Rajasthani languages

The term "Rajasthani" refers to a set of Indo-Aryan languages and dialects that are most often used in the Indian state of Rajasthan as well as in some neighbouring regions of the states of Haryana, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh. In addition, people who speak the language may be found in the regions of Punjab and Sindh in Pakistan. There are several different variants of Rajasthani, all of which are closely related to and somewhat intelligible with Gujarati and Sindhi, the languages of Rajasthani's sister regions. It is the primary language of 65.04 percent of Rajasthan's population. The degree to which speakers of Rajasthani and Gujarati can understand one another ranges from 60 to 85 percent, depending on the geographical distribution of the two languages' dialects.

The name "Rajasthani" can also be used to refer to a literary language that is mostly derived from the Marwari dialect and is currently in the process of becoming standardised as the official language of the state of Rajasthan.

There is a literary heritage in Rajasthani that dates back roughly 1500 years. The phrase "Rajasthaniaditya" is used in the Vasantgadh Inscription, which was discovered in the area that is now known as Sirohi and has been dated to the 7th century AD. This inscription may have been referring to an official, a poet, or a bhat who wrote in Rajasthani. The ancient mathematician and astronomer Brahmagupta of Bhinmal is credited with writing the work known as the Brahmasphutasiddhanta. Udyotan Suri penned the Kuvalaya Mala in 779 AD, with some of it written in Prakrit and some of it written in Apabhraa. Texts from this time period include typical Gujarati traits such as postpositions, auxiliary verbs, and direct/oblique forms of nouns. It had three genders, much like contemporary Gujarati does. The literary language became Medieval Marwari on one side and Gujarati on the other side of the divide throughout the mediaeval period.

Around the year 1300 AD, a form of this language that was very standardised began to emerge. Although it is more commonly referred to as Old Gujarati, some academics choose the designation Old Western Rajasthani for this language. This preference is based on the idea that Gujarati and Rajasthani were not two separate languages during this time period. The belief that modern Rajasthani occasionally expressed a neuter gender was another factor that contributed to this preference. This belief was founded on the erroneous conclusion that the sound that came to be pronounced in some areas for masculine after a nasal consonant was similar to the sound that Gujarati uses for its neuter gender. During the reign of the Solanki king Jayasimha Siddharaja, the Jain monk and great scholar Hemachandra Suri penned a formal grammar of the language that was the ancestor of this one. Sangeet Raj was written by Maharana Kumbha, and it is a work on musicology as well as a treatise on Jai Deva's Geet Govinda.