Sabiha Hashami
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

Hindi as Contact Language in Bihar and Jharkhand: A Sociophonetic study of a non-dominant variety of Hindi

Sociophonetics is the study of socially conditioned phonetic variation in speech. In sociophonetic studies we try to link linguistic variations with social parameter of differences such as age, gender, education, etc. According to Fasold- Variable is a set of alternative ways of saying the same thing, although the alternative will have social significance. (1990, pp.223-24).
The problem of phonic interference concerns the manner in which speaker perceives and reproduces the sound of one language, which might be designated secondary, in terms of another to be called primary. Interference arises when a bilingual identifies a phoneme of the secondary system with one in the primary system and in reproducing it subjects it to the phonetic rules of the primary language. Phenomena of this kind were described traditionally under the heading of “sound substitution”. (Weinreich 1953).
This paper attempts to give an account of sociophonetic variation in Hindi, which is used as contact language across the states of Bihar and Jharkhand in India. The data was collected during the field work for my PhD, in Bihar and Jharkhand (mostly cities and semi-urban area around it, industrial towns, markets, schools, offices and formal and informal gatherings). Because the nature of the study is socio/ethno linguistic in a contact setting, that is why I spent lots of time in these states. In this paper I am attempting to wed the fields of contact linguistics and sociophonetics and draw inferences from the sociophonetic variation in language regarding the direction of contact, attitude of speakers towards the languages in contact and the type of contact taking place in the said case and whether or not it is a case of pluricentricity? These two states are amongst the nine states and two union territories that constitute the Hindi belt. These parts of India are termed as Hindi belt because Hindi functions as state official language in these states i.e. Hindi is used as the language of local governance and as the main language or the medium of instruction in state owned and funded educational institutions. Hindi became the language of education and administration in Bihar in 1880, though people like Grierson had strong objections  to this along with few others , as according to Grierson languages of Bihar were different from Hindi and neither Hindi was nor it could ever be the language of Bihari people.

Ever since 1880 Hindi has been the SOL of Bihar (and of Jharkhand since 2000). Bihar and Jharkhand have many regional and tribal languages which are used as mother tongue by the local population of these states. Prolong contact of standard Hindi with these regional languages (most of which are classified as the varieties of standard Hindi in Indian census) has given rise to a variety of Hindi which we can call contact Hindi. In this study I will attempt to analyze phonetic variations in contact Hindi vis-à-vis standard Hindi and correlate it with the social condition of the speakers. Social parameters used for the study are age, gender, education, economic condition, location (rural or urban), and duration of exposure to standard Hindi. The study will help us understand how social identities are transmitted and constructed simultaneously with linguistic content and linguistic variations.

2     Few Examples are:

Ə fronting: inherent vowel /ə/ is fronted as short as /ɛ / if it is immediately followed by /h/, which may be followed by a consonant or a /ə/ in the standard variety. [kɛhna:]- say (INF.)
[sɛh] - bear (imp.)
This can be formally presented as /ə/ -> [-back] /_/h/
Condition: /h/ is not followed by a vowel other than /ə/ (Pandey, 1992)
The presence of this feature in contact Hindi spoken in Bihar depends on various social variables like education, age, gender, exposure to SH etc. as it is not an inherent feature of Hindi in Bihar and Jharkhand.

/ʃ/ -> /s/
e.g. [ʃa:di] - [sa:di] though in standard Hindi the distinction between /ʃ/ and /s/ is not only phonetic but also phonemic. So the first word means wedding and the other plain in standard Hindi, but in contact Hindi of Bihar they can mean either of the two depending on context. They exist in free variation with each other.

/z/ -> /j/ these also exist in free variation e.g.
[səbzi] (vegetable) -> [səbji] (vegetable)
/n/ -> /l/ word initially e.g.
[na:la] (drain) ->[la:la] (drain) /n/ and /l/ distinction is also phonemic in standard Hindi [na:la] means (drain) but [la:la] means shopkeeper.
/v/ -> /ɔ/ word finally, initially and medially e.g.
[nəv] (new) -> [nəɔ] (new)
[avka:ʃ] (holiday) -> [ɔka:ʃ] (holiday)
In reduplicative structures /v/ -> /u/:
[roʈi-voʈi] -> [roʈi-u:ʈi]

The above study will help us understand the formation of contact Hindi as a language of contact and also establish the fact that Hindi is not spoken as a monolithic language across the Hindi belt. Even though the population is polarized in terms of language and religion as markers of identity i.e. Hindu= Hindi as Mother tongue, Muslim=Urdu as Mother tongue but actually they are not spoken as first language by anybody in Bihar and Jharkhand, few elites being an exception. The structure as well as function of the contact Hindi is dependent on the social location of the speakers.