THE CUTCHI LANGUAGE
Cutchi can claim to be older than Sanskrit. It belongs to the ancient group of Prakrit languages, the fore-runners of Sanskrit. They were the spoken languages of the common people of India. Two specific characteristics which identify Sindhi with Prakrit are (1) double consonants are not allowed. One of the consonants is stressed and the other muted. For example in Bengali River Padma is written as PADMA but pronounced as PADDA. In Sindhi and Cutchi Rakt -blood- is Ratt; and the red colour (colour of the blood) is Ratto; Garbhini GoN (Pregnant Cow) is GabhNi GoN , Dhoort (spendthrift) is Dhootaro - 'r' being omitted.
Sindhi was the language of the people south of Persia reaching up to the banks of River Sindhu (Indus). Whether Sindhi or Cutchi had a script of its own is unknown, though it is said that the Bhuj museum had some specimens of writings on rocks in Cutchi. Having migrated to Gujarat the Cutchi Memons had resorted to using Gujarati or Sindhi as the medium for education and commerce, so much so, Cutchi remained scriptless. Muslims used modified Arabic Script and others either Devanagari or Gujarati. A set of Sindhi characters is given in the following table along side their equivalents in other scripts.
Cutchi is a variant of Sindhi differing only in intonation of certain words and vocabulary added later from Urdu and Gujarati owing to the Sindhi migration to Urdu and Gujarati speaking areas. In the areas of later settlements of Cutchi migrants, the intonations have also acquired the characteristics of the local languages. In spite of the fact that Cutchi has been influenced by various local languages it is uniformly understood by most Cutchi and Sindhi speakers all over the world.
Unfortunately, Cutchi is totally forgotten and gone into disuse in many parts of the world where the local languages have taken its place. Surprisingly, this has happened even in Cutch, giving way to Gujarati and Hindi. Quite a few of the residents of those places had time and again expressed their desire to learn the language at least to maintain a sentimental relationship. This work is a humble attempt to reinstate the language, fully realizing that a comprehensive and authentic version is not possible without the active cooperation of the knowledgeable people. It is our earnest request to all the readers to kindly comment and correct us so that we can improve the knowledge and perfect the Qaydo to a higher level.
In English and other Roman script languages Cutchi is written differently as Kachchi, Katchhi, Katchi and so on.
Cutchi can claim to be older than Sanskrit. It belongs to the ancient group of Prakrit languages, the fore-runners of Sanskrit. They were the spoken languages of the common people of India. Two specific characteristics which identify Sindhi with Prakrit are (1) double consonants are not allowed. One of the consonants is stressed and the other muted. For example in Bengali River Padma is written as PADMA but pronounced as PADDA. In Sindhi and Cutchi Rakt -blood- is Ratt; and the red colour (colour of the blood) is Ratto; Garbhini GoN (Pregnant Cow) is GabhNi GoN , Dhoort (spendthrift) is Dhootaro - 'r' being omitted.
Sindhi was the language of the people south of Persia reaching up to the banks of River Sindhu (Indus). Whether Sindhi or Cutchi had a script of its own is unknown, though it is said that the Bhuj museum had some specimens of writings on rocks in Cutchi. Having migrated to Gujarat the Cutchi Memons had resorted to using Gujarati or Sindhi as the medium for education and commerce, so much so, Cutchi remained scriptless. Muslims used modified Arabic Script and others either Devanagari or Gujarati. A set of Sindhi characters is given in the following table along side their equivalents in other scripts.
Cutchi is a variant of Sindhi differing only in intonation of certain words and vocabulary added later from Urdu and Gujarati owing to the Sindhi migration to Urdu and Gujarati speaking areas. In the areas of later settlements of Cutchi migrants, the intonations have also acquired the characteristics of the local languages. In spite of the fact that Cutchi has been influenced by various local languages it is uniformly understood by most Cutchi and Sindhi speakers all over the world.
Unfortunately, Cutchi is totally forgotten and gone into disuse in many parts of the world where the local languages have taken its place. Surprisingly, this has happened even in Cutch, giving way to Gujarati and Hindi. Quite a few of the residents of those places had time and again expressed their desire to learn the language at least to maintain a sentimental relationship. This work is a humble attempt to reinstate the language, fully realizing that a comprehensive and authentic version is not possible without the active cooperation of the knowledgeable people. It is our earnest request to all the readers to kindly comment and correct us so that we can improve the knowledge and perfect the Qaydo to a higher level.
In English and other Roman script languages Cutchi is written differently as Kachchi, Katchhi, Katchi and so on.
