________________ A HISTORICAL OUTLINE OF THE LANGUAGES OF WESTERN INDIA 167 topic on earth. In respect of form, lyrics, ballads, sonnets and elegies in poetry, and essay, fiction, short story, drama, autobiography, and travel literature now came into existence as a direct consequence of contact with western literature. The still newer forms of literature like the short story, one-act plays and radio-plays have recently come into greater vogue and achieved success. Such is modern Gujarati language and literature. VIII Besides its standard form in which literature is composed Gujarati has several interesting dialects which are only spoken forms of speech, though almost universally current among the masses of Gujarat. They are the Kathiawadi, Pattani or north Gujarati, Carotari or middle Gujarati, and Surati or south Gujarati. The Bhils on the eastern border speak their own dialect--the Bhilli, which bears a close affinity to Gujarati. To the north beyond Mount Abu is spoken a language which has traces of Gujarati within its predominantly Rajasthani corpus. To the south-east in the Danga area the speech is an intermixture of Gujarati and Marathi-predominantly Gujarati on the western side, and leaning more to Marathi on the eastern side. There are also racial dialects of Gujarati which are spoken by particular communities. For example, Kathis and Ahirs of Saurastra speak an archaic dialect nearer to Apabhramsa than to modern Gujarati. The Kharvas of the coast-line of Saurastra have their special dialect known as Kharvi. Parsis speak Parsi-Gujarati, while Vohras of north Gujarat, Memons of Saurastra, and Baraiyas and Dharalas of middle Gujarat speak Gujarati with their characteristic dialectal traits. Some of these dialects are given a place in modern Gujarati creative literature-particularly in the short-story and fiction-in order to impart local colour to the work. Gujarati in its long history stretching over a thousand years as outlined above came in contact with several external influences and assimilated some of them. Thus it is that Arabic words like umda,* insaf, javab, kharca, taiyar, makan, vatan, sarbat; and the Persian words like gulab, gumasto, calak, jakham, dago, dastavej, darji, fudino, bakhsis, baju, majur, hajar, etc.; and the Turki words like kalgi, kabu, cakmak, camco, jajam, These and other loan-words are reproduced in their characteristically Gujarati form. Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org
