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II.-WESTERN BENGALI.
The Western dialect of Bengali is spoken in its extreme form in the east
of the Chota Nagpur Division, in the District of Manbhum, and in the tract called
Dhalbh
m, in the east of the Singhbhum
District. It is bordered on the west by the Mu
a
dialects of Chota Nagpur, by the Bih
r
spoken in the North and Centre of Chota Nagpur, and by the O
iy
of that Division spoken in the south of the Singhbhum District. Going east,
we find it spoken in the Birbhum and Bankura Districts, and in the western portion
of the Burdwan District, especially about Raniganj, but in these Districts it
gradually merges into Central or Standard Bengali. As already stated when speaking
of that dialect, it is impossible to fix any definite line as dividing the two
Districts in Burdwan. All that we can do is to estimate that of the Bengali-speaking
population of that district. We may say that a million speak the Western dialect.
Western Bengali is also spoken, principally by immigrant Kums,
in the north of the Orissa Native States of Keonjhar and Mayrbhanja,
while the language of the mass of the people is Oiy.
Similarly, it is spoken in the Eastern and Southern portions of the Sonthal
Parganas by immigrants from the plains, who have settled among the aboriginal
inhabitants (see map facing this page). Here, however, it has no other Aryan
language with which to compete, as is the case in the Orissa Native States,
except in a small tract south and east of Deoghur (D
ogarh)
where Bihr
and Bengali overlap, the former being spoken by natives of Bihr,
and the latter by natives of Bengal.
On the western boundary of this dialect, there are various mixed dialects
which are generally known as Kho
,
or Impure, Bengali. It is often difficult to say whether these should be classed
as dialects of Bengali, or of the neighbouring Bihr.
For instance, there is the curious dialect bearing many names, but which is
usually known as Kuml,
spoken in Manbhum, Singhbhum and the neighbouring Native States. This is sometimes
written in the Bengali, sometimes in the Kaith,
and sometimes in the Oiy,
character. Closely connected with it are the so-called Bengali of Hazaribagh,
and the P
ch-pargani
dialect spoken in East Ranchi. These, on the ground that their gram- matical
basis is distinctly that of Bihr,
I have classed as dialects of that language, although, in the case of Hazaribagh,
it is called Bengali by the local authorities. On the other hand, there are
two mixed dialects whose grammatical basis is that of Bengali, and these I have
classed as sub-dialects of Western Bengali. One of these is the language spoken
by the Jains in the south-east of the Ranchi District, a District, be it remembered,
of which the language of the main bulk of the population is not Bengali. It
is called indifferently by the surrounding people, whose language is a form
of Bihr,
Kho
Ba
gal,
Sarwak
or Sark.
The last two names are derived from 
rwak,
one of the names of the Jain community. It is reported as spoken by 48,127 people
in the Ranchi District. The other mixed sub-dialect is spoken by the aboriginal
tribe of Khais
who inhabit the hills in the south of Manbhum. The Khais
of Manbhum have abandoned their own tribal language, which belongs to the Mu
family, and speak a broken Bengali. A similar dialect is spoken by the Pahis
of the same neighbourhood, and the form of speech is known either as Khai-hr
or as Pahi-
hr,
according to the speakers. It is reported as spoken by 2,760 people. Finally,
the