Global InformationHijra Farsi information
| Hijra Farsi | |
|---|---|
| Koti Farsi | |
| Native to | India, Pakistan |
Native speakers | unknown (2017) |
Language family | Indo-European
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | None |
Hijra Farsi is a secret language spoken by South-Asian Hijra and Kothi (also Koti) communities. Hijras are a marginalized transgender community that lives in sequestered groups in many cities of India and Pakistan. The language, also known as Koti Farsi, is spoken by the Hijra community throughout Pakistan and North India. Despite what its name suggests, the language is based on Hindustani rather than Farsi.[2] The sentence structure is similar to Urdu, but noticeable distinctions exist.[3] Hijra Farsi is mainly spoken by Muslim Hijras; Hindu Hijras speak the Gupti language and its regional dialects.[4]
Even though the language is not actually based on Persian (Farsi), the hijras consider the language to be related to the language of the Mughal Empire, which they associate with the origin of Hijra identity. Hijra Farsi is most similar to Hindi, but is not intelligible to Hindi speakers due to distinctive intonation and a large amount of distinctive vocabulary.[2]
After the partition of India, the language has come to include words of local languages including Punjabi, Saraiki, Sindhi and other languages.
- ^ Hindustani (2005). Keith Brown (ed.). Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2 ed.). Elsevier. ISBN 0-08-044299-4.
- ^ a b "Stanford Linguistics Colloquium". stanford.edu. Retrieved 16 February 2016.
- ^ Sheeraz, Muhammad, and Ayaz Afsar. "Farsi: An Invisible But Loaded Weapon for the Emerging Hijraism in Pakistan." Kashmir Journal of Language Research 14, no. 2 (2011).
- ^ "Queer language". City: World. The Hindu. TNN. 30 November 2013. Retrieved 27 January 2020.