian Marwari speakers.

I came to the conclusion by noticing many peculiarities like 

1. God is referred as "Ishwar". I would think Pakistani Christians would use a more "middle eastern" word, like Khuda.
2. There are plenty of Sanskrit origin words in the text, like Shastra (Gospel), Pavitra Aatma (Pure soul) etc.
3. Grammatical forms suggest a language spoken in core Rajasthani speaking area. I presume Pakistani Marwari languages would display some Sindhi/Siraiki influence. But the dialect used in the text is sounds something closer. I mean, I have been as far west as Jaisalmer and I know that the dialect used there can sound bit alien to folks from central Rajasthan.



nikmahesh said:


> Looking at the PDF, I see it's written in Urdu script- which means it's most likely a variety of Marwari more common on the Pakistan side e.g. Dhatki or Thari
> 
> We are Marwaris, but our family has been spread out of Rajasthan since Mughal times. My grandparents' generation still speaks it fluently:
> 
> According to what I hear my grandmother say,
> 1) "Give me some water": is either _mhane paaNRii de'o_ or _mhane paaNRii piyaaL _***the L in piyaaL is sometimes retroflex
> 2) "I don't know": most commonly, _mhane konii pataa/mhane konii malum. _Some also just convert the "konii" to "nahiin/nii".
> 
> here, "mhane" is used rather than mhanaa, and paaNRii/poNRii are interchangeable.


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## nikmahesh

Yup, kos kos par badle paani, chaar kos par baani. 

1) I think this might be an evangelical address towards Pakistani Marwaris as a whole. Most Pakistani Marwaris are still Hindus I think? Or at least the only significantly Hindu population left in Pakistan/that didn't migrate en masse is Marwari etc. etc.. So although Devnagari isn't used there (hence Nastaliq), I'd bet they still keep the use of words that are Hindu-specific. Which is why a Pakistani Marwari would likely keep the word "Ishwar" alive.

2) Makes sense that Pakistani Marwari probably has some Sindhi or Siraiki influence- Sindhi and Siraiki themselves have some Marwari influence as well, I believe. But somehow, I doubt it is SO different from Indian Marwari, considering that they aren't really that geographically separated...I wouldn't say that they necessarily belong to non-"core" Rajasthani speaking areas either...correct me if I'm wrong! 

3) Like I said I don't know much about what dialect/where so I'll defer to you on that I don't even know what kind of Marwari my family speaks/spoke. I do know that at some point my Dad's side was from Jaisalmer, and my Mom's based in the North, Jaipur, and in Jodhpur. But Maheshwaris are also supposed to be from northern Raj, so...yup. don't even know. We just call ourselves Marwaris. 

4) I've always known that western Marwari sounded quite different- how different? 

I also get the impression that Marwari has been fairly conservative with a strong folk base that survived for a very long time, and thus conserves Prakritic and Sanskritic forms in folk dialect (so potentially less farsi in Marwari than Hindi?).

I feel it's sad to lose the language like this to Hindi, although I maybe don't have the right to say any of this since being honest, I'd first consider myself a native Hindi speaker before Marwari. But that is just a result of history- maybe standardization is good? For progress, that is. I wish there was a more tangible revival movement on one hand, but on the other hand, it sometimes feels like Rajasthani is either too far gone in terms of Hindi-ization, or that it wouldn't serve to benefit people in terms of education or upward economic momentum. English or Hindi right now is the name of the game. Well, mostly English? hmm..

Does anything I said make sense? haha, 

Questions, Questions,


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## tarkshya

I have been lucky in this sense because our parents kept us current with Marwari. Marwari was the mother tongue in our household, so I, and all my siblings are fluent in it. However, mine is probably the last generation in our family tree which is native speaker of Marwari. The children of the next generation have all turned out Hindi speakers without any conscious effort.

I guess it is a natural and worldwide phenomenon that official and major languages wipe out smaller local languages. However, it does feel sad to loose one's heritage like this. I know that there is negligible economic value of learning Marwari, but it is about having a sense of belonging. When I go to my ancestral village, I can easily converse with the grannies of my village; my kid daughter can't. So you see, they think of me as one of them, but my kid is a foreigner. 

Anyway, enough rambling. More later.


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## nikmahesh

I couldn't agree with you more. I wish I had more people around me interested in Marwari, but even my grandparents aren't really interested in teaching it. Even though most of it can be understood by my parents and to a lesser extent, me, it's still sort of a code language of their generation. Considering my parents are also native Hindi speakers, at my point, I'm as native a hindi speaker as one could be. 

In fact I'd say it's mostly just the grandmothers who are expressly conversant, unless of course, it's distant family who either moved back or is still in Raj. For urbanites in my generation, Hindi, unfortunately has completely won out, but cousins who live in smaller cities seem to still have a grasp of it. It's kind of interesting that they also mix it with the local language a lot. e.g. Maru-marathi, maru-punjabi.. 

I also think there seems to be some sort of disconnect, or loss of connection to Rajasthan that has occurred with many of the Marwari baniya groups like my own.. We've been out of Raj for so long. Even though we still consider it our homeland, it hasn't really been for more than 3-4-5 generations. It's just that some elements of the culture seem to have survived up until now, (which also seem to be dying in the face of standardization and modernization). Although we consider ourselves from Raj, I don't even know if we can be classed as "Rajasthanis" any more. Because our history weirdly split somehow?

One more question, here in the US there are Punjabis, and Gujaratis, and Tamilians, Bengalis, Andhraites, etc.. but few people know anything about Rajasthanis. Do you think Rajasthanis are kind of ceasing to be a regional ethnic group by merging into the larger hindi-speaking north indian crowd?

Anyhow, it's fascinating to talk to someone who still has the language


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## marrish

tarkshya said:


> I have been lucky in this sense because our parents kept us current with Marwari. Marwari was the mother tongue in our household, so I, and all my siblings are fluent in it.


Would you then be so kind as to, between the lines, corroborate nikmahesh's sentence for "I've got to go now"? I mean, perhaps yours is a bit different dialect.

Are you familiar with "naa" for the postposition "to, for" as in "give me water"?


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## tarkshya

marrish said:


> Would you then be so kind as to, between the lines, corroborate nikmahesh's sentence for "I've got to go now"? I mean, perhaps yours is a bit different dialect.
> 
> Are you familiar with "naa" for the postposition "to, for" as in "give me water"?



In the Marwari dialect that I speak, i.e. Godwari - spoken in Jalor/Sirohi districts, "to me" will translate to "mhane". Somewhat more north, around Jodhpur, it would become "mhaane". To the best of my knowledge, most Marwari dialects will have some variation of "ne" sound in the end. So in that sense Marwari usage aligns with the Hindi usage "maine". However Marwari "mhane" should not be taken as an exact translation of Hindi "maine". There are subtle differences. For e.g.

Hindi - Maine pyar kiya
Marwari - Mhe pyar karyo. In this context, "Mhane pyar karyo" will definitely be called grammatically incorrect in all variations of Marwari.

Hindi - Maine jana hai
Marwari - Mhane jaNo hai (I am using N for retroflex n sound).

So you see, Marwari mhane functions somewhat differently from hindi maine. Even I was not aware of this difference consciously. Your question made me think and I realized this subtlety.

I guess Marwari mhane is best understood as Hindi "mujh ko"


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## tarkshya

nikmahesh said:


> One more question, here in the US there are Punjabis, and Gujaratis, and Tamilians, Bengalis, Andhraites, etc.. but few people know anything about Rajasthanis. Do you think Rajasthanis are kind of ceasing to be a regional ethnic group by merging into the larger hindi-speaking north indian crowd?



Interestingly, one of the earliest Indian American cultural group is "Rajasthani Association of North America", aptly acronym-ed as RANA. It has existed longer than many of the more popular groups. I never joined it so don't know what do they do. You may want to try them if you feel like you need to reconnect to your roots.


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## mundiya

tarkshya said:


> Yes, "maiN ne kahnaa thaa" means "I'd like to tell you"?
> 
> However, this is more of a punjabi phraseology. A punjabi hindi speaker  from Delhi is more likely to say it. A grammatically more natural (and  less jarring to ears  ) way will be "mujhe kahnaa thaa".





tarkshya said:


> Hindi - Maine jana hai
> Marwari - Mhane jaNo hai (I am using N for retroflex n sound).



I think you fell into the "Punjabi" trap yourself.


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## Qureshpor

^ Indeed. And any Punjabi and his/her "majh"* knows, Punjabis say...

maiN jaaNRaa e!

Perhaps Urdu and Hindi speakers have been affected by Marwari and/or Haryanavi when they say "maiN ne jaanaa hai"? Or, there is another linguistic factor at play.

* buffalo


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## tarkshya

mundiya said:


> I think you fell into the "Punjabi" trap yourself.



LoL. I know. But I used this phrase consciously to highlight similarities between Marwari and Hindi.


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## nikmahesh

tarkshya said:


> Interestingly, one of the earliest Indian American cultural group is "Rajasthani Association of North America", aptly acronym-ed as RANA. It has existed longer than many of the more popular groups. I never joined it so don't know what do they do. You may want to try them if you feel like you need to reconnect to your roots.



Yup I know RANA- my parents used to participate! Other than a few Rajasthani things though, I think most people are pretty mainstream hindi speakers. I'm talking mostly in the context of language of course, in terms of culture, couldn't say what really makes US Rajasthanis stand out from other hindi speakers here. So many Rajasthanis here seem to be Marus like myself from out of Raj. 

Also, @Qureshpor, In terms of Delhi, I suppose it's tenable that "maiN ne jaanaa hai" could be a result of linguistic imprint from all of those groups reinforcing one another. Punjabis, Rajasthanis, Haryanvis all of course being significant in terms of population. 

I might also be inclined to see the most merit in simply Haryanvi/Western hindi influence.. e.g. via Gurgaon? Haryanvi and UP are Delhi's surrounding states, so probably have huge stakes in the culture, alongside migrated Punjabis as well.


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## Qureshpor

nikmahesh said:


> [...] Also, @Qureshpor, In terms of Delhi, I suppose it's tenable that "maiN ne jaanaa hai" could be a result of linguistic imprint from all of those groups reinforcing one another. Punjabis, Rajasthanis, Haryanvis all of course being significant in terms of population.
> 
> I might also be inclined to see the most merit in simply Haryanvi/Western hindi influence.. e.g. via Gurgaon? Haryanvi and UP are Delhi's surrounding states, so probably have huge stakes in the culture, alongside migrated Punjabis as well.


I completely accept that languages spoken in the vicinity of another language are bound to affect each other in lesser or greater degree. What no body is taking any notice is that Punjabi does not have a "ne" or "ne" equivalent in the "maiN ne jaanaa hai" type of sentence. If itself does n't have this construction, how is it going to introduce this construction into Urdu or Hindi? It is as simple as that.


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## nikmahesh

Qureshpor said:


> I completely accept that languages spoken in the vicinity of another language are bound to affect each other in lesser or greater degree. What no body is taking any notice is that Punjabi does not have a "ne" or "ne" equivalent in the "maiN ne jaanaa hai" type of sentence. If itself does n't have this construction, how is it going to introduce this construction into Urdu or Hindi? It is as simple as that.



Well, since I certainly have less knowledge of Punjabi than you, I'm going to say that following your logic, it's probably not from Punjabi.


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