Talk:Nihali language

Page history of duplicate article 2004–2008 Feb

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Dharasingh17.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:17, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Untitled

Who is Kuipers? Why is the use of the term "Nahals" disparaging? -- Zoe

Kuiper was the pioneer researcher into the origins of this language. I added a reference.

From what I've read, "Kalto" is what speakers of this language call it themselves and "Nahali" is used only by others. I suspect that's part of why "Nahals" might be considered disparaging. Jonathunder 03:47, 2004 Nov 15 (UTC)

What is the subject of this article

Originally, and for most of its history, this article was about a language isolate of central India known alternately as Nihali, Nahali, or Kalto. In November, 2006, an editor, without so much as an edit summary, altered the article to state that it is about an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the same general vicinity called Nahali. A new article was created at the same time at Nihali language, about the language isolate. There do seem to be two languages with similar names in the same general region, but I don't see the reason to change the basic subject of this article from one to the other. The incongruity resulting has inspired an anonymous editor to add a passage to these articles arguing with the rest of the article. In order to remedy the situation, I have reverted this article to an early version concerning its original subject. I will redirect Nihali language to this page, and I will transfer the small amount of text available which is about the Indo-Aryan language in question—along with the infobox—to a new article at Nahali language.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 21:15, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid your editor appears to have been right. There are indeed two languages involved: an Indo-European one called Nahali (belonging to the Bhili dialect chain), and an isolate known as Nihal(i). Unfortunately, it's the IE one that self-designates as Kalto, according to the very sources linked in this article.

It appears that the 14th edition of the Ethnologue listed Kalto among the synonyms for a 'Nihali language' which was, even then, suspected of being two unrelated languages. The 15th and 16th editions clearly differentiate the two, and the 16th (if not the 15th) identifies the name Kalto as belonging to the IE one.

The material in this article actually deals with the Nihali language isolate, which isn't Kalto. Kalto language should treat the Indo-European dialect, with Nahali language redirecting to it. Given that the isolate is of considerable linguistic interest, this needs correcting somewhat urgently. Gnostrat (talk) 00:58, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh man, this is a mess. I'll take care of it, but the article histories are screwed up, so it's not as simple as just moving the articles. kwami (talk) 01:10, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't envy you. Thanks anyhow. Gnostrat (talk) 01:29, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out, Gnostrat. I think that this article should move to Nihali language (where it used to be) and Nahali language should move to Kalto language. (Since the language isolate is a more notable topic, I would suggest that Nahali language should redirect to the article about the isolate). I fixed the link to Kalto language in Template:Language families, which should take care of a lot of the links, but we'll have to go through whatever's left to see if links to Kalto language are pointing to the right article.—Nat Krause^{(Talk!·What have I done?)} 03:53, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, except maybe for the redirect - I don't know enough to have an opinion on that. There are only about 30 linking articles, and some of them might really mean Kalto. kwami (talk) 05:38, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I've left Nahali as a rd to Kalto, but that's not a decision, only the lack of a decision, on my part. This was even more of a mess than I thought: there were two Nihali (isolate) articles running in parallel from 2004 to 2008; this is the older one, and the other is now at Nihali language/archive. I'm going to ask the higher-ups what should be done with it - if I were to merge the page histories here, that era would become a mess. But at least the page history of this article contains only versions of Nihali, and the page history of Kalto (Indic) contains only versions of Kalto.

I think. kwami (talk) 06:19, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, no more Nihali links to Kalto. And the template now links here, rather than to Kalto. However, the claims on the Kalto article about the name need to be cleaned up. I'll let one of you take care of that. kwami (talk) 07:04, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Nice work, kwami, and thanks again. I think the one remaining issue in this article is whether the plundering tribes "known disparagingly as Nahals or Nihals" to the Victorians were the Nihals proper, or the Indic Kalto, or (not impossibly) both. I'm no expert there but I'll let you guys know if I dig anything up.

On the Nahali rd: we could almost toss a coin for it, but on reflection I think there's something to be said for NK's suggestion. In the linguistic literature the name has generally referred to the isolate. It was used interchangeably with Nihali (and in fact was the commoner name) down into the 90s so far as I can tell, but nobody suspected this Indic language had been lumped in with the isolate and was in fact the name's "proper" owner (if that's the right word for a pejorative). So anybody who clicks on Nahali will most probably be looking for Nihali. Gnostrat (talk) 22:57, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

plunderers

I'm moving this here, as it's unclear if it refers to the Nihali, to the Kalto, or to both:

In the 19th century the Nihals were among the most notorious of the jungle tribes that lived by plunder. In the early 1800s, an Arab princeling of the Moghul empire led a punitive expedition against them that destroyed their tribal independence (Kuiper op. cit., pp 243–247).

— kwami (talk) 01:46, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Geographical spread of language

Do you recommend adding that Nihali is spoken in the Buldhana district of Maharastra, specifically the villages of Jamod, Sonbardi, Kuvardev, Chalthana, Ambavra, Wasali and Cicari? I think by giving this context we can follow up with that there are differences in dialects between the Kuvardev-Chaltana speakers and the Jamod-Sonbardi Speakers. There is insight on how location influences the phonetics of the lanuguage. There is a huge debate I want to mention as well about how Korku, a Munda language might influence Nihali. Through my research and K.S. Nagaraja's book "The Nihali Language", I wish to prove that both languages are actually distinct and show no relationship. Dharasingh17 (talk) 03:50, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

References

Student Editor Bibliography

• I welcome comments on the following resources I plan to use to help add information to this article:
• 1. Elizarenkova, T.. (1987). F. B. J. Kuiper: Fundamental Directions of His Scholarly Work. Numen,34(2), 145–178. http://doi.org/10.2307/3270083. Retrieved from http://www.books.google.com.
• 2. Parkin, R. (1991). A Guide to Austroasiatic Speakers and Their Languages. Oceanic Linguistics Special Publications, (23), i–198. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20006738
• 3. Anderson, G. D. (2008). The Munda languages. Retrieved February 11, 16, from https://books.google.com/books?id=w2zxBwAAQBAJ&dq=nihali language&lr=
• 4. Bhawuk, D. P. (2012). India and the Culture of Peace: Beyond Ethnic, Religious, and Other Conflicts (pp. 137-174). Springer US. Retrieved from http://www.books.google.com.
• 5. Nagaraja, K. S.. (1996). Review of A GUIDE TO AUSTROASIATIC SPEAKERS AND THEIR LANGUAGES. Bulletin of the Deccan College Research Institute, 56/57, 341–343. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/42930517
• 6. Stampe, D. L. (1966). Recent Work in Munda Linguistics IV. International Journal of American Linguistics, 32(4), 390–397. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1264094
• 7. Anderson, G. D. (2007). The Munda verb: Typological perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Retrieved from http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/niha1238
• 8. Berar. (1901). Census of India, 1901. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing. Retrieved from http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/niha1238
• 9. Kuiper, F. B. (1962). Nahali: A comparative study. Amsterdam: N.V. Noord-Hollandsche Uitg. Mij. Retrieved from http://books.google.com.
• 10. Nagaraja, K. S. (2014). The Nihali language: Grammar, texts and vocabulary. Mysuru, Karnataka, India: Central Institute of Indian languages. Retrieved from http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/niha1238.
• Dharasingh17 (talk) 01:53, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

"Nihali language/archive" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Nihali language/archive and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 December 1#Nihali language/archive until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 05:49, 1 December 2022 (UTC)