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Maithili (autonym: मैथिली maithilī) is of the family of Indo-Aryan languages, which are part of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken in the Indian state of Bihar and in the eastern Terai region of Nepal. Linguists consider Maithili to be an Eastern Indic language, and thus a different language from Hindi, which is Central Indic. Maithili has been considered a dialect of both Hindi and Bengali, and in fact was classified as a mother tongue of Hindi in the Census of India. In 2003 Maithili gained the status of an independent language in India. A movement to give the language official status through inclusion in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution so that it may be used in education, government, and other official contexts, resulted in Maithili being given official status in 2003.
Maithili was traditionally written in the Maithili script (also known by the names Tirhuta and Mithilakshar, which has some resemblance with the Bengali script. It was also written in the Kaithi script, but the Devanagari script is the script most commonly used today for Maithili. An effort is underway to preserve the Maithili script and to develop it for use in digital media by encoding the script in the Unicode standard, for which a proposal to encode the script in the Unicode Roadmap has been submitted as the first step.
The term Maithili comes from Mithila, which was an independent state in ancient times. Maithili is a separate language, having a large Maithili-speaking community (4.5 crore, or 45 million, people) with a rich literature. The most famous literary figure in Maithili is the poet Vidyapati. He is credited for raising the importance of 'people's langauage', i.e. Maithili, in the official work of the state by influencing the Maharaja of Darbhanga with the quality of his poetry. The state's official language used to be Sanskrit, which distanced common people from the state and its functions. The name Maithili is also one of the names of Sita, the consort of the Rama.
Maithili Literature
It is a fact that scholars in Mithila used Sanskrit for their literary work and Maithili was the language of the common folk (Abahatta). The earliest work in Maithili appears to be Varn Ratnakar by Jyotirishwar Thakur dated about 1224 AD.The Medieval age of Maithili appears to be during Karnat Dynasty when the names of the following scholars got prominence: Gangesh, Padmanabh, Chandeshwar, Vireshwar, Vidyapati, Vachaspati, Pakshadhar, Ayachi, Udayan, Shankar etc.
Vidyapati is said to have lived in the period 1350 to 1450. Vidyapati, though a Sanskrit scholar, wrote innumerable poems(songs) relating to Bhakti and Shringar in Maithili. Though equally accepted in Bengal and Mithila, his songs are the soul of Mithila and no celebration is complete without his songs. It will not be an exagerration to say that his songs have survived in the throats of Maithil women folk.
Theatrical writings in Medieval age are not less important. The following need mention: Umapati: (Parijat Haran), Jyotireeshwar: (Dhurt Samagam), Vidyapati: (Goraksha Vijay, Mani Manjari), Ramapati: (Rukmini Haran), Lal: (Gauri Swayambar), Manbodh: (Krishna Janma)
Modern Maithili Literature has been blessed with the contribution of the following scholars: Parmeshwar Jha, Sitaram Jha, Kabishekhar Badrinath Jha, Murali Jha, Surendranath Jha Suman, Kashikant Mishra Madhup, Chandranath Mishra Amar, Kanchinath Jha Kiran, Prof. Hari Mohan Jha, Ishnath Jha, Brajkishore Verma Manipadma, Baidyanath Mishra Yatri (Nagarjuna), Sudhanshu Shekhar Choudhary, Upendra Nath Jha Vyas, Prof. Radha Kant Jha, Mahamahopadhyay Umesh Mishra, Dr. JayKant Mishra, Prof. Krishna Kant Mishra, Kumar Ganganand Singh, Dr Chandra Nath Jha(Mangarauni), Sri Gaya Nand Jha kaviji (Antour, Benipur), Sri Hemant Kumar Jha (Antour, Benipur), Dr. Ramanath Jha, Prof. Tantra Nath Jha, Dr. Laxman Jha Dr. Subhadra Jha, Achutanand Dutt, Bhola Lal Das, Baidyanath Jha, Yoganand Jha, Narendra Das, Rajeshwar Jha, Arsi Prasad Singh, Prof. Buddhidhari Singh Ramakar, Prof. Uma Nath Jha and many more.
Maithili, though not included in VIIIth schedule of the Indian Constitution, was accepted by Sahitya Academy and since its inclusion has won awards almost every year. A number of academy awards have been won for translation from other languages.
Neeraj
See also
The usage of Maithili script is waning. People now use Devanagari script for Maithili literature.
Vidyapati is also considered by Bengali's as a Bengali Lauereate. Maithali language has rich sanskritik tradition. In new era 'aripan, has conducted so many maithli natak. founder of this organization is Sri Kaushal Kumar Das. He is established this organization in 1982. Since that time he is still conducting/playing natak.
References
- This language's entry in the Ethnologue.
- Download Maithili Word Processor: Madhyam developed by Balendu Sharma Dadhich
External links
- Interactive and informative maithil website
- Karna Kayastha community of Mithila region
- http://www.mithilaonline.com/maithili.html
- http://www.geocities.com/maithili_parishad
- http://vidyapati.blogspot.com
- Maithili at the Rosetta Project
- Proposal to include Maithili in the Unicode Roadmap
Indo-Aryan languages | Languages of India | Languages of Nepal
"Maithili language"