ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the characteristic features of South African Bhojpuri (SB) before its decline, and emphasizes grammatical choices arising from contact between speakers of related North Indian dialects and languages. It discusses a skeleton grammar of Indian Bhojpuri. SB is fairly uniform, considering the great diversity of regional forms initially brought in by indentured immigrants. The chapter examines the contribution of non-Bhojpurian varieties to SB, and in this way place SB within the spectrum of overseas varieties of Bhojpuri. There are two distinct dialect areas–Coastal Natal and the Uplands of Natal, with a third intermediate area in the Natal Midlands. The chapter also examines various dialects and languages of the first generation of migrants interacted with each other is estimated, as well as the degree of coalescence involved in the formation of SB.
