# Nihali language

Nihali, also known as Nahali, is an endangered language isolate that is spoken in west-central India by approximately 2,500 people in 2016. The name of the language derives from nahal, meaning "tiger".
Nihali has not been definitively proven to be related to any other surrounding language families of South Asia, such as Munda, Indo-Aryan, and Dravidian languages, and with other language isolates like Burushaski and Kusunda.

## Linguistic situation

Nihali tribal area is just south of the Tapti River spanning the border between Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh around Buldhana district and Burhanpur district. However, only the villages in the Buldhana district: Jamod, Sonbardi, Kuvardev, Chalthana, Ambavara, Wasali, and Cicari, have kept the usage of the Nihali language today. There are dialectal differences between the Jamod-Sonbardi and the Kuvardev-Chalthana varieties. Historically, Nihali had been spoken around the village of Tembi in Burhanpur district as well.
Today there are no longer any monolingual speakers of the language, as Nihali speakers are likely to speak varieties of Korku, Marathi, or Hindi among others.

## History

The early history of Nihali is unclear, as there are no direct attestations of the Nihali language prior to the modern era. One theory suggests that the Nihali people might trace back to the ancient community of Nahalka, an offshoot of the Nishada tribe mentioned in the Mahabharata and the Padma Purana.
Franciscus Kuiper was the first to suggest that Nihali may be unrelated to any other Indian language, with the non-Korku, non-Dravidian core vocabulary being the remnant of an earlier population in India. However, he did not rule out that it may be a Munda language, like Korku. Kuiper suggested that Nihali may differ from neighbouring languages, such as Korku, mostly in its function as an anti-language. Kuiper's assertions stem, in part, from the fact that many oppressed groups within India have used secret languages to prevent outsiders from understanding them. Rather than a true language isolate, Nihali may thus be more comparable to something like Shelta, the language of the Irish Travelers, which is a heavily disguised mix of Irish and English.
For centuries, most Nihalis have often worked as agricultural labourers, for speakers of languages other than their own. In particular, Nihali labourers have often worked for members of the Korku people, and are often bilingual in the Korku language. Because of this history, Nihali is sometimes used only to prevent non-Nihali speaking outsiders from understanding them. Some commonalities between Nihali and Gondi vocabulary also suggests that the Nihali people may have historically lived with the Gondi people or another Dravidian-speaking peoples in the area, before reaching the present settlements.
The Nihali live similarly to the Kalto people. That and the fact that the Kalto language has often been called Nahali led to confusion of the two languages. Some Korku-speakers refuse to acknowledge the Nihali as a distinct community, and describe the emergence of the Nihalis as resulting from a disruption of Korku civil society.
Linguist Norman Zide describes the recent history of the language as follows: "Nihali's borrowings are far more massive than in such textbook examples of heavy outside acquisition as Albanian." In this respect, says Zide, modern Nihali seems comparable to hybridised dialects of Romani spoken in Western Europe. Zide claims that this is a result of a historical process that began with a massacre of Nihalis in the early 19th century, organised by one of the rulers of the area, supposedly in response to "marauding". Zide alleges that, afterwards, the Nihalis "decimated in size", have "functioned largely as raiders and thieves ... who [have] disposed of ... stolen goods" through "outside associates". Zide adds that Nihali society has "long been multilingual, and uses Nihali as a more or less secret language which is not ordinarily revealed to outsiders" and that early researchers "attempting to learn the language were, apparently, deliberately rebuffed or misled".

## Phonology

Vowel phonemes of Nihali :
| | Front | Front | Back | Back |
| | short | long | short | long |
| Close | i | iː | u | uː |
| Mid | e | eː | o | oː |
| Open | | a | aː | |
Lengthening of vowels is phonemic. The vowels [e] and [o] have lower varieties at the end of morphemes.
Nasalization is rare and tends to occur in borrowed words.
Consonant phonemes of Nihali :
| | | Labial | Dental/ Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar |
| Nasal | Nasal | m | n | ɳ | ɲ | |
| Plosive/ Affricate | voiceless | p | t | ʈ | tʃ | k |
| Plosive/ Affricate | aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | ʈʰ | tʃʰ | kʰ |
| Plosive/ Affricate | voiced | b | d | ɖ | dʒ | ɡ |
| Plosive/ Affricate | breathy | bʱ | dʱ | ɖʱ | dʒʱ | ɡʱ |
| Fricative | Fricative | | s | ʂ | ʃ | h |
| Rhotic | Rhotic | | r | ɽ | | |
| Approximant | Approximant | ʋ | l | | j | |
There are 33 consonants. Unaspirated stops are more frequent than aspirated stops.

## Lexicon

The language has a very large number of words adopted from neighboring languages, with 60–70% apparently taken from the Munda Korku language, from Dravidian languages (ṭoːl "skin"; coːpo "salt"), and from Indo-Aryan languages. However, much of its core vocabulary, such as corṭo "blood" and kalen "egg", cannot be related to them nor any other languages. Less than 25% of the language's ancestral vocabulary seems to be in use.
Below are some Nihali basic vocabulary words without clear external parallels (in Korku, Hindi, Marathi, Dravidian, etc.) listed in the appendix of Nagaraja (2014).

### Body parts

| head | peːñ |
| hair (head) | kuguso |
| eye | jikit |
| ear | cigam |
| nose | coːn |
| tooth | menge |
| mouth | kaggo |
| hand | bakko |
| shoulder | ṭ/tagli |
| intestines | koṭor |
| navel | bumli |
| liver | gadri |
| blood | corṭo |
| bone | paːkṭo |

### Animals and plants

| bird | poe, pyu |
| egg | kalen |
| snake | koːgo |
| fish | caːn |
| louse | keːpe |
| mosquito | kaːn |
| fly (insect) | eḍ(u)go |
| tree | aːḍḍo |

### Natural phenomena

| water | joppo |
| rain | maːnḍo |
| stone | caːgo, caːrgo |

### Material culture, kinship

| road, path | ḍãːy |
| house | aːwaːr |
| name | jumu |

### Verbs

In Nihali, many verbs are suffixed with -be.
| eat | ṭyeː-, tyeː- |
| drink | ḍelen- |
| bite | haru- |
| blow | bigi-, bhigi- |
| die | betto-, beṭṭo- |
| kill | paḍa- |
| laugh | haːgo- |
| cry, weep | aːpa- |
| go | eːr-, eṛe- |
| come | paːṭo, pya |
| give | beː- |
| see | ara- |
| hear | cakni- |

## Pronouns and demonstratives

The personal pronouns in Nihali are:
| | singular | dual | plural |
| 1st person | jo | tye:ko | ingi |
| 2nd person | ne | na:ko | la |
| 3rd person | eṭey | hiṭkel | eṭla < eṭey + la |
The table below compares the demonstrative paradigm between Nihali and Korku, the surrounding Munda language.
| | Nihali | Korku |
| 'what' | nan | co:(ch) |
| 'who' | nani | je |
| 'why' | naway, nawa:san | co:- ~ co:ch |
| ‘when’ | meran ~ miran | co:-la |
| ‘where’ | mingay | ṭone ~ ṭongan 'at where' |
| ‘how much’ | m(i)yan | co-ṭo |
| ‘how’ | naw-ki | co-phar |
| ‘whose’ | nan-in | je-konṭe ‘whose child’ |
| ‘which (book)’ | nu-san | (pustak) ṭone-bukko ‘which (book)’ |

## Morphosyntax

Nihali morphosyntax is much simpler than that of Korku and other Munda languages, and is unrelated to that of Munda languages. Word order is SOV.
Sample sentences
nani
who
hi
this
palso-ki
child-to
duːdo
milk
delenkamay
gave
nani hi palso-ki duːdo delenkamay
who this child-to milk gave
"Who gave milk to this child?"
kyamp
tomorrow
jo
I
minga-ka-bi
anywhere
beṭhe
neg
eːr
go
kyamp jo minga-ka-bi beṭhe eːr
tomorrow I anywhere neg go
"I will not go anywhere tomorrow."