Mewati

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A language of India

ISO 639-3
wtm
Alternate Names
Mewathi
Autonym
मेवाती‎ (Mewati)
User Population

857,000 (2011 census). 51,600 monolinguals (2006 SIL).

Location

Haryana state: Faridabad and Gurgaon districts; Rajasthan state: Alwar, Bharatpur, and Dholpur districts; Uttar Pradesh: Madhura district.

Language Maps
Language Status

5 (Developing).

Classification
Indo-European, Indo-Iranian, Indo-Aryan, Intermediate Divisions, Western, Unclassified
Dialects

Ahirwati. 45% intelligibility of Marwari [rwr]. Over 90% intelligibility of Alwar District dialect throughout Mewati area. Dialect in the Nuh area of Gurgaon is considered purest. Lexical similarity: 72%–77% with Hindi [hin], 63%–68% with Haryanvi [bgc], 57%–70% with Shekhawati [swv], 62%–67% with Dhundari [dhd], 52%–70% with Haroti [hoj], 68%–71% with Braj Bhasha [bra], 86%–99% between all varieties of Mewati.

Language Use

Vigorous. Home, village, market, religion. Used by all. Positive attitudes. Some also use Hindi [hin]. Also use Standard Arabic [arb]. Also use Urdu [urd].

Language Development

Literacy rate in L2: 25% (2006 SIL).

Language Resources
OLAC resources in and about Mewati
Writing

Devanagari script [Deva].

Other Comments

People are called Meo; many Urdu [urd] loanwords. Muslim, Hindu.