Saurashtra
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A language of India
248,000 (2011 census). Each listed district has communities of at least 5,000.
Tamil Nadu state: North Arcot, Chengai-Annai, Dindugul, Madurai, Ramanathapuram, Salem, Thanjavur, Tiruchchirappalli, and Tirunelveli districts; Chennai, Deccan, Madurai, Salem, and Thanjavur cities; Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka states.
5* (Developing).
Southern Saurashtra, Northern Saurashtra. Indo-Aryan elements reveal Gujarati [guj] relationship; some structure from Dravidian, lexicon from Telugu [tel] and Tamil [tam]. An Indo-European island surrounded by Dravidian languages. The 3 main populations in Salem, Thanjavur, and Madurai cities had between 67% and 97% inherent intelligibility among themselves. Lexical similarity: 77%–96% between all varieties. The 3 main populations: 84%–96%. Southern dialects have 83% or higher lexical similarity with Thanjavur variety.
Vigorous. Home, prayer. Also use Tamil [tam].
Literature. Radio. Dictionary. NT: 2001.
Most are weavers; nonweavers are generally better educated. System of exogamous clans. Hindu.