Awadhi, also known as Audhi, is an Indo-Aryan language belonging to the Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken in the Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh in northern India and in Terai region of western Nepal. The name Awadh is connected to Ayodhya, the ancient city, which is regarded as the homeland of the Hindu deity Rama, the earthly avatar of Vishnu. Awadhi is also widely spoken, along with Bhojpuri, by the diaspora of Indians descended from those who left as indentured labourers during the colonial era. Along with Braj, it was used widely as a literary vehicle before being displaced by Hindi in the 19th century. Though distinct from standard Hindi, it continues to be spoken today in its unique form in many districts of central and eastern Uttar Pradesh.
The Indian government considers Awadhi to be a greater mother-tongue grouped under Eastern Hindi languages. Standard Hindi serves as the lingua franca of the region; Hindi, rather than Awadhi, is used for school instruction as well as administrative and official purposes and its literature falls within the scope of Hindi literature.- A vast central portion of the subcontinent, consisting of the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, and Himachal Pradesh, plus the Union Territory of Delhi, is known as the "HINDI area", because the official and general written language, that is to say, that of administration, press, school instruction, and modern literature, is Hindi, sometimes called MODERN STANDARD HINDI, and the whole area is heir to the "Hindi literary tradition" – Hindi being used here in a different and wider sense, to refer to pre-modern literature in Braj and Awadhi, and often to those languages proper to Rajasthan and Bihar as well Some of the most culturally signifiant Hindu text works in Indian literature like the Ramcharitmanas and Hanuman Chalisa have been written in Awadhi.
Alternative names of Awadhi include Baiswāri (after the subregion of Baiswara), as well as the sometimes ambiguous Pūrbī, literally meaning "eastern", and Kōsalī (named after the ancient Kosala Kingdom).
Geographic distribution In India
Awadhi is predominantly spoken in the Awadh region encompassing central and Eastern Uttar Pradesh, along with the lower part of the Ganga-Yamuna doab. In the west, it is bounded by Western Hindi, specifically Kannauji and Bundeli, while in the east, Bhojpuri from the Bihari group of Eastern Indo-Aryan languages is spoken. In the north, it is bounded by the country of Nepal and in the south by Bagheli, which shares a great resemblance with Awadhi.
The following districts of North and Central UP speak Awadhi- Lakhimpur Kheri (along with Kannauji) Sitapur (along with Kannauji) Unnao Fatehpur Barabanki Lucknow Rae Bareli Amethi Bahraich Shrawasti Kanpur North-eastern part of UP where Awadhi is spoken includes districts :- Ayodhya (older capital of Awadh or Oudh) Ambedkar Nagar (western parts) Prayagraj Mirzapur (western parts) Jaunpur (western parts) Bhadohi (western parts) Sultanpur Pratapgarh Gonda Balrampur Basti (western parts) Siddharthnagar (western parts)
In Nepal The Language Commission of Nepal has recommended Tharu and Awadhi as official language in Lumbini province. Awadhi is spoken in two provinces in Nepal: Lumbini Province Banke District Bardiya District Dang District Kapilvastu District Sudurpashchim Province Kailali District Kanchanpur District
Outside South Asia
A language influenced by Awadhi (as well as other languages) is also spoken as a lingua franca for Indians in Fiji and is referred to as Fijian Hindi. According to Ethnologue, it is a type of Awadhi influenced by Bhojpuri and is also classified as Eastern-Hindi. Caribbean Hindustani spoken by Indians in Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana is based on Bhojpuri and partly on Awadhi. The Hindustani that is spoken in South Africa and the Bhojpuri spoken in Mauritius is also partly influenced by Awadhi. Classification
Awadhi is an Indo-European language and belongs to the Indo-Aryan sub-group of the Indo-Iranian language family. Within the Indo-Aryan dialect continuum, it falls under the East-Central zone of languages and is often recognised as Eastern-Hindi. It is generally believed that an older form of Ardhamagadhi, which agreed partly with Sauraseni and partly with Magadhi Prakrit, could be the basis of Awadhi.
The closest relative of Awadhi is the Bagheli language as genealogically both descend from the same 'Ardha-Magadhi'. Most early Indian linguists regarded Bagheli merely as 'the southern form of Awadhi', but recent studies accept Bagheli as a separate dialect at par with Awadhi and not merely a sub-dialect of it.
Dialects Baburam Saksena divided Awadhi into three major divisions: Western Awadhi, Central Awadhi, and Eastern Awadhi.
Among the Western Awadhi dialects are those of Lakhimpur Kheri, Sitapur, Lucknow, Unnao, and Fatehpur. The Sitapuri dialect in particular showcases an increased degree of Kannauji influence, which Saksena posited as possibly being as a result of frequent movements of Mughal armies from Kannauj to Khairabad.
Among the Central Awadhi dialects are those of Bahraich, Barabanki, and Raebareli.
Among the Eastern Awadhi dialects are those of Gonda, Faizabad, Sultanpur, Pratapgarh, Allahabad, Jaunpur, and Mirzapur. Azamgarhi, spoken by sections of the Muslim population of Azamgarh, is also often classified to be an Eastern Awadhi dialect, though it bears heavy Bhojpuri influence. Glottolog, contrasting with Saksena's classifications, lists Gangapari, Mirzapuri, Uttari, and Azamgarhi as the dialects of Eastern Awadhi.
Literature
Late-medieval and early-modern India In this period, Awadhi became the vehicle for epic poetry in northern India. Its literature is mainly divided into: bhaktīkāvya (devotional poetry) and premākhyān (romantic tales).
Bhaktīkāvyas The most important work, probably in any modern Indo-Aryan language, came from the poet-saint Tulsidas in the form of Ramcharitmanas (1575 C.E.) or "The Lake of the Deeds of Rama", written in doha-chaupai metre. Its plot is mostly derivative, either from the original Rāmāyaṇa by Valmiki or from the Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇa, both of which are in Sanskrit. Mahatma Gandhi had acclaimed the Ramcharitmanas as "the greatest book of all devotional literature" while western observers have christened it as "the Bible of Northern India". It is sometimes synonymously referred as 'Tulsidas Ramayana' or simply 'the Ramayana'.—Since the Ramcaritmanas is a text in the Ramayana tradition, for which the Sanskrit epic of Valmiki is the accepted archetype, it is commonly referred to simply as "the Ramayan" and many popular editions bear only this name on their spine and cover, perhaps adding above it in small print: "composed by Goswami Tulsidas".
Tulsidas's compositions Hanuman Chalisa, Pārvatī Maṅgala and Jānakī Maṅgala are also written in Awadhi.
The first Hindi vernacular adaptation of the 'Dasam Skandha' of the Bhagavata Purana, the "Haricharit" by Lalachdas, who hailed from Hastigram (present-day Hathgaon near Rae Bareilly), was concluded in 1530 C.E. It circulated widely for a long time and scores of manuscript copies of the text have been found as far as eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, Malwa and Gujarat, all written in the Kaithi script.—"That Brahmin kathavachaks were not the only tellers of the story is proved by the first Hindi vernacular adaptation of the Dasam Skandha, the Haricharit in the Chaupai Doha by Lalach Kavi, a Kayastha from "Hastigram" (present-day Hathgaon) near Rae Bareilly, concluded in 1530 (VS1587)."
Satyavatī (ca. 1501) of Ishvaradas (of Delhi) under the reign of Sikander Lodi and Avadhabilāsa (1700 C.E.) of Laladas were also written in Awadhi. A translation of the Mahabharata called Bhasha Mahabharat was composed by Sabal Singh Chauhan, under his patron Raja Mitrasen of Etawah, a courtier of the court of Aurangzeb in the 17th century. This is the first complete verse translation of the epic into Awadhi Hindi language, composed in a manner and style of Tulsidas' fame chaupai metre.
Awadhi appeared as a major component in the works of Bhakti saints like Kabir, who used a language often described as being a pancmel khicṛī or "a hotch-potch" of several vernaculars.–The first editor of the Kabir Granthavali, S.S Das, also stresses the composite character of Kabir's language, giving examples in his introduction, of vanis composed in Khariboli (i.e. Standard Hindi), Rajasthani, and Panjabi, besides Awadhi.–Among the dialects or languages "melted" in the Hindavi language, the most important is Avadhi, mentioned above. The language of Kabir himself an Easterner, retains old Eastern forms, especially the old Avadhi forms. According to Sir George Abraham Grierson, the language of Kabir's major work Bijak is primarily Old Awadhi.–Chaturvedi has shown that the same pada may be found with more characteristic Avadhi forms in the Bijak, with more Khari-boli in the Guru Granth and with Braj forms in the Kabir Granthavali.–According to Grierson, however, there is not a single word typical of the Bhojpuri language in the Bijak. According to him, the basic language of the Bijak is old Avadhi...
Premākhyāns
Awadhi also emerged as the favourite literary language of the Eastern Sufis from the last quarter of the 14th century onwards. It became the language of premākhyāns, romantic tales built on the pattern of Persian masnavi, steeped in Sufi mysticism but set in a purely Indian background, with a large number of motifs directly borrowed from Indian lore. The first of such premākhyān in the Awadhi language was Candāyan (1379 C.E.) of Maulana Da'ud. The tradition was carried forward by Jayasi, whose masterpiece, the Padmāvat (1540 C.E.) was composed under the reign of the famous ruler Sher Shah Suri. The Padmavat travelled far and wide, from Arakan to the Deccan, and was eagerly copied and retold in Persian and other languages.
Other prominent works of Jayasi such as Kānhāvat, Akhrāvaṭ and Ākhrī Kalām are also written in Awadhi.
The Awadhi romance Mirigāvatī (ca.1503) or "The Magic Doe", was written by Shaikh 'Qutban' Suhravardi, who was an expert and storyteller attached to the court-in-exile of Sultan Hussain Shah Sharqi of Jaunpur. Another romance named Madhumālatī or "Night Flowering Jasmine" by poet Sayyid Manjhan Rajgiri was written in 1545 C.E. —"Manjhan's birthplace Rajgir is in the present-day state of Bihar, not far away from Patna in northern India, and the poem itself is written in Awadhi or eastern Hindavi".
Amir Khusrau (d. 1379 C.E) is also said to have written some compositions in Awadhi.
Modern India The most significant contributions to the Awadhi literature in the modern period have come from writers like Ramai Kaka (1915–1982 C.E.), Balbhadra Prasad Dikshit better known as 'Padhees'(1898–1943 C.E.) and Vanshidhar Shukla (1904–1980 C.E.).
'Krishnayan' (1942 C.E.) is a major Awadhi epic-poem that Dwarka Prasad Mishra wrote in imprisonment during the Freedom Movement of India. In 2022 Dr. Vidya Vindu Singh has been awarded Padma Shri for her contribution in Awadhi literature.
Phonology Vowels Awadhi possesses both voiced and voiceless vowels. The voiced vowels are: /ə/, /ʌ/, /aː/, /ɪ/, /iː/, /ʊ/, /uː/, /e/, /eː/, /o/, /oː/. The voiceless vowels, also described as "whispered vowels" are: /i̥/, /ʊ̥/, /e̥/. Voiceless vowels only occur at the end of a word.
+Vowels of Awadhi Front Central Back Close iː i̥ ɪ uː ʊ ʊ̥ Close-mid e eː e̥ o oː Mid ə Open-mid ʌ Open aː
Vowel combinations