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KACHCHH.
The peninsula of Cutch (Sanskrit Kachchha, or sea-coast land) lies between
the peninsula of Kathiawar on the south, and the Province of Sindh on the north.
A belt of land, 160 miles from east to west and from 35 to 70 from north to
south, it is almost entirely cut off from the continent of India,-being bounded
on the north and east by the Ran, a salt desert for many months in each year
covered by the sea,-on the south by the Gulf of Cutch, and on the west by the
Arabian Sea and the eastern, or Kori, mouth of the Indus. It has long had
close connexion with Sindh, and has frequently been invaded from that country.
The language spoken in Sindh, to the north of Cutch, is the L
dialect of Sindh
.
To its east, various dialects of Gujar
t
are spoken, and to its south, the K
hi
w
dialect of the same lan- guage. In Cutch itself several languages are in common
use. Gujar
t
,
the home- tongue of most Br
hma
s
and V
iy
s,
and of the
h
rs,
Ch
ra
s,
and other shep- herd tribes, is the language of literature, business, and general
correspondence. Kach- chh
is the home-tongue of the J
j
s,
L
h
s,
and Bh
i
s,
and of other Sindh tribes in North Cutch. Though generally understood, Kachchh
is seldom written. Hind
st
n
is spoken by great numbers, and, except in the north, is understood by all.
The Gujar
t
is spoken in two dialects. One is the ordinary standard form of the language
used by educated people. It is described in Vol. IX, Part ii, p. 424 of this
Survey. For the purposes of this Survey it was reported to be spoken by 205,500
people. The other dialect of Gujar
t
is a form of Bh
l
named
h
r
or
yar
.
It is the Gujar
t
used by the
h
rs
and other tribes mentioned above. It is reported to be spoken by 30,500 people,
and is described on pp. 63ff. of Vol. IX, Part iii of this Survey. Hind
st
n
is reported to be the home-language of 3,000 people.
There remains Kachchh. This falls into two sub-dialects,-Kachchh
proper
and K
yasth
. The latter is used by K
yasths, and is a mixture of true
Kachchh
, R
jasth
n
, and Gujar
t
. The number of speakers
of Kachchh
, in Cutch, was reported to be:-
Kachchh![]() |
311,000
|
K![]() ![]() |
500
|
TOTAL.
|
311,500
|
Kachchh is not confined to Cutch. Emigrants have carried it to neighbouring
territories. From the Sindh District of Karachi, immediately to the north, 50,000
speakers are reported, and from Kathiawar 76,214. The last figures include 12,214
returned from the Amreli Pr
nt of the Baroda State, which is situated in
Kathiawar. The remaining 64,000 are reported from the rest of Kathiawar. In
Bombay Town and
Bombay Gazetteer
(1880), Vol. V, p. 1.
Gazetteer, p.
38.