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Birjia Documentation
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The People
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Birjia, a lesser known language is spoken across the states of Jharkhand, Bihar
and West Bengal. In Jharkhand the Birjia community inhabits in the districts of
Lohardaga, Gumla, Ranchi and Palamau. Birjia people are found in some parts of Bihar
and in some districts of West Bengal like Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, 24 Parganas, Malda
and Nadia. According to the 2001 Census report Birjia population strength in India
is 12,784.
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The Language, Religion and occupation
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The speech of the Birjia community is commonly assumed to belong to the Munda group
of the Austro-Asiatic family of languages. Its speakers’ strength is less than 10,000
and it is considered to be one of the endangered languages in India. The dominant
languages of the Birjia-speaking areas are Hindi, Sadri and Panchparganiya in Jharkhand;
Bengali, Hindi, Mundari, Santhali etc in Bihar and Bangla. Hindi, Santhali, Bodo
etc in West Bengal. The language has no script. Birjias use the script of the respective
dominant languages of the region.There are some books providing information regarding
the culture and social organization of the Birjias, but no linguistic work or ducumentation
has so far been done. Birjias were initially nature worshippers. They used to worship
earth, sun, moon, forest etc. Later they started to remember ancestors also. However,
in course of time many of them have adopted other religions like Vaishnavism, Christianity
and rarely Islam. Irrespective of this change many Birjias worship Hindu gods like
Shiva, Lakshmi, Durga, Vajrangvali (Hanuman) and others. They are secular in spirit.
At the time of their Karam and Sarhul festivals all communities
belonging to different religions assemble and participate in the festivals without
any religious bias. They are still dependent upon the natural resources of the forest.
Nowadays, Birjias follow agriculture as their occupation especially the ones who
have moved to the plain lands. They have some small land holding on which they practice
plough cultivation. Some sections of the tribe who live in the hills are hunters
and gatherers. Along with agriculture, some Birjias breed pigs goats, hens etc.
They used to inhabit in the deeper and denser forest areas. Presently, they are
more or less settled in villages and have given up the practice of shifting cultivation.
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The present work
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At present in order to protect, preserve and document the Birjia language attempts
have been made to prepare a grammatical sketch, a trilingual dictionary (Birjia-Hindi-English
ditionary) and a socio-lingistic profile of the Birjia community. The work is in
progress.
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