Garhwali Literature

Garhwali is Language and not Dialect
(Review of Garhwali Bhasha Hai Boli Nahin , a Book by Dr Nandkishor Dhoundiyal )
Bhishma Kukreti

From the time Grison and Suniti Kumar Chatterji wrote about comments of garhwali language, there has been debate that whether Garhwali, Kumaoni, Himachali are languages or dialects of Hindi. The non-Garhwali and Garhwali Hindi lovers of did harm to Garhwali by stating that Garhwali is dialects of Hindi (hindi ki boli ya upboli) Hindi never been a language of any Kingdom before independence but Garhwali had been the state language of Garhwal kingdom from the time the kingdom came in existence in Garhwal. There is no doubt that as happened with the development of other language, the old Garhwali took many shapes and shades with the time for becoming today’s Garhwali. The eminent scholar of Hindi and Garhwali Dr Nand Kishor Dhoundiyal logically proved that Garhwali is a language and not dialect as wrongly perceived by not only common men but linguistic scholars too in his recently published book Garhwali Bhasha Hai Boli Nahin .
A web site (1) defines the characteristics of language as “ language is a system: it has different linguistic levels (phonological, related to phonemes, intonation and rhythm; lexical semantic, which have to do with lexis, that is, the words, and their meaning (semantics); syntactical, that is, the rules of grammar; discourse, written language; conversation, that is, the characteristics of spoken discourse (turn-taking, use of words, etc.); sociolinguistic (social factors, such as educational level, age, ethnic, sex, etc.).” The same web site further states that the language is always dynamic and changes continuously even the meaning of word may change from one generation to second generation. The sociolect language means language social variation vary depending upon the class of speaker and same way the language of each speaker varies (voice quality, pitch, speech rhythm) .
Wikipedia (Ref-2) states that spoken language is ten thousand is ten thousand years predate than the written language .
Dr Nand Kishor Dhoundiyal provided evidences from the above unversal norms of a language that Garhwali is a language and not the dialects as wrongly perceived by those scholars who never tried to study the characteristics of Garhwali language and the history of Garhwal.
Learned scholar Dr Dhoundiyal accuses in ’Garhwali ek bhasha hai boli nahin’ chapter that those Garhwali writers who write in Hindi and these writers never provide any importance to their mother tongue because these Garhwali (Hindi creative writer ) foolishly state that Garhwali is dialects of Hindi . Dhoundiyal proved that Hindi was never been language before 1850 0r so.
Dr Dhoundiyal also supports the theory of dr Chatak that the origin of Garhwali language is Shursheni Apbhransh. It means Garhwali is originated from Sanskrit. Dr Nand Kishor proves brilliantly that Garhwali language is much richer than Hindi in terms of confusion less grammar.
Dr Dhoundiyal presents the quote of another brilliant scholar Dr Pitamber Datt Barthwal that Garhwali language has the capacity to convert any foreign words for making that foreign word as original Garhwali word as Khud word of Urdu became very original Garhwali word, which means emotional memorizing/remembrance of the beloved one . Dr Dhoundiyal also provides the logical proofs provided by Dr Babulakar, Dr haridatt Bhatt Shailesh, Dr Guna Nand Juyal and Abodh Bandhu Bahuguna that Garhwali is a language and not a dialect. .
Samridh Sahitya or Rich Literature
Dr Nand Kishor Dhoundiyal divides the chapter Samridh Sahitya (Rich Literature ) into two parts I.e. Folk Literature (Lok Sahitya ) and Modern Literature (Maulik Sahitya)
Folk Literature
The language expert Dr Nand Kishor Dhoundiyal under whom more than ten researchers got Ph D degree from Hemwati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University in Garhwali language related subject briefed the readers about rich Folk Garhwali literature . He classified folk literature into Lok Geet (Folk Songs), Lok Gathayen (Folklores), Folk Stories, Lokoktiyan Sayings) , Lok Muhavare (Folk Proverbs and Idioms) Lok Paheliyan (Folk Puzzles) Lok Vartayen (Folk Philosophical and Spiritual Literature ), Lok Mantra ( Hocus-pocus Literature ) . Dr Dhoundiyal divided each above title into various sub subjects. His detailing proves that Garhwali language is one of the richest language in the world in terms of folk literature. The readers can judge the richness that there are thirteen thousands proverbs and idioms in Garhwali language.
Modern literature

Dr Nand Kishor Dhoundiyal provided us details of modern Garhwali literature created by modern literature creative from 1900. Dhoundiyal lists the details of modern Garhwali poetry, prose, drama and other literature such as translation of Sanskrit classics in Garhwali language by eminent Garhwali creative. Here too, Nand Kishor divides Garhwali the modern literature according to time frame and names them as Garhwali era, Panthari era, Singh era etc.
Script
Devnagari is the script for Garhwali language . However, Dr Dhoundiyal had been suggesting separate script for Garhwali language. However, most of the learned personalities of Garhwali literature do not agree with Dr Dhoundiyal that Garhwali needs separate script. T
Characteristics of Garhwali Words
Dr Dhoundiyal lists the different types of words found in Garhwali language as words from Prakrit, Sanskrit, Vedas, Pali, Urdu, Marathi, Gujrati, Rajashthani, and foreign languages specially form English .
Garhwali as State Language
Nand Kishor Dhoundiyal provided many proofs about Garhwali being a state language of sovereign Garhwali kingdom for more than fifteen hundred years.
The subject is not new but Dr Dhoundiyal integrated all the subject in one book for proving that Garhwali is a language and not dialects and Dhoundiyal is succeful in proving the richness of Garhwali language
All praises for Dr Dhoundiyal for bringing such useful book.
Garhwali Bhasha hai Boli Nahin
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Reference :
1- What are the characteristics of language ? http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070607041815AAM2LTF
2- Language , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language

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