A Grammar of Gujarati

Gujarati, belonging to the Indo-Aryan family, is spoken by approximately 46,100,000 or more speakers. It is the official language of Gujarat state and is also used in 16 other countries around the world, thanks to the Gujarati diaspora. Having several dialects, which moreover have been little explored, Gujarati is very rich in literary style and has a long literary tradition. The grammatical analysis proposed here is of Gujarati as taught and used by educated speakers of the language. The grammar provides basic information on the phonology, writing system, morphology and the syntax of the language. A short introduction outlines the geolinguistic situation of Gujarati. The chapter on phonology studies the vowels, consonants as well as the syllable structure of Gujarati. Special attention is given to the murmur sounds of the language, since these are a marked feature of Gujarati. A short overview of the syllable structure and of the prosody of Gujarati is also furnished. The analysis of the writing system starts off with a brief historical sketch of the evolution of Gujarati graphemes, followed by a script grammar of the consonants, vowels/matras, and other modifiers. Conjuncts and ligatures both of the vowels and the consonants are also analysed.