LATUR

Language has played a crucial role in shaping India’s social and political landscape, with pivotal moments such as the States Reorganization Act of 1956, which redrew the country’s states along linguistic lines. This shift led to the dissolution of Bombay State in 1960 and the creation of two separate states: Gujarat and Maharashtra, each defined by the predominant language spoken within their borders. Latur, which was under the Nizam of Hyderabad for a long time, became a part of the Maharashtra state but as a region of the Osmanabad (now Dharashiv) district. It was only in 1982 that Latur was separated from Osmanabad to form a new district.

The most prevalent language in the district is Marathi, followed by languages such as Hindi and Urdu. Other than these a few varieties such as Lamani and Golla are also spoken in the district.  

The linguistic landscape of Latur, like that of the larger Marathwada region, showcases the area’s historical background and geographical location. Latur borders the state of Karnataka and was a part of the realm of the Nizams of Hyderabad. As a result, it is said that the everyday Marathi spoken in Latur is much faster and has several words whose root origin is in Kannada.

At the time of the Census (2011), Latur district had a total population of approximately 24.54 lakh (24,54,196). Of this population, 81.75% reported Marathi as their first language. Hindi was spoken by 8.18%, followed by Urdu (6.37%). Other languages spoken as mother tongues included Lamani/Lambadi (0.98%), Banjari (0.84%), Telugu (0.49%), Kannada (0.44%), and Marwari (0.40%). Smaller linguistic groups included Vadari (0.23%) and Gujarati (0.10%).

Lamani, also known as Lambani, Lambadi, Gour Boli or Banjari, is a language spoken by a large community spread across various regions of India. It is spoken by the Banjara or Laman community, originally from the Mewar region of Rajasthan. Over time, this community migrated to various parts of India in search of trade and employment, leading to a wide geographical spread. Today, Lambani speakers can be found in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, and West Bengal, with smaller populations in other states.

Lamani does not have a native script (original writing system), which has shaped how the language is used and preserved. Instead of writing in their own script, speakers have adapted the writing systems of surrounding regional languages. In Maharashtra, for example, they use the Devanagari script (used for Marathi and Hindi), while in Karnataka, the Kannada script is used.

Lamani has 6 vowels:
a, e, i, o, u (and longer versions like ā, ī, etc.)

Long vowels are usually not used at the end of words.

There are 32 consonants, many like those in Marathi.
But some sounds, like the Marathi "थ" (/th/ with a breath), do not exist in Lamani.

Also, Lamani uses nasal sounds (like "n" in "song"), but changing them doesn’t usually change the word’s meaning. Aspirated sounds (with a breathy sound) appear mostly at the start of words.

Lamani shows a fascinating blend of its own vocabulary and forms borrowed from languages like Marathi and Hindi. This blending is most noticeable in everyday words, terms for family, the body, colours, food, and numbers. Many of these look and sound quite similar across all three languages, showing how close contact and migration have shaped the language.

In terms of kinship and pronouns, Lamani uses words that are nearly identical to Marathi and Hindi. For instance, sāsu means ‘mother-in-law’ in all three. The word for father in Lamani, bā, is closely related to bābā or vadil in Marathi and pitāji in Hindi. Even the second-person singular pronoun tu is the same across the three languages.

Words for body parts follow a similar pattern. In many cases, there is almost no difference in form, for example, dāt for ‘tooth’, hāt for ‘hand’, and gāl for ‘cheek’ are the same in Lamani and Marathi, and very close in Hindi too. This suggests a strong set of shared roots or long-term borrowing between the languages.

The same goes for colours. Lamani’s haro (green) and niɭo (blue) are very close to hirwā and niɭā in Marathi and harā, nilā in Hindi. The small vowel differences at the end don’t change the meaning, but they do reflect local phonological patterns.

Food vocabulary is especially rich in borrowed or shared forms. Words like kāndo (onion), seb (apple), and santra (orange) are consistent across the three languages. A few items, like angur (grapes), also show influence from Marathi, which uses jāmbhuɭ, reflecting regional variety even within a shared root.

In numbers too, Lamani keeps very close to both Marathi and Hindi, particularly for the basic counting numbers. Words like ek (one), ʧār (four), and sāt (seven) are essentially the same. For numbers above twenty, Lamani uses a compounding system—wisan ek for twenty-one, wisan di for twenty-two, and so on.

Ordinal numbers are also easy to form. In Lamani, adding -ne to a cardinal number makes it ordinal. For instance, ekne is ‘first’, dine is ‘second’, and tinne is ‘third’. General vocabulary also reflects a strong Marathi and Hindi influence, with many everyday nouns being identical or nearly so.

Lamani nouns follow a pattern that shows gender (male or female), number (singular or plural), and case (how the noun functions in the sentence, like subject or object). There is no third gender category (neuter), which is different from many other regional languages.

In Lamani, the general form of a noun is:

Noun stem + gender + number + case suffix
 (case suffix = small ending added to show the noun's role in a sentence)

Some nouns use the same root but change the ending vowel to show gender. For example:

In Lamani, plural forms (more than one) are often shown through the verb or number word in the sentence, rather than changing the noun itself. This is especially true when the noun is the subject. In such cases, the noun form stays the same, and the listener understands it’s plural based on context.

In other cases, Lamani uses three ways to show plurals:

• Adding a suffix (a small word-ending)
  
• Repeating the noun (called reduplication)
  
• Removing part of the original word
  

Lamani also uses common endings from other languages to form agent words (called agentive suffixes). For example, wala (male) and wali (female) are added to describe someone doing a job or activity—like telwala = “oil seller.”

Pronouns (words like I, you, they) in Lamani don’t show gender, but they do show singular/plural. The basic structure is:

Pronoun stem + case suffix

Lamani also uses ekmek for “each other,” just like in Marathi. This shows how closely the two languages are related in structure.

Verbs in Lamani change depending on who is doing the action and when it happens. This process is called conjugation (changing a verb to show tense, number, or gender). For example, jo means “to go,” but its form will change depending on the speaker or time.

In the past tense, Lamani uses -y after verbs that end in a, u, or o:

There are few compound verbs in Lamani such as: