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A HISTORICAL OUTLINE OF THE LANGUAGES OF
WESTERN INDIA Prof. K. B. VYAS, M.A., F.R.A.S.
I
There are several languages spoken in Western India, of which Gujarāti, Western Rajasthāni, Māļavi, Cutchi, Sindhi and Konkani are the principal ones. Of these Cutchi and Sindhi are allied and so are Gujarāti, Rājasthani and Māļavi. Konkani, however, stands apart. It has no affinity with its northern neighbours. In this brief historical outline of the languages of Western India, we shall restrict ourselves mainly to Gujarāti which is admittedly the most outstanding and the richest of these languages.
The area in which Gujarāti is spoken may be roughly outlined thus :In the north, Gujarāti is spoken as far as Cutch, where it is the courtlanguage and the language of culture. From there it extends to the north up to Mithi, 30 miles to the North of the desert of Cutch. From here it extends to the East to Deesā, Pālaņpur, and Mount Abu. Beyond Mount Abu, the speech is Gujarati or its dialectal form mixed with Marwāļi. From this northernmost point, the boundary of Gujarāti descends southeastward including within itself Mahikanthä, Idar, Dohad and Luņāwādā, Chhotā Udepur and Rājpiplä. To the east and south of the Panchmahāls, Chhotā Udepur and Rājpiplā, Gujarāti slowly merges into the Bhilli dialects. From Rājpiplā the boundary sharply descends southward covering the entire Surat District and a major portion of the Dängs where it touches the area of Khåndeśī. From here further south upto Umbergaon and Dahāņu, Gujarāti is spoken as the principal speech. Beyond this to the south the Konkani language is spoken which is claimed to be a dialect of Marāthi.
These are then the limits of the area of the Gujarāti speech--from Mount Abu in the north to the Dāngs and Umbergāon in the south, and from Dvārkā in the west to Dohad in the east. Roughly it includes the whole of Saurāştra and almost the entire northern division of the Bombay State which is popularly known as Gujarāt.
The number of persons speaking Gujarati in Gujarät and Saurästra alone comes to over 1,33,00,000. To these must be added 35,00,000 speaking
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