Languages Data
Name/Link of Resource
M. Phil./ Ph.D.
- Economic Development and Social Change among the Birhor tribe of Purulia District
- Vulnerable Birhor Tribe in West Bengal and Jharkhand Demographic Dynamics Settlement Culture and Challenges
- Environmental Resources and the Tribal Economy: Case studies of Hos, Santals and Birhors in Bihar
Research Paper
- Society and Worldview of the Birhor: A Nomadic Hunting and Gathering Community of Orissa
- Ethnographic Notes on the Birhor
- An investigation on the Ethnogynecological Medicinal Knowledge of the Birhor Tribe of Chhattisgarh, India
- An Account of the Birhor of Palamau
- Changing Lives of Birhors in Purulia: A Socio-economic Observation in Twenty-first Century
- Folksongs of a Folk Community: The Birhor of West Bengal and Bihar
- The Birhors of West Bengal and the Rehabilitation Scheme: A Case Study
- Educational status of PVTGs in West Bengal: A case study on Birhor
- Drop out study among Birhor tribe of Chhattisgarh State: An anthropological study
- Some Ethno-Zoological uses of Birhor tribe of West Bengal,India
- Some ethnozoological uses of Birhor tribe of West Bengal, India
- Birhor of West Bengal: An Overview on a Tribe in Transition
- Literacy Attainment among the Birhor, a Primitive Tribe of Madhya Pradesh : Findings from a Sample Survey in Raigarh District
- Introduction to the templatic verb morphology of Birhor (Birhoɽ), a Kherwarian Munda language
- Apical Dermal Configurations of the Birhor and Asura
- Occupational Diversification of the Birhors in Purulia District, West Bengal (1956-2017 AD)
- Prospects and Problems of Birhor: An Evaluation
- A Sociological Study of Educational Status of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group Birhor
- The Birhor tribes of Ramgarh District, Jharkhand — a ferret into their oral health status and treatment needs
- Assessment Of Development Plan And Protection For Birhor Community Of Duru Kasmar Village, Mandu, Jharkhand
- Caught between two worlds: the Birhor of Hazaribagh and tribal development in India
- Traditional Botanical Wisdom of Birhor tribe of Jharkhand
- Education and pattern of Marriage system: A micro study on the Birhors in Hazaribagh district Jharkhand
- Education and Patterns of Marriage System: A Micro Study on the Birhors in Hazaribag District, Jharkhand
- The Life of two Birhor Brothers: A Photo Essay
- Poorest of the Poor Birhor : A Primitive Tribe of West Bengal
- The Birhors: A Primitive Tribe of West Bengal, A Tribe in Transition
- Socio-Ecological profile of Birhor: A particularly vulnerable tribal group of Puruliya District, West Bengal, India
- Status of female education among Santal, Kheria Sabar and Birhor tribal communities of Puruliya district, West Bengal, India
- Socio-Ecological Profile of Birhor Tribal Community in Eastern Chotanagpur Plateau
- Development Programme for Primitive Tribal Groups and their Present Economic Condition: A Case Study of Birhor Tribe in Purulia District
- Hunting Monkeys and Gathering Identities: Exploring Self-Representation among the Birhor of Central-East India
- Housing Ancestors: The Reorganization of Living Spaces among the Birhor of Jharkhand and Odisha
- The Development of Primitive Tribal Groups: A Case Study of Lodha and Birhor of West Bengal
- The changing economy of the Birhor of Jharkhand
- Food in the Birhor World
- Anthropometric Assessment Of Nutritional Status Among The Birhor Females Of Purulia District, West Bengal, India
- Birhor: The In consequential Extraordinary Primitive Tribal Group (PTG) of India
- Devlopment and Social Inequality among the Birhor: A Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups of Chhattisgarh, India
- Death and Funeral Customs of the Birhors
- Study of sole dermatoglyphics of the Birhor: A Vanishing Tribe of Bihar
- Food and Health Condition of the Birhor
- Food and Health Condition of the Birhor: A Vanishing tribe of Bihar
- Eco-Cultural Perspective of Sedentarization of the Nomadic Birhors
- Notes on the Birhors
- Study on the Historical Perspective and Present Context of the Socio-Cultural Structure and Practices of Primitive Tribe, with Special Reference to Birhor
- The Birhor of Madhya Pradesh: As They are Today
- Cultural Ecology of the Birhor: A Methodological illustration
- The Birhor and their World View
- Prevalence of Undernutrition Based on Thinness among Birhors of Korba District, Chhattisgarh, India
- बिरहोर जनजाति की गर्भवती महिलाओं के लिए पौष्टिक आहार एवं स्वास्थ्य की समस्या
- बिरहोर : बिहार की एक अति प्राचीन एवं आदिम जनजाति
- বিরহোড় ও বেসরা
Project
Book
- Society and World View of the Birhor: Nomadic Hunting and Gathering Community of Orissa
- The Birhor Universe, Primal Elements-The Oral Tradition
- Classification and Index of the Worlds Languages
- People’s Linguistic Survey of India: The Languages of West Bengal
- People’s Linguistic Survey of India : The Languages of Jharkhand
- People’s Linguistic Survey of India: The Languages of Bihar
- Linguistic Survey of India
- Ethnologue: Languages of the World
- A Bibliographic Index of the Lesser Known Languages and Dialects of India and Nepal
- Birhors and their dances
- The Birhors of Chotanagpur Region (A Study in Tribal Geography)
- Man the Hunter
- The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers
- The Birhor towards the next millennium: glimpses of a primitive tribal group at Kodarma in Bihar
- The Birhor
- Bibliography of Marginal Indian Languages
- Birhor: The Language and Life
- The Birhors
- The Birhors: A Little-known Jungle Tribe of Chota Nagpur
- The Birhor
- Birhor Tribe: Dimensions of Development
- Birhor: A Sociolinguistic study of Language Endangerment
- Indias Communities
- Expressive Morphology in the Languages of South Asia
- भारत में लोक साहित्य
- बिहार के बिरहोर
- भारतीय भाषा लोक सर्वेक्षण : झारखंड की भाषाएँ
- भारतीय भाषा लोक सर्वेक्षण : बिहार की भाषाएँ
- झारखण्ड की प्रमुख जनजातीय लोक-कथाएँ
- আদিবাসী সংস্কৃতির রূপরেখা
- বিরহড় : একটি বনচারী আদিম আদিবাসী
- বিরহড়
- পুরুলিয়ার বিরহড়
Book Chapter
- Birhor
- Chihorlata: Interweaving Speech Acts of the Dhekaru and Birhor Tribes of West Bengal
- Birhors of Purulia: marching toward mainstream of the society
- Field Notes on Birhor
- Birhor: A Semi Nomadic Tribe of West Bengal
- Nutrition and Health Problems of the Birhor
- A village video night and the circulation of popular Santali VCDs among Birhor people in India
- The Scheduled Tribes and their languages
- The Birhors
- The Birhor of India and Some Comments on Band Organization
Dictionary
Occasional Paper/Brochure
- Atlas of the Worlds Languages Danger
Journal/Seminar Proceedings/Souvenir
Web Resource
The Birhor tribes are mainly concentrated in Central and Eastern India. Birhor community people are mainly inhabitant of Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Orissa and West Bengal. As forest is the source of their livelihood, they are mainly concentrated in the forest areas. The word ‘Birhor’ is derived from bir ‘jungle’ and hor ‘man’ which means the man of jungle. Some Birhor people believe that bir means ‘strong’ and hor ‘man’ which means they are the strong people. Birhors are nomadic by nature. Also, as forest is the source of their livelihood, they need to move from one place to another in search of forest.
Population:
Birhor population is less than 10000 in India in present days (CENSUS 2001 and 2011). According to CENSUS (2001), distributions of Birhor speakers in different states of India are as following:
|
State |
Population |
|
Bihar |
406 |
|
Chattisgarh |
1744 |
|
Orissa |
702 |
|
Jharkhand |
7514 |
|
Maharasthra |
40 |
|
Madhyapradesh |
143 |
|
West Bengal |
1017 |
CENSUS-2001
Survey Area:
In West Bengal Birhors are settled only in Purulia district. There are five villages in Purulia district where Birhor population is concentrated, Bhupatipally and Barriya in Baghmundi Block, Bersa in Balarampur Block and Datan and Bankadatad village in Jhalda-I Block. They could not tell since when they are living in these places, but they have shifted to these villages from other nearby villages in search of availability of forest.
Literacy:
In Bhupatipally, there is a junior primary school (Upto class VII) where most of the Birhor children of nearby areas go for the primary education. However, the education rate is very poor among them due to following reasons:
- Mother-tongue education is not offered to them. They need to learn Bangla to get access of primary education.
- Teachers do not know Birhor language. Thus, children cannot ask for clarification in their mother-tongue, if needed
- Not having access of secondary education in the village or in nearby areas.
- Birhors are economically very deprived. Thus, the children need to be engaged for earning their livelihood.
This year, first time two Birhor girls, residents of Bhupatipally, have appeared for Secondary education. Birhor people feel they can do better in education if they will get chance to learn in their mother-tongue.
Occupation:
Birhors are not engaged with farming or agriculture. Their main source of livelihood is collecting woods from forest, hunting and making small crafts or household items using tree-leaves or bamboo basketry items. Some people also collect medicinal plants or herbs.
Concluding Remarks:
Birhor language or Birhori is considered as a critically endangered language (UNESCO). As the population rate is very low, the number of speakers are also very less which makes the language endangered. However, speakers do not have any negative attitude towards their language and they retain the language fully at their home and community domain.
Sample Word-list
|
English |
Bangla |
Birhor |
|
Father |
বাবা |
আবা |
|
Mother |
মা |
মাই তঙি |
|
Grand father (Female Ego) |
দাদু |
নানা তঙি |
|
Grand mother (Female Ego) |
দিদিমা |
নানি তঙি |
|
Stone |
পাথর |
ডিরি |
|
Night |
রাত |
নিনদা |
|
Rain |
বর্ষা |
যারগিদনি |
|
Tree |
গাছ |
দারু |
|
Mango |
আম |
উল |
|
Cold |
ঠান্ডা |
রাবাং |
|
Marriage |
বিয়ে |
বাপলাঃ |
|
Female |
মহিলা |
এড়া |
|
Leaf |
পাতা |
সাকাম |
|
Thorn |
কাঁটা |
যানুম |
|
Hair |
চুল |
হেনঃদে উব |
|
Leg |
পা |
বাকা |
|
Lip |
ঠোঁট |
লুটি |
|
Nose |
নাক |
মু |
|
New |
নতুন |
নাওয়া |
|
Old |
পুরনো |
হারাম |
Ethnic Culture, Religion, Rituals and Festivals
Birhors follow the Hindu religious activities. They do the worship of Singh bonga (The Sun) and Haprem (their ancestors). Nowadays, they do participate in Durga Puja, Kali Puja with local Bengali community. People of forest, the Birhors worship the jungle and Ayodhya hill (the nearby hill of their settlement in Purulia district) as God before going for hunting praying for the success and safe return. After returning from hunting, if they get animal, first they offer it to Ayodhya hill as they consider their hunting mission is a success due to Ayodhya hill’s blessings. They do the kalipuja in the time of Pausha and Magha month. They worship the Sun or Sing Bonga considering the sun as source of supreme power.
They follow a monogamous marriage system and marriage happens within the same community people. In any occasion, whether it’s a child’s birth or marriage or someone’s death, they offer hariya (a local alcohol made of soaked rice or mahuya fruit) to the God and villagers also consume it as Prasadam.
Language:
Birhor language belongs to Austro-Asiatic language family. Their language is known as Birhori. The vocabularies and sentential construction shows the relatedness of the language to other Munda languages. However, the vocabulary list consisted of many loan words from Santhali. Similarly, sentence construction exhibits areal features due to the influence of other contact languages such as Santhali and Bangla.
Birhor speakers in Purulia districts use Bangla and Santhali as the communication language as these two languages are the dominant languages in this area. For the education purpose, in local market and while talking to neighbouring villagers or local Panchayat people, they use Bangla. With the neighbours whose mother-tongue is Santhali, they speak Santhali. However the Santhali speakers do not speak or know Birhor language as Birhor linguistic communities are much smaller than Santhali speakers and Birhor is a language with less social prestige than Santhali.
Language Attitude:
Birhor speakers are retaining their language fully at home. School-goers young children also speak Birhor at home and with friends and neighbours from same community. Birhor speakers do not think that their language would be lost in coming 20 years as the young generation can speak the language. However, use of the language is restricted to home and villages only. Speakers of the language feel they could be more educated if they could have the chance of get mother-tongue education.
As the life of Birhors is restricted within villages and jungles and do not have the access or exposure of outside world much, they don’t feel any hindrance in daily-life because of their language or linguistic-identity. Speakers are not considering their linguistic identity as ‘social stigma’.
The neighbouring Santhali speakers speak to them in Santhali. Birhor speakers also speak to them in Santhali. Sometimes, they consider Birhor as a variation of their language only.
The neighbouring Bangla speakers speak to them in Bangla and Birhor speakers speak to them in Bangla.
Birhor children in junior primary school are not allowed to speak their mother-tongue among the fellow classmate of same linguistic community in the school-premises as told to the surveyor team by some students of Birhor community.
Script:
Birhor language does not have its own script. They write their language either in Bangla or in Devnagari (in Jharkhand or other Hindi-dominant areas). However as literacy rate is very low among the speakers and the language is not in use in educational institute, they hardly write anything in Birhori language.