Phonological variations and changes in mewati language
Loading...
Date
2017
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Management and Technology Lahore
Abstract
This study examines phonological variations and changes in the variety of Mewati language spoken in the districts of Lahore and Kasur. To reveal phonological variation and changes 15 variants in this variety of Mewati language were analyzed. Quantitative methodology was used in the study to answer the research questions. Mewati speech community migrated from the current state of Rajasthan, India and settled across the various districts of Pakistanin 1947. In Pakistanafter migration, Mewati speech community came into contact with other languages and dialects spoken across Pakistan. Over the years, the use of Mewati language has been diminishing. Striking features have been noted at diverse linguistic levels, such as phonetics and phonology, lexicon, semantics and syntax. Labov (1966) argued that language change could be measured across diverse age cohorts. Apparent time hypothesis was considered appropriate to study variations and changes in Mewati language. The data was collected from a sample of 30 respondents belonging to various age groups. The respondents were living in both rural and urban areas. The three age groups were between 13-19 years, 20-40 years and 40-70 years respectively. The participants were the residents of Lahore and Kasur. The results showed a significant phonological variation and change in the speech patterns of 13-19 years old Mewati speakers. While, the second age group (20-40) displayed fluctuation between speech sounds in words such as Chamal- چامل versus Chawalچاول. Nevertheless, the respondents in the third age group 40-70 were observed to always use original sounds of Mewati suach as pakal-پکل and pakarr-پکڑ ; as opposed to their Punjabi and Urdu substitutes in words like the above mentioned examples. Considering the changes in the speech of the first age group (13-19 years), there is significant reason to believe that the Mewati language holds a tendency to be changedconsiderably in future.
Description
Supervised By:Dr. Muhammad Shaban Rafi
Keywords
Phonological variations, Mewati language, M.Phil Thesis