ABSTRACT
Linguistic change in South African Bhojpuri (SB), whether due to the processes of contact with other languages of South Africa, to changes independent of Indian Bhojpuri but not attributable to language contact, or to changes in social circumstances. It explores the early loans according to certain semantic themes, and discusses the use of more loans, characteristic of the third and succeeding generations, but not generally used by older speakers. The chapter provides an inkling of the jettisoning of once-essential vocabulary by examining three different areas:agriculture, caste and domestic terminology. It deals with animal husbandry–aless technical sphere than ploughing, since rearing and caring for cattle is the concern of the entire family, and since animals are kept even in towns in north-east India. The class division between indentured workers and merchants from India, is perhaps reflected in the non-occurrence of loanwords from the languages.
