// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhat did the Birjia language say to its friend? You're a dialect above the rest.

Birjia
Birjia
Bijori
Native to	India
Ethnicity	Birjia
Native speakers	(13,000 cited 2001)
Language family	Austroasiatic Munda North Kherwarian Mundaric Birjia; ; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	bix
Glottolog	bijo1238

The Birjia language, also known as Binjhia or Bijori, is a language of India. It is commonly assumed to be a Munda language closely related to the Asuri language. However, Anderson,^[2] based on Prasad (1961:314), suggests that Birjia (Binjhia) may be an Indo-Aryan language, although the Birjia are a tribe of the Asuri nation. The latter include the Asur and the Agariya.

Distribution

Birjia is spoken in:^[1]

Jharkhand: Lohardaga district and Ranchi district
West Bengal: Darjeeling district and Jalpaiguri district
Madhya Pradesh
Odisha

Phonology

Bhattacharya (2022) lists the following phonemes for the Birjia variety spoken in Gumla district, Jharkhand:

Consonants

Birjia consonants^[3]^: 8–9
		Bilabial	Dental	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop/Affricate	voiceless	p	t̪		t͡ʃ	ʈ		k	ʔ
	aspirated	pʰ	t̪ʰ		t͡ʃʰ	ʈʰ		kʰ
	voiced	b	d̪		d͡ʒ	ɖ		ɡ
	breathy	bʱ	d̪ʱ		d͡ʒʱ	ɖʱ		ɡʱ
Fricative		(f)		s			ç		h
Nasal		m		n			ɲ	ŋ
Approximant		w		l			j
Rhotic				r		ɽ

Vowels

Birjia vowels^[3]^: 2
	Front	Central	Back
High	i		u
Mid-high	e	ə	o
Mid-low	ɛ		ɔ
Low		a

Word structure

Monosyllabic templates

VC: /otʰ/ "earth", /up/ "hair"
V: /o/ "to smell"
CV: /kʰu/ "cough"
CVC: /ɟan/ "bone", /bʰap/ "steam"
CVCC: /menʔ/ "eye"

Disyllabic templates

VCV: /iʈa/ "brick"
VVC: /oitʰ/ "behind"
CVV: /rua/ "fever"
CVCV: /hasa/ "clay"
CVVC: /ɲein/ "toy"
VCVC: /ipil/ "star"
VCCVC: /uttər/ "north"
CVCCV: /samdʱo/ "daughter-in-law's mother/
CVCVC: /palah/ "snow"
CVCCVC: /seŋgel/ "fire"
CVCCCV: /banɖɽo/ "storm"
CVCVCC: /reŋetʔ/ "hunger"
CVCCVV: /sərləi/ "matchstick"
CVVCVV: /kairao/ "to get angry"

Polysyllabic

VCVCV: /iremi/ "to harvest"
CVCVCV: /haremi/ "to bury a dead body"
CVCVCVCV: /nakaɟami/ "to comb hair"
CVCVCVCVCVC: /tajarajanam/ "to prepare"

Morphology

Nominal morphology

Pronouns

	singular	dual	plural
1st person	ɲia		ɲia
2nd person	amaʔ	aban	ape
3rd person	huni/hunikuɽi	hukin	huku

Cases

Bhattacharya (2022) describes several cases in Birjia.^[3]^: 28–31 Like Santali and Mundari, Birjia lacks general case markers to demonstrate syntactic relationship between arguments.

Case	Marker	Function
Nominative/Accusative	=Ø	Subjects and objects
Dative	=ʔta	Animate dative/recipient argument
Genitive	=raʔ	Possession
Instrumental	=te	Medium
Ablative	eteraʔ	From

Vocabulary

Numerals

Numbers greater than three have been replaced by Indo-Aryan borrowings.

Gloss	Birjia	Santali
"one"	mian	mitˀ
"two"	barija	bar
"three"	peja	pɛ

Nature

Gloss	Birjia	Santali
"cloud"	rimil	rimil
"dog"	seta	seta
"he"	huni	uni
"horse"	sadom	sadɔm
"wood"	səhan	sahan
"fruit"	ɟoʔoh	dʒɔ
"fish"	haku	hako
"ant"	muon	muˀtʃ
"house"	oɽa	oɽaˀk
"star"	ipil	ipil
"rope"	bawer	baber ~ waber

References

1 2 Birjia at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
↑ Anderson, Gregory D.S., ed. (2008). The Munda languages. New York: Routledge Language Family Series 3. p. 195. ISBN 0-415-32890-X.
1 2 3 Bhattacharya, Krishna (2022). A Brief Grammatical Sketch of the Birjia Language. Central Institute of Indian Languages. Retrieved 23 April 2026 – via sanchika.ciil.org.

This Austroasiatic language-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information.

This article about the culture of India is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by adding missing information.

[e25-1] 1 2 Birjia at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)

[2] Anderson, Gregory D.S., ed. (2008). The Munda languages. New York: Routledge Language Family Series 3. p. 195. ISBN 0-415-32890-X.

[Bhattacharya_2022-3] 1 2 3 Bhattacharya, Krishna (2022). A Brief Grammatical Sketch of the Birjia Language. Central Institute of Indian Languages. Retrieved 23 April 2026 – via sanchika.ciil.org.

[1]

[2]

[3]

This page was redesigned at the edge.

A page that knows where it met you.