Narikurava
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Narikurava
Tracing a nomadic dialect from TN to Gujarat
M T Saju, TNN, Jan 5, 2011, 05.04am IST
CHENNAI: It's been a long journey for the Narikuravas, a nomadic community that travelled from the Aravalli hills in Rajasthan to the plains of Tamil Nadu many centuries ago. As they settled here, they slowly lost touch with their mother tongue. And with the loss of language, their culture and heritage too faced extinction.
Now, a project supported by the National Folklore Support Centre (NFSC) here seeks to change that. A multi-lingual resource guide aimed to revive 'Vaagriboli', the language originally spoken by the Narikuravas, has just been released. The guide, almost a multi-lingual dictionary, contains words from Vaagriboli and their Tamil equivalents.
According to G Srinivasa Varma, who compiled the guide, "The multilingual dictionary would help vaagri children re-claim and remember their mother tongue, which is increasingly influenced by dominant languages like Tamil, Marathi and English." The syntax, grammar and lexical structure of Vaagriboli, considered a dialect of Gujarati, have changed over the years because of heavy borrowing from languages like Rajasthani, Marathi and Tamil.
Varma's interest in Vaagriboli began when he found that the Narikurava community lacked a written script and history. He felt that the language needed to be revived to ensure that the community's rich oral history was not lost for ever. He published his findings in a book, 'Vaagriboli: An Indo-Aryan Language', way back in 1972. This, according to him, was the first step towards reviving the language.
"After that, I travelled all over the south, tracing the route of the Narikuravas who were a part of the Bagdi (bird catcher) tribe living in Rajasthan. They are called Shikaris in Maharashtra and Lambadis in some parts of Andhra Pradesh, says Varma.
The resource guide contains about 2,500 lexical entries. Each entry contains a headword, a description of grammatical category and its meaning in Tamil, Hindi, Gujarati and English. Tamil and Nagari scripts have been used to transliterate the Vaagriboli words so that these can be understood by those Narikuravas who know Tamils. "We'll distribute the guide to schools across TN. Children of the community will be our target, who study in Tamil-medium schools," says M D Muthukumaraswamy, director, NFSC.
He adds that much more needs to be done to preserve the heritage of the tribe. "Many folklore and stories known only by older Narikurava people have to be recorded and documented," he adds.
The Narikurava population in Tamil Nadu is estimated to be around 2 lakh. Governments in the past had initiated various rehabilitation programmes but these had a limited impact. Few in the community even seem to be aware of the state-sponsored initiatives. Most of them used to be hunters, trappers and fowlers. Of late, many have turned to selling glass bangles, beads and necklaces and toys.
