A Saurashtra-English Dictionary.

• Author: Acharya, Shantibhai

Dr. Norihiko Ucida's interest in the Indo-Aryan languages began in the sixties when he wrote his thesis, "Der Chittagong Dialekt von Bengali" (1968), for Heidelberg University. He developed an interest in Hindi phonology (see esp. "Geminierte Konsonanten in Hoch-hindi" [Indo-Iranian Journal 13.4 (1971)]). After this period he concentrated on the "Saurashtra" language and published several articles on its phonology and morphology.(1) A need was felt for a good dictionary of this language and Dr. Ucida has fulfilled it by this publication.

In the preface the author has given a bird's-eye view of the ethnology of the Saurashtran community. He has also provided a sketch of the phonological, morphological and syntactical structure of the "Saurashtra" language. A couple of informative paragraphs about Saurashtra's original script has been added.

In demographic terms, the author judges that the total Saurashtran population comes to roundabout two lakhs.

Who are these people and whence have they come to the south? No written records help us answer these questions. But the community has a very old tradition of reciting the migratory history of the family at the time of betrothal. Both parties ask questions about their family homeland and in answer they recite the migratory roots of their family, as preserved in their tradition. This is known as bavlasu (p. 159) or bovlasu (p. 165) in their language. The author has noted its derivation from Sanskrit bhugolavasa (?) with a question mark, but it could be derived, in my opinion, from bapu + lu + vasa, i.e., (fore)father's homeland. Generally, the migratory routes, on the basis of this recitation, are believed to be from present-day Saurashtra to Tamil Nadu via Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. The author rightly says that this tradition is in its outline supported by the linguistic evidence. He also finds some Rajasthani/Hindi elements in the language and on this basis he suspects these areas also as a remote homeland.

I feel that more research in various dialects of Gujarati, Rajasthani, Marathi and Hindi would be required to trace and locate the original homeland of the Saurashtrans and subsequent migratory areas. It is also my suspicion that a long strip of land from Punjab to Madhya Pradesh, via Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra, might have preserved dialects which show many common characteristics. After reading the Saurashtra-English Dictionary I felt that most of its Indo-Aryan entries are present...