Concept
Marwari (मारवाड़ी, IAST: Mārwāṛī; also rendered as Marwadi or Marvadi) is a Rajasthani language spoken in the Indian state of Rajasthan. It is also found in the neighbouring states of Gujarat and Haryana, some adjacent areas in Eastern parts of Pakistan, and some migrant communities in Nepal. With some 7.8 million or so speakers (ce. 2011), it is one of the largest varieties of Rajasthani. Most speakers live in Rajasthan and a few in Nepal. There are two dozen dialects of Marwari. Marwari is popularly written in Devanagari script, as are many languages of India and Nepal, including Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, and Sanskrit; although it was historically written in Mahajani, it is still written in the Perso-Arabic script by the Marwari minority in Eastern parts of Pakistan (the standard/western Naskh script variant is used in Sindh Province, and the eastern Nastalik variant is used in Punjab Province), where it has educational status but where it is rapidly shifting to Urdu. Marwari has no official status in India and is not used as a language of education. Marwari is still spoken widely in Jodhpur, Pali, Jaisalmer, Barmer, Nagaur, Bikaner. It is believed that Marwari and Gujarati evolved from Old Western Rajasthani or Dingal. Formal grammar of Gurjar Apabhraṃśa was written by Jain monk and Gujarati scholar Hemachandra Suri. Marwari is primarily spoken in the Indian state of Rajasthan. Marwari speakers have dispersed widely throughout India and other countries but are found most notably in the neighbouring state of Gujarat and in Eastern Pakistan. Speakers are also found in Bhopal. With around 7.9 million speakers in India according to the 2001 census. There are several dialects: Thaḷī (spoken in eastern Jaisalmer district and northwestern Jodhpur district), Bhitrauti, Sirohī, Godwārī. Indian Marwari [rwr] in Rajasthan shares a 50%–65% lexical similarity with Hindi (this is based on a Swadesh 210 word list comparison). It has many cognate words with Hindi. Notable phonetic correspondences include /s/ in Hindi with /h/ in Marwari.
