- Official language in
- India
- Script
- Gujarati
Where it's spoken
Gujarati is described as the official language of Gujarat, a state of India. This status follows from a mechanism set out in India's constitution: rather than naming one official language for the country as a whole, the constitution lets the legislature of a state adopt by law any language in use in that state as the state's own official language.
Sources
- Constitution of India (1949, as amended; text as reproduced by the Comparative Constitutions Project) — Art. 345 (state legislature may adopt a state's own official language)
- Doctor, Raimond (2004). "A Grammar of Gujarati." Languages of the World/Materials 096, LINCOM Europa — Introduction (official language of Gujarat state)
Script & pronunciation
This app's Gujarati cards are written in the Gujarati script, a modification of the Devanagari script also used for languages such as Hindi and Marathi. Unlike Devanagari, Gujarati does not use the shirorekha, the horizontal line drawn along the top of a line of Devanagari text. As in Devanagari, each consonant letter represents a syllable with the inherent vowel a, which is modified by vowel signs attached to the consonant; some of these vowel signs are written to the left of the consonant they belong to, even though they are pronounced after it. This app's card એક મિનિટ ("Just a moment") romanizes મિનિટ as minit: the vowel sign િ that produces the i sound is written before મ, although it comes after the consonant in pronunciation.
Sources
- Doctor, Raimond (2004). "A Grammar of Gujarati." Languages of the World/Materials 096, LINCOM Europa — Ch. 2, Writing System (Devanagari-derived, no shirorekha, inherent vowel a)
- The Unicode Standard, Version 18.0 — Code Charts, Gujarati (U0A80–U0AFF) — Vowel sign I (0ABF): stands to the left of the consonant
Grammar essentials
Gujarati marks a noun's grammatical role with postpositions rather than prepositions: where English places a word like "to" or "at" before a noun, Gujarati adds a postposition after the noun, in its oblique case. This app's card મને ગુજરાતી આવડતું નથી ("I can't speak Gujarati") opens with મને, which the card's own word-by-word note glosses as "to me (dative)"; the card's grammar note frames the sentence as a dative construction expressing a lack of ability.
Sources
- Doctor, Raimond (2004). "A Grammar of Gujarati." Languages of the World/Materials 096, LINCOM Europa — Noun declension §3.1.1.2 (oblique case and postpositions)
Politeness & etiquette
Gujarati distinguishes three levels of politeness in its second-person pronouns: the informal તું, the everyday polite તમે — grammatically a plural form — and the more honorific આપ, which can replace તમે for extra respect. This app's cards default to તમે when addressing someone you don't already know, as in શું તમે અંગ્રેજી બોલો છો? ("Do you speak English?"), whose own note says to use તમે with strangers and reserve તું for close relationships; the app's own card for તમે itself translates it as "You," repeating the same note. The more honorific આપ appears in this app's card શું આપ રસોઈ વર્ગ ભલામણ કરી શકો? ("Can you recommend a cooking class?"), whose own note calls આપ the formal second-person pronoun in Gujarati.
Sources
- Doctor, Raimond (2004). "A Grammar of Gujarati." Languages of the World/Materials 096, LINCOM Europa — Personal pronouns §3.1.4.1 (tu / tame / ap)