Sociolinguistic survey of selected Rajasthani speech varieties of Rajasthan, India, Volume 6: Marwari, Merwari, and Godwari

This report describes the findings of a sociolinguistic survey conducted among speakers of Marwari (ISO 639-3: rwr), Merwari (ISO 639–3: wry), and Godwari (ISO 639-3: gdx), spoken in the western region of Rajasthan. The fieldwork was done from January to March 2005. Wordlist comparisons, Recorded Text Testing (RTT), Hindi Sentence Repetition Testing (SRT), and questionnaires have been employed as research methods. Results indicate that Marwari, Merwari, and Godwari speakers would benefit from vernacular language development because the people (especially the uneducated) are probably not sufficiently proficient in Hindi, the mother tongue is used in almost all domains of life, and it is likely that these languages will continue to be viable in the future. The findings suggest that language development in the Jodhpur Marwari speech variety would meet the needs for Merwari and Godwari speakers as well.