World Languages

By ZingLanguages.com

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Tone of Marathi

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Maharashtra is a vibrant state where majority of the population speak Marathi and cosmopolitan cities like Mumbai and Pune speak English, Hindi, Gujarati and Urdu along  with Marathi to make the tone of Marathi change across different regions.

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Marathi speakers

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There are about 8,30,26,680 Marathi speakers as per the 2011 census with an increase of 6.86% from 4,17,65,190 Marathi speakers in the year 2001.   Marathi is derived from the Maharashtri Prakrit similar to the re-Sanskritized version of Maharashtri Apabhrasa.

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The script of Marathi language

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The Marathian scripts are found in ancient cities of Goa and Maharashtra.  The inscription is ancient, highlighted, or spiritual written on brick, stone, metallic or other solid surfaces. There is a 705-year-old inscription belonging to the Yadav dynasty near Pune.

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Sanskritized forms of Marathi

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The old scripts of Marathi used longer sentences speaking about the history of the country.   Devanagiri became Marathi’s sole official script in 1964 carrying more prestige and cachet preferred for manuscripts and literature in Sanskritized forms with an exact pronunciation.

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The oldest of regional literatures

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The Marathi language is the oldest of the regional literatures belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages spoken as an official language in Maharashtra and by people in western India since 1966. It had other names such as Marhatti, Mahratti, Maharashtri, etc.

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Writings of the Marathi language

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The inscriptions in the Marathi text were first written in the 11th century using stones and copper plates.  From the 13th to the mid-20th century, the writings were in Modi alphabet and since 1950, it has been written in Devanagiri alphabets.

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Similarity of the Marathi language

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The dialects of Marathi are dialects used in Tamil Nadu districts and Thanjavur influenced greatly by Kannada and Tamil loan words.  Certain languages like Konkani, Deccan, Goanese, Gowlan, Varhadi-Nagpuri and Ikrani are closely related to Marathi.

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The Alphabets of Marathi

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Marathi Numbers or Alphabets are also known as Marathi Mulakshare/ Marathi Aksharmala/ Marathi Varnamala.  There are 51 letters with 36 consonants and 15 vowels. Marathi Vowels are known as Marathi Vyanjan and Marathi Swar.

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Expansion of the Maharashtrian language

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People in Maharashtra's north border use many common Hindi words in their day-to-day communication.  It is not because they adopt Hindi partially but for its many more similarities. You can find Marathi speakers in countries like Mauritius and Israel even today.

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