politicians, from casual observation it does not seem to be making significant headway. But the existence of any movement at all does point to an underlying ethnicregional pride.
This ethnic pride, is also reflected in a daily radio program, where the medium is Bundeli rather than Hindi. The program originates in Chhatarpur and is heard in many parts of Bundelkhand. There are
several programs, one on Bundeli culture, and one geared especially to villagers that provides information and perhaps motivation, in the areas of education, health and farming.
1.2.3 Population
The 1971 census of India indicates a population of 8,000,000 speakers of Bundeli Voeglin and Voeglin 1977, as quoted in Grimes 1988:464. Certainly the present day population is much greater; one estimate
is as much as 20,000,000.
1.3 Language
Bundeli is technically classified as part of the Central Zone, Indo-Aryan, Indo-Iranian, Indo-European based on Grierson 1906. It is one of five forms of Western Hindi, the other ones being Khari Boli
generally called Hindustani, Haryanvi, Braj and Kanauji. Khari Boli, spoken in and around Delhi, has been at the center of national life for centuries and has become the lingua franca for much of northern
India. It is used in government, education and business and is the official language of India.
1.3.1 Bundeli and other languages
Bundeli is bounded on the east by Bagheli Eastern Hindi, on the north and northwest by Kanauji and Braj, on the west and southwest by the various dialects of Rajasthani, the most prominent being Malwa
or Malwi, and on the south by Marathi. It merges gradually, without any distinct boundary line between Bundeli and its linguistic neighbours in every direction except to the south. There is no merging
with Marathi, although there are what Grierson calls “broken dialects,” which are “mechanical mixtures” of Bundeli and Marathi 1906:86.
Bundeli and Braj Braj is considered to be the most representative of Western Hindi’s older forms. Bundeli is more closely
related to Braj than to any of the languages of this group, and therefore many of the characteristic features of Western Hindi are found in Bundeli also Jaiswal 1962:6.
However, Jaiswal, who has done the most extensive grammatical and phonological analysis of Bundeli and has compared it to some extent with Braj, says that “Bundeli differs both in phonology and
morphology even from its most closely related sister-languages.” He also claims that Bundeli has been absorbing many phonetic and morphological elements of all its surrounding languages, “probably more
than any other single language in India. Curious as it may seem, chiefly for this reason, Bundeli has assumed a form which justifies its claim as having a separate linguistic identity” 1962:8–9.
Of all the languages surrounding Bundeli, Braj has special status because it is believed to be the language in which Krishna spoke, and all the literature about Krishna is written in it. However, another
speech variety with special importance is what Kellog calls “Old Baiswari” 1893:67. It is the language in which much of the Ramayana is written and is the mother tongue of Tulsi Dass, the author. Old
Baiswari is the ancestor of the current dialects spoken in eastern Banda district, which currently seems to be a mixture of Bundeli, Bagheli and Awadhi. Many non-natives, including linguists, call it Awadhi, but
the local people, if they have any name for their local language, call it Bundeli.
1.3.2 Varieties of Bundeli
