Bangani
{{Short description|Indo-Aryan language of India}}
{{Infobox language
| name = Bangani
| nativename = {{lang|gbm|बंगाणी}}
| region = Garhwal
| states = India
| pushpin_map = India
| pushpin_map_caption = Approximate location of the Bangani-speaking area in India
| pushpin_map_alt = Bangani is spoken in the north-west of Uttarakhand, in the north of India
| coordinates = {{coord|31.2|N|78.4|E|display=inline}}
| ethnicity =
| speakers =
| familycolor = Indo-European
| fam2 = Indo-Iranian
| fam3 = Indo-Aryan
| fam4 = Northern
| script =
| iso3 =
| isoexception = dialect
| glotto = bang1335
| glottorefname = Bangani
| image = Bangani.jpg
| imagecaption =
}}
File:Mr. Balbeer speaking Bangani language.webm
File:Uttarkashi in Uttarakhand (India).svg
Bangani ({{lang|gbm|बंगाणी}} baṅgāṇī) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in parts of Uttarkashi district in the west of the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand, India. It has been described either as a member of the Western Pahari language group,{{cite journal| last = Zoller| first = Claus Peter| year = 2007| title = Is Bangani a V2 language?| journal = European Bulletin of Himalayan Research| volume = 31| pages = 83–142 | url = http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/ebhr/pdf/EBHR_31_06.pdf}} or as a dialect of the Central Pahari Garhwali language. It shares between one half and two thirds of its basic vocabulary with neighbouring varieties of Garhwali and with the Western Pahari languages of Jaunsari and Sirmauri.{{Cite web| last = Matthews| first = John| date = 2008| title = Jaunsari: a sociolinguistic survey| series = SIL Electronic Survey Reports| url = https://www.sil.org/resources/publications/entry/9074|pages=12–13}}
Lexical similarity with neighbors
| class="wikitable"
|+Lexical similarity {{Cite book|title=Jaunsari: A Sociolinguistic Survey|publisher=SIL International|year=2008|pages=13}} ! !% lexical similarity |
| Jaunpuri
|56% |
| Jaunsari
|61% |
| Sirmauri
|59% |
| Nagpuri
|56% |
Centum substrate hypothesis
Bangani is of interest amongst scholars of Indo-European languages, due to some unusual features.
Since the 1980s, Claus Peter Zoller – a scholar of Indian linguistics and literature – has claimed that there is a centum language substrate in Bangani. Zoller has also suggested that Bangani has been misclassified as a dialect of Garhwali and is more closely related to the Western Pahari languages.
The substance of Zoller's claims has been rejected by George van Driem and Suhnu Sharma, in publications since 1996,{{cite web |url=http://www.iias.nl/host/himalaya/abstracts/sgo.html |title= Religion and Global empire |work=The Newsletter Issue 54 |publisher=International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) |accessdate=4 September 2010|archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20061019044736/http://www.iias.nl/host/himalaya/abstracts/sgo.html |archivedate = 19 October 2006|url-status=dead}} which claim that Zoller's data was flawed and that Bangani is an unambiguously satem language. Zoller does not accept the findings by van Driem and Sharma, and claims that there are methodological issues and factual errors in van Driem and Sharma's work.{{cite web |url=http://www-personal.umich.edu/~pehook/bangani.zoller.html |title=The van Driem Enigma Or: In search of instant facts |author= |date= |website= |publisher= |accessdate=4 September 2010}}{{cite web|url=http://www.sai.uni-heidelberg.de/abt/MIND/zoller/Bangani.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030528154936/http://www.sai.uni-heidelberg.de/abt/MIND/zoller/Bangani.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=28 May 2003|title=?|df=dmy-all}}
In addition, Zoller also notes the two scholars did not set foot in Bangan but interviewed speakers at another location near Bangan.{{cite web |last1=JOUANNE |first1=THOMAS |title=A Preliminary Analysis of the Phonological System of the Western Pahāṛī Language of Kvār |url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/30815038.pdf |website=core.ac.uk |publisher=Institutt for kulturstudier og orientalske språk, Universitetet i Oslo |access-date=12 May 2014}} Professor Anvita Abbi visited Bangan after them and confirmed Zoller's data.{{cite web |last1=JOUANNE |first1=THOMAS |title=A Preliminary Analysis of the Phonological System of the Western Pahāṛī Language of Kvār |url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/30815038.pdf |website=core.ac.uk |publisher=Institutt for kulturstudier og orientalske språk, Universitetet i Oslo |access-date=12 May 2014}}
Support for Zoller's hypothesis and his underlying data has been offered by other linguists and Indologists, such as Anvita Abbi, Hans Henrich Hock,{{cite book |doi=10.1515/9783110423303-004 |title=The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia |year=2016 |isbn=978-3-11-042330-3 |editor1-last=Hock|editor1-first=Hans Henrich|editor1-link=Hans Henrich Hock|editor2-last=Bashir|editor2-first=Elena|editor2-link=Elena Bashir}} and Koenraad Elst.See, for example, Koenraad Elst, 2007, Asterisk in Bhāropīyasthān: Minor Writings on the Aryan Invasion Debate, Delhi, Voice of India, p. 31.