Raji Language Resource

Part of CoRSAL

About the Language

Raji (ISO 639-3 jnl) is spoken primarily in the Pithoragarh and Champawat districts of Uttarakhand, India. The Raji community is geographically scattered and economically poor, dispersed across eleven small hamlets (Altodi, Jamtari, Chaurani, Kimkhola, Madanbori, Bhoktirwa, Ganagaon, Chipaltara, Chakarpur, Kulekh, Khirdwari) that consist of 12-25 households. These hamlets are inaccessible, amidst a dense forest 2500 to 4000 feet above sea level in the hilly state of Uttarakhand. Until relatively recently, Rajis lived as cave dwellers and food gatherers, subsisting on hunting, fishing, and jungle produce. According to the 2011 Indian census, their total population in India was approximately 732. The 2019 Society for Endangered and Lesser-Known languages (SEL) survey lists 899 Rajis across all the eleven hamlets.

Other names for the language include Raute, Banraji, Banrawat, or Rajbaar. Indian government records list the language as Raji. In the Linguistic Survey of India, Greirson named this language as ‘Janggali,’ and, due to geographical affinity, placed it in the Tibeto-Burman language family. Dr. Suniti Kumar Chatterji also supported Grierson’s claim. On the other hand, some linguists like Dr. Shobha. R. Sharma and Dr. D.D. Sharma have suggested that the linguistic components of Raji language were paleo-linguistic relics of some of the Munda dialects, which, in the ancient past, were spoken in the Himalayan region. The creator of this collection, Dr. Kavita Rastogi, tried to establish that, though this language belongs to the Central Himalayish branch of the Tibeto-Burman family, long contact with Indo-Aryan languages like Kumauni and Hindi has not only affected its vocabulary, but also its grammar.

About the Collection

This collection includes photographs, audio recordings, and handwritten field notes taken by Dr. Kavita Rastogi during field trips to Altodi, Jamtadi, Kimkhola Raji hamlets from 1998 to 2008. Word lists and field notes represent different semantic domains, sentence types, conversations and traditional narratives. Photographs demonstrate traditional ways of life in Raji villages like fish trapping, wood gathering, and jewelry making.

To support the creation of these materials, Rastogi has received funding from the University Grants Commission, India; Indian Council of Social Science Research, India; Society for Endangered and Lesser-Known languages (SEL), India; Foundation for Endangered Language, UK; and Keystone Foundation, Kotagiri, India.