ABSTRACT
Kolami is spoken by 120,000 people who live near Wardha and Kinwat in Maharashtra and in the Adilabad district of Telangana. The language comprises three dialects Adilabad, Naikri and Wardha. The speakers call themselves kolavar /kolavar ‘Kolam’ and their language kolav pana/kolava gotti ‘Kolami’. Due to the absence of contrast in non-initial syllables, M. B. Emeneau does not mark vowel length in non-initial syllables. Formal concord between adjective and head noun is thought to be an Indo-Aryan feature the Wardha dialect appears to have borrowed it from Marathi. Prenominal modifiers in Kolami have traditionally been called adjectives, but this classification is misleading. Prenominal modifiers that agree in number and gender with their head noun are fundamentally nouns since they may function independently as such. Kolami morphology distinguishes between free forms and clitic particles. Free forms, or independent words, distinguish primarily between nouns and verbs according to morphology and syntax.
