Braj Bhasha
Sign in to saveAlso known as Braj, Brij Bhasha, Braj Bhakha
Western Hindi language of India
Key facts
- Native to
- India
- Region
- Braj
- Ethnicity
- Brajwasi
- Native speakers
- 1.56 million (2011 census) , Census results conflate some speakers with Hindi.
- Language family
- Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Central Indo-Aryan Western Hindi Braj
- Writing system
- Devanagari
- Iso 639 2
- bra
- Iso 639 3
- bra
- Glottolog
- braj1242
via Wikipedia infobox
~6 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Braj is a language within the Indo-Aryan language family spoken in the Braj region in Western Uttar Pradesh centred on Mathura, Eastern Rajasthan centred on Bharatpur, Karauli, Dholpur, South Eastern Areas of Haryana. It was one of the two predominant literary languages of North-Central India before gradually merging and contributing to the development of standardized Hindi in the 19th century. It is spoken today in its unique form in many districts of Western Uttar Pradesh, often referred to as 'Central Braj Bhasha'.
The language was historically used for Vaishnavite poetry dedicated to Krishna, whose life was associated with sites in the Braj region. There were also early prose works in terms of the hagiographical vārtā literature of the Vallabha sect.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Braj Bhasha” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.