Juang language

Not to be confused with Yuanga language.

Juang (pronounced [d͡ʒɥaŋˈgataˈ] ^ⓘ) is a Munda language of the Austroasiatic language family spoken primarily by the Juang people of Odisha state, eastern India.

Juang
ଜୁଆଙ୍ଗ
A native Juang speaker introducing himself in Juang in 2025
Native to	India
Region	Odisha
Ethnicity	Juang
Native speakers	30,000 (2011 census)
Language family	Austroasiatic Munda South Juang
Writing system	Odia
Language codes
ISO 639-3	jun
Glottolog	juan1238
ELP	Juang
Coordinates: 20°9′0″N 85°30′0″E

Classification

The Juang language belongs to the Munda language family, the whole of which is classified as a branch of the greater Austroasiatic language family. Among the Munda languages, Juang is considered to be most closely related to Kharia, although Anderson considers Juang and Kharia to have split off from each other relatively early.

Juang can be roughly divided into the Hill and Plains varieties, both of which are spoken in Odisha (Patnaik 2008:508).

• Hill Juang: Gonasika Hills (in Keonjhar district) and Pallara Hills
• Plains Juang: about 147 villages in southern Keonjhar district and eastern Dhenkanal district

Distribution

A Juang-language educator and writer shares the current state of documentation of his language

Juang is spoken by about 30,875 people according to the 2001 Indian census, 65% of ethnic population In Odisha state, it is spoken in southern Keonjhar district, northern Angul district, and eastern Dhenkanal district (Patnaik 2008:508).

Juang is currently an Endangered language and is considered to vulnerable, or (not spoken by children outside of home).

Juang currently has roughly under 20,000 speakers remaining

Phonology

Vowels

Juang vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a	ɔ

/e/ has a variant of /ɛ/. /a/ is sometimes realized as a schwa.

Glide realization tends to occur when words that have one among two vowels /u/ and /i/, or both, preceded another vowel.

• /arɔkia/ → [arɔkja] "they two"
• /uaɭi/ → [waɭi] "child"
• /kui/ → [kwi] "get"
• /kua/ → [kwa] "handful"
• /dui/ → [dwi] "two"

All Juang vowels can be nasalized. There are some attested cases where nasalization may have phonemic status, like in follow minimal pairs:

• tɔɔro "I fastened" vs. tɔ̃ɔ̃rɔ "elephant trunk"
• kɔnia "marriageable" vs. kɔ̃ɳia "safe"

Consonants

Juang consonants

		Bilabial	Dental/ Alveolar	Retroflex	Post-alv./ Palatal	Velar
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	ʈ	tʃ	k
	voiced	b	d	ɖ	dʒ	ɡ
Fricative			s
Nasal		m	n	ɳ	ɲ	ŋ
Lateral			l	ɭ
Trill			r
Approximant					j

Some minimal pairs listed below demonstrate Juang distinguishment between phonemes:

• /ʈ/ vs. /t̪/: ʈɔke "cheat" vs. tɔke "tired"
• /t̪/ vs. /d̪/: tɔke "tired" vs. dɔkɔ "sit"
• /p/ vs. /b/: page "break" vs. bɔge "command"
• /b/ vs. /m/: bɔge "command" vs. mɔtej "nose"
• /k/ vs. /g/: kɔŋ "know" vs. gɔn "weave"
• /k/ vs. /tʃ/: kɔke "shaves" vs. tʃake "taste"
• /tʃ/ vs. /dʒ/: tʃake "taste" vs. dʒɔge "watch"
• /r/ vs. /l/: rɔge "flour" vs. lage "continue"

Retroflex stops are rare in word-final position.

Prosody

Stress in phonological words is always released on the second syllable. In sentence, intonation falls on the last word, usually a verb.

Morphology

Being in state of assimilation into larger Indo-Aryan populations, Juang speakers have borrowed a significant portion of vocabulary from Hindi and Oriya, while the head-marking feature of the language is eroding.

Nominals

Juang differentiates three numbers: singular (unmarked), dual (-kia), and plural (-ki).

The number system is divided into two sets which are used depending on degree of honorificity. For examples, muinʈo ('one') is used to refer something in non-honorific expression, and minog (one.HON) is used to address something in respectful way.

Numeral classifier goʈa is used when numerals occur prenominally.

tini

three

goʈa

CLF

uaɭi-ɖi-ki

child-DEF-PL

tini goʈa uaɭi-ɖi-ki

three CLF child-DEF-PL

'three children'

Juang is a nominative-accusative language; pronouns and noun phrases are unmarked or marked by case markers to indicate syntactic roles.

• Nominative case: unmarked.
• Accusative/Dative cases: -te, sometimes -bo or -bɔ.
• Genitive case: -a/-rɔ/-ra/-ka (-ka for emphatic expressions)
• Locative cases: -bɔ/-ya/-ɖa/-e/-ra/-re
• Ablative case: -ta/-tasun

Gender in Juang is marked by several affixes.

Nominative subject, genitive, non-finite verbs and few finite verbs are suffixed with definiteness markers -ɖe, -re, and -ro. The genitive suffix -ka is sometimes interpreted as marking emphasis type of definiteness.

Juang has a simple set of free pronouns and interrogative pronouns. The free pronouns can be marked by case and possessive suffixes. Interrogatives can take case markers and occur in several case-marked positions.

Juang free pronouns

	singular	dual	plural
1st person	aiɲ	ninba	niɲ
2nd person	am	apa	ape
3rd person	arɔ	arɔkia	arɔki

	Interrogatives
biri	'what?'
adi-aliŋa	'why?'
adi-a	'whose?'
adi-te	'whom?'
adi	'who?'

Juang has complex word derivation processes that involve not only reduplication, prefixation, suffixation, but also ambifixation.

gata "say" → a-gata-e "untold story"

ɔːnɔ "saw" → a-ɔn-dʒɔnɔ "unseen things"

Verbs

Types of verbal heads

In Juang a number of roots are clearly exempt from the Transitive verb/Intransitive verb opposition, so that the function of the root can be determined only from its co-occurrence with the particular set of tense markers.

For Example,

pag- Set I 'to break' -Set II 'to be broken'

rag- Set I 'to tear' - Set II 'to be torn'

guj- Set I 'to wash' - Set II 'to be washed'

Person indexation

Juang verbs are increasingly becoming similar with those of Kharia: object indexing is being lost gradually due to superstratum pressure from Aryan. Nowadays, as it is, Juang object indexing is no longer obligatory or productive as compared to other Munda languages or at the time when Matson (1964) made his observation.

Transitive verb paradigm

		patient
		1SG	1DU	1PL	2SG	2DU	2PL	3SG	3DU	3PL
agent	1SG				Ø-Σ/V/-m	Ø-Σ/V/-pa	Ø-Σ/V/-pe	Ø-Σ/V/-Ø	(-kia)	(-ki)
1DU.INCL				ba-Σ-m	ba-Σ-pa	ba-Σ-pe
1PL.EXCL				nV-Σ-m	nV-Σ-pa	nV-Σ-pe
2SG	mV-Σ-ŋ	mV-Σ-ŋba	mV-Σ-ɲeniɲ
2DU	a-Σ-ŋ	a-Σ-ŋba	a-Σ-ɲeniɲ
2PL	V-Σ-ŋ	V-Σ-ŋba	V-Σ-ɲeniɲ
3SG	Σ/mV/-ŋ	Σ/mV/-ŋba	Σ/mV/-ɲeniɲ	Σ/mV/-m	Σ/mV/-pa	Σ/mV/-pe
3DU	Σ-ŋ-kia	Σ-ŋba-kia	Σ-ɲeniɲ-kia	Σ-m-kia	Σ-pa-kia	Σ-pe-kia
3PL	Σ-ŋ-ki	Σ-ŋba-ki	Σ-ɲeniɲ-ki	Σ-m-ki	Σ-pa-ki	Σ-pe-ki

Negation

Juang, together with Gorum and Gutob, arguably feature the most complex systems of negation among the Munda languages. Below is the simplified chart of negative markers found in Juang.

Negative markers in Juang

Argument	Person negative	General negatives
1SG	Ø-	-dʒena
1DU	b-	ama-/mama-/am-/ab-
1PL	n-	-na
2SG	m-	nɔ-
2DU	a-	-rɔ
2PL	e-
3SG
3DU	-kia
3PL	-ki

These negative markers can occur in prefixal, suffixal, and ambifixive positions. There are instances of double negatives. The negated monosyllabic verbs sometimes may reduplicate as well.

Writing System

The writing system used by people who speak the Juang language is Odia.

Sources

• Odia-Juang Sabdakosh
• Mahapatra, B. P.. “Comparative Notes on Juang and Kharia Finite Verbs”. Oceanic Linguistics Special Publications 13 (1976): 801–814.
• Matson, Dan Mitchell (1964). PhD Dissertation: A Grammatical Sketch of Juang. University of Wisconsin–Madison.
• Patnaik, Manideepa (2008). "Juang". The Munda Languages. New York: Routledge. pp. 508–556. ISBN 0-415-32890-X.
• "ScriptSource - Oriya". scriptsource.org. Retrieved 2016-05-02.
• Rajendra, S. (2002). "Juanga". Linguistic Survey of India – Orissa (PDF). Language division, Office of the Registrar General, India. pp. 335–371.

External links

• Media related to Juang language at Wikimedia Commons
• http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/4341