Kurukh language

Kurukh
Kurux, Oraon, Uraon
𑷊𑶲̃𑷗𑶲𑷖 कुँड़ुख़ (उराँव) • কুড়ুখ্ • କୁଡ଼ୁଖ୍
'Kuṛux' or 'Kuṁṛux' in Kurukh Banna alphabet (top) and Tolong Siki alphabet (bottom)
Pronunciation	[kũɽux]
Native to	India, Bangladesh, and Nepal
Region	Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Bihar, Tripura[1]
Ethnicity	Kurukh Kisan
Native speakers	2.28 million (2002–2011)[2][1][3]
Language family	Dravidian Northern Dravidian Kurukh–Malto Kurukh
Dialects	Oraon Kisan Dhangar
Writing system	Tolong Siki Kurukh Banna Devanagari Odia
Official status
Official language in	India Jharkhand (additional) West Bengal (additional)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Variously: kru – Kurux kxl – Nepali Kurux (Dhangar) xis – Kisan
Glottolog	kuru1301
ELP	Nepali Kurux
Distribution of Kurukh speakers in Blue.
Kurux is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Person	Kur̤ukh
People	Kur̤ukhaṟ
Language	Kur̤ukh

Kurukh (/ˈkʊrʊx/ or /ˈkʊrʊk/;^[4] Devanagari: कुँड़ुख़, IPA: [kũɽux]), also Kurux, Oraon or Uranw (Devanagari: उराँव, IPA: [uraːũ̯]),^[5] is a North Dravidian language spoken by the Kurukh (Oraon) and Kisan people of East India. It is spoken by about two million people in the Indian states of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam and Tripura, as well as by 65,000 in northern Bangladesh, 28,600 of a dialect called Uranw in Nepal and about 5,000 in Bhutan. The most closely related language to Kurukh is Malto; together with Brahui, all three languages form the North Dravidian branch of the Dravidian language family. It is marked as being in a "vulnerable" state in UNESCO's list of endangered languages.^[6] The Kisan dialect has 206,100 speakers as of 2011.

According to Edward Tuite Dalton, "Oraon" is an exonym assigned by neighbouring Munda people, meaning "to roam". They call themselves Kurukh.^[7] According to Sten Konow, Uraon will mean man as in the Dravidian Kurukh language, the word Urapai, Urapo and Urang means Man. The word Kurukh may be derived from the word Kur or Kurcana means "shout" and "stammer". So Kurukh will mean 'a speaker'.^[8]

Kurukh belongs to the Northern Dravidian group of the Dravidian family languages,^[9] and is closely related to Sauria Paharia and Kumarbhag Paharia, which are often together referred to as Malto.^[10]

Kurukh is written in Devanagari, a script also used to write Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Nepali and other Indo-Aryan languages.

In 1991, Basudev Ram Khalkho from Odisha released the Kurukh Banna script. In Sundargarh district of Odisha the Kurukh Banna alphabet is taught and promoted by Kurukh Parha. Fonts have been developed and people are using it widely in books, magazines and other material. The alphabet is also used by Oraon people in the states of Chhattisgarh, Bengal, Jharkhand and Assam.^[11]

In 1999, Narayan Oraon, a doctor, invented the alphabetic Tolong Siki script specifically for Kurukh. Many books and magazines have been published in Tolong Siki script, and it saw official recognition by the state of Jharkhand in 2007. The Kurukh Literary Society of India has been instrumental in spreading the Tolong Siki script for Kurukh literature.^[12][13]

In India, Kurukh is mostly spoken in Raigarh, Surguja, Jashpur of Chhattisgarh, Gumla, Ranchi, Lohardaga, Latehar, Simdega of Jharkhand; Jharsuguda, Sundargarh and Sambalpur district of Odisha.

It is also spoken in Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura states by Kurukh who are mostly Tea-garden workers.^[1]

It is spoken by 2,053,000 people from the Oraon and Kisan tribes, with 1,834,000 and 219,000 speakers respectively. The literacy rate is 23% in Oraon and 17% in Kisan. Despite the large number of speakers, the language is considered to be endangered.^[14] The governments of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have introduced the Kurukh language in schools with majority Kurukhar students. Jharkhand and West Bengal both list Kurukh as an official language of their respective states.^[15] Bangladesh also has some speakers.

The phonology of True Kurukh represents the language in its native Dravidian state. It is defined by a strict absence of native aspirated consonants and a system where voicing in stops is an allophonic process rather than a phonemic distinction.

Table 1: Kurukh Vowel Inventory

	Front	Central	Back
High	i ⟨i⟩, iː ⟨ī⟩		u ⟨u⟩, uː ⟨ū⟩
Mid	e ⟨e⟩, eː ⟨ē⟩		o ⟨o⟩, oː ⟨ō⟩
Low		a ⟨a⟩, aː ⟨ā⟩
Diphthong	ai̯ ⟨ay⟩		au̯ ⟨aw⟩
Each cardinal vowel exists in four states: short, long, and their respective nasalized forms. Native diphthongs are glide-vowel sequences.

Table 2: Native Consonant Inventory (Hawōr̤ 21)

Manner		Bilabial	Dentalveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Occlusive	Nasal	m ⟨mă⟩	n ⟨nă⟩	ɳ ⟨ṇă⟩	ɲ ⟨ñă⟩	ŋ ⟨ṅă⟩
	Stop	p ⟨pă⟩ ↳ b allo.	t ⟨tă⟩ ↳ d allo.	ʈ ⟨ṭă⟩ ↳ ɖ allo.		k ⟨kă⟩ ↳ ɡ allo.
Affricate	Voiceless				tʃ ⟨că⟩
	Voiced				dʒ ⟨jă⟩
Fricative			s ⟨să⟩			x ⟨khă⟩
Liquid	Lateral		l ⟨lă⟩	ɭ ⟨ḷă⟩
	Rhotic	Trill	r ⟨ṟă⟩
		Tap	ɾ ⟨ră⟩
		Approximant		ɻ ⟨r̤ă⟩
Semi-Vowel		w ⟨wă⟩			j ⟨yă⟩		h ⟨hă⟩
Native Kurukh Consonants utilize an Abugida Script with an inherited ă vowel. This new script prioritizes a restored phonology by excluding the aspirated consonants (Indo-Aryan influence) found in earlier scripts like Kurukh Banna and Tolong Siki. As the unique script characters are currently in the development phase, Latin placeholders are used to represent the underlying phonetic structure.

• Status of Voiced Stops: In native Dravidian Kurukh, voiced stops ([b], [d], [ḍ], [ɡ]) are strictly allophonic.
• Dentalveolar Rhotic Contrast: True Kurukh features both the Alveolar trill /r/ and the alveolar tap /ɾ/.
• Retroflex Rhotic: The retroflex approximant /ɻ/, typically represented as r̤ or ḻ.
• Aspiration: Entirely absent in the "True Kurukh" inventory; any aspirated sounds are Indo-Aryan imports.
• Intervocalic Lenition: A core rule where stops undergo softening between vowels.

In standard spoken Kurukh, aspirated stops like /bʰ/, /dʰ/, /ḍʰ/ and /ɡʰ/ are common due to centuries of contact with Nagpuri and Hindi. In True Kurukh, these are recognized as non-native. The revival process replaces these imports with their unaspirated equivalents or native fricatives (like the velar /x/), effectively restoring the Dravidian "hardness" of the tongue.

Perhaps the most significant shift is the status of voiced stops (b, d, ḍ, g). In Indo-Aryanized Kurukh, these are independent phonemes. In Native True Kurukh, voicing is purely environmental. A stop is generally voiceless at the beginning of a word but becomes voiced intervocalically (between vowels). This "Lenition" rule simplifies the phonemic inventory while adding a melodic, fluid quality to spoken sentences.

Revived Kurukh places heavy emphasis on its liquid (rhotic and lateral) distinctions:

• The Alveolar Contrast: Distinguishing the trill /r/ from the tap /ɾ/.
• The Retroflex approximant: The revival of the rare Dravidian /ɻ/ (similar to the Tamil 'zh'), which provides the language with its unique acoustic signature, distinguishing it from the "flapped" rhotics of Indo-Aryan languages.

The revival enforces native syllable structures, largely preferring Consonant-Vowel (CV) patterns and strictly governing consonant clusters. This "refining" removes the heavy, cluster-laden phonology of borrowed Sanskritized terms, opting instead for the rhythmic, agglutinative flow native to the Kurukh people.

• Hahn, Ferdinand (1900). Kurukh Grammar. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press.

The pronominal system of Kurukh (Oraon) exhibits a sophisticated morphological structure based on long-vowel stems and nasal augmentation. While the personal pronouns follow established standard rules of clusivity, the third-person system is currently the subject of linguistic innovation regarding gender categorization.

Personal pronouns distinguish between singular (-n) and plural (-m) forms. A defining feature is the distinction between **Exclusive** (excluding the listener) and **Inclusive** (including the listener) 1st-person plural forms. Notably, the inclusive form (*nām*) represents a collective identity; therefore, no singular form exists for the inclusive 1st person.

Table 1: Personal Pronoun Inflection (Standard Kurukh)^[16]

Category	Case & Augment	Nasal Number Suffix		Functional Notes
		Singular	Plural
		*-n	*-m
1st (Excl.) Stem: *ē-	Nominative	ēn	ēm	Exclusive: Excludes listener.
	Oblique	eṅ(g)-	em(m)-
1st (Incl.) Stem: *nā-	Nominative	—	nām	Inclusive: Includes listener. Plural only.
	Oblique	—	nam(m)-
2nd Person Stem: *nī-	Nominative	nīn	nīm	Direct address to listener.
	Oblique	niṅ(g)-	nim(m)-
Reflexive Stem: *tā-	Nominative	tān	tām	Reflexive: "Self-referential."
	Oblique	taṅ(g)-	tam(m)-

The third-person pronominal system is fundamentally deictic, mapping grammatical referents onto physical space (Proximal, Medial, and Distal). Historically and in contemporary usage, Kurukh utilizes a Binary Gender System, though a new proposal (2026) suggests a transition to a Ternary Gender System.

The existing standard in Kurukh categorizes all referents into two groups:^[16]

• Masculine: Refers specifically to men and deities.
• Non-Masculine: A composite category that includes women, animals, and all inanimate objects. Both Feminine and Neuter referents traditionally share the same suffixes (typically -d).

This linguistic innovation proposes splitting the "Non-Masculine" category to create a three-way distinction. This is achieved by introducing a specific Feminine Definite Marker (suffix *-ḷ) to distinguish female persons from the Neuter category. This suffix is morphologically derived from the Kurukh terms peḷ or peḷḷō, meaning "woman" or "girl," effectively distilling the semantic essence of female personhood into a functional grammatical marker.^[17]

Table 2: Third Person Pronominal Matrix (Proposed Ternary Innovation)

Deictic Category		*ī- Proximal (Near)		*Hu- Medial (Mid)		*ā- Distal (Far)
Gender	Case	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Epicene (Hon.) Suffix: *-ṟ	Nom.	īṟ	iwar̤aṟ	Huṟ	Huwar̤aṟ	āṟ	awar̤aṟ
	Obl.	īṟ-	iwar̤aṟ-	Huṟ-	Huwar̤aṟ-	āṟ-	awar̤aṟ-
Masculine Suffix: *-s	Nom.	īs	iwar̤as	Hus	Huwar̤as	ās	awar̤as
	Obl.	īs-	iwar̤as-	Hus-	Huwar̤as-	ās-	awar̤as-
Feminine (New Proposal) Suffix: *-ḷ	Nom.	īḷ	iwar̤aḷ	Huḷ	Huwar̤aḷ	āḷ	awar̤aḷ
	Obl.	īḷ-	iwar̤aḷ-	Huḷ-	Huwar̤aḷ-	āḷ-	awar̤aḷ-
Neuter Suffix: *-d	Nom.	īd	iwar̤ad	Hud	Huwar̤ad	ād	awar̤ad
	Obl.	īd-	iwar̤ad-	Hud-	Huwar̤ad-	ād-	awar̤ad-
Technical and Status Notes: Status: Standard Kurukh is currently binary (Masculine/Non-Masculine). The Feminine category (highlighted green) is a proposed innovation for 2026. Etymology: The lateral retroflex -ḷ is derived from peḷ/peḷḷō (woman/girl). Innovation: This marker creates a separate Feminine gender identity for female persons, removing them from the Neuter group. Oblique Stems: Shaded in red, these stems are utilized when appending case suffixes. Structure: Plural forms follow the formula: [Deictic Base] + [Animacy -wa-] + [Plural -r̤a-] + [Gender Suffix].

In Kurukh, grammatical cases are formed by appending suffixes to the Oblique Stem of the pronoun. The genitive system utilizes a stable pronominal suffix alongside person-specific attributive suffixes.

Table 3: Core Case Suffixes in Kurukh

Case	Suffix	Function	Example
Nominative	∅	Subject of the sentence	ēn (I)
Accusative	-an	Direct object	eṅgan (Me)
Genitive-Pronominal	-ay	True Possessive Suffix (Stable across all persons)	eṅgay / āsay (Mine / His)
Genitive-Attributive (Personal)	-e	Possessive for 1st/2nd Person (Attributive)	eṅge (My...)
Genitive-Attributive (3rd Person)	-in	Possessive for 3rd Person (Attributive)	āsin (His...)
Dative	-āgē	Indirect object (To/For)	eṅgāgē
Instrumental	-(a)tī	By means of / Agent	eṅgatī
Ablative	-antī / -le	Movement away from / Source	eṅgantī
Locative	-(a)nū	Location (In / On / Inside)	eṅganū

The Genitive-Attributive category (used when the pronoun modifies a noun) exhibits a categorical split based on the person of the referent:

• Personal Category (-e): Specifically applied to 1st and 2nd person stems (e.g., eṅge, niṅge).
• Third Person Category (-in): Specifically applied to 3rd person stems across the deictic matrix (e.g., āsin, āḷin, ādin).
• The Stable Suffix (-ay): Regardless of the person, the Genitive-Pronominal suffix remains consistently -ay, functioning as a standalone possessive pronoun.

Kurukh, like other Dravidian languages, is an agglutinative language. The sentence structure is Subject-Object-Verb (SOV). In its morphological construction, there is suffixation but there are no infixes or prefixes.^[18]

Kurukh nouns have three grammatical genders, namely masculine, feminine and neuter. To the Kurukh only men are masculine; women and goddesses (evil spirits) are feminine; all others are neutral. Masculine nouns of the third person singular have two forms, the indefinite and the definite. The indefinite is the simplest form of the noun, thus āl man. The definite form is made by adding -as for the singular, thus ālas, ("the man").^[19]

There are only two grammatical numbers, the singular and the plural.^[19]

The following is an example declension table for a masculine noun "āl", meaning "man" ^[20]

Case	Singular	Definite	Plural
Nominative	āl	ālas	ālar
Genitive	āl	ālas gahi	ālar gahi
Dative	āl	ālas gē	ālar gē
Accusative	ālan	ālasin	ālarin
Ablative	āltī	ālas tī	ālartī, ālarintī
Instrumental	āl trī, āl trū	-	ālar ṭrī, ālar trū
Vocative	ē ālayо̄	-	ē ālarо̄
Locative	āl	ālas nū	ālar nū

The feminine declension is almost identical to the masculine, but lacks a definite form. The following example is for "mukkā" ("woman").^[20]

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	mukkā	mukkar
Genitive	mukkā gahi	mukkar gahi
Dative	mukkāgē	mukkar gē
Accusative	mukkan	mukkarin
Ablative	mukkantī	mukkartī, mukkarintī
Instrumental	mukkā trī, mukkā trū	mukkar trī, mukkar trū
Vocative	ē mukkai	ē mukkarо̄
Locative	mukkā nū	mukkar nū

The neuter declension for "allā" ("dog") shows almost identical singular forms, but a difference in pluralization.^[20]

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	allā	allā guṭhi
Genitive	allā gahi	allā guṭhi gahi
Dative	allā gē	allā guṭhi gē
Accusative	allan	allā guṭhin
Ablative	allantī	allā guṭhi tī, allā guṭhintī
Instrumental	allā trī, allā trū	allā guṭhi trī, allā guṭhi trū
Vocative	ē allā	ē allā guṭhi
Locative	allā nū	allā guṭhi nū

The Kurukh language is taught as a subject in the schools of Jharkhand, Chhattishgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal and Assam.^[21]

Phrases	English Translation
Nighai endra naame?	What is your name?
Neen ekase ra'din?	How are you? (Girl)
Neen ekase ra'dai?	How are you? (Boy)
Een korem ra'dan.	I am fine.
Neen ekshan kalalagdin?	Where are you going? (Girl)
Neen ekshan kalalagday?	Where are you going? (Boy)
Endra manja?	What happened?
Ha'an	Yes
Malla	No
Een mokha Lagdan.	I am eating.
Neen mokha.	You eat.
Neen ona.	You drink
Aar mokha lagnar.	They are eating.
Daw makha	Good Night

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

होर्मा आलारिन् हक् गहि बारे नू मल्लिन्ता अजादि अरा आण्टें मन्ना गहि हक़् ख़खर्कि रै। आरिन् लुर् अरा जिया गहि दव् बौसा ख़खकि रै अरा तम्है मझि नू मेल्-प्रें गहि बेव्हार् नन्ना चहि।

Hōrmā ālārin hak gahi bāre nū mallintā azādi arā aṅṭēm mannā gahi haq xakharki raī. Ārin lur arā jiyā gahi dav bausā xakhakī raī arā tamhai majhi nū mēl-prēm gahi bēvhār nannā nā cahi.

Kurukh has a number of alternative names such as Uraon, Kurux, Kunrukh, Kunna, Urang, Morva, and Birhor. Two dialects, Oraon and Kisan, have 73% intelligibility between them. Oraon but not Kisan is currently being standardised. Kisan is currently endangered, with a decline rate of 12.3% from 1991 to 2001.^[22]

• Hahn, Ferdinand. Kurukh Grammar. Bengal Secretariat Press, 1900.
• Revive Kurukh Linguistic Committee. Proposed Ternary Gender Restorations for Morphological Restoration. 2026.

• Kobayashi, Masato; Tirkey, Bablu (2017). The Kurux Language. Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-34766-3.
• Kurukh Grammer by the Rev. Ferdiand Hahn
• The Dravadian Languages by Bhadriraju Krishnamurti Grignard's Kurukh Classification.

• Ferdinand Hahn (1903). Kuruḵh̲ (Orā̃ō)-English dictionary. Bengal Secretariat Press. pp. 126–. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
• Ferdinand Hahn (1900). Kuruḵẖ grammar. Bengal Secretariat Press. Retrieved 26 August 2012.
• Kuruk̲h̲ folk-lore: in the original. The Bengal Secretariat Book Depot. 1905. Retrieved 25 August 2012.
• Kurukh basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
• Proposal to encode Tolong Siki
• Omniglot's page on Tolong Siki
• Tolong Siki script site