MUNDAS. The Munda, (Munda) family is the least numer ous of the linguistic families of India. It comprises several dialects spoken in the two Chota Nagpur plateaux, the adjoining districts of Madras and the Central Provinces, and in the Mahadeo hills. Santali, Mundari, Bhumij, Birhar, Kada, Ha, Asuri and Korwa are only slightly differing forms of one and the same language, which can be called Kherwari, a name borrowed from Sant5.1i tradition. Kherwari is the principal Munda language, and quite 88% of all the speakers of Munda tongues belong to it. The Korwa dialect, spoken in the western part of Chota Nagpur, con nects Kherwari with the remaining Munda languages. Of these it is most closely related to the Kurka language of the Mahadeo hills in the Central Provinces. Kurkil, in its turn. in important points agrees with Kharia, and Juang, and Kharia leads over to Savara and Gadaba.. The two last-mentioned forms of speech, which are spoken in the north-east of the Madras Presidency, have been much influenced by Dravidian languages.
The Munda dialects are, as a rule, only found in the hills and jungles, while the plains and valleys are inhabited by people speaking some Aryan language. When brought into close contact with Aryan tongues Munda, forms of speech have been partly superseded by Aryan dialects. Thus some Aryanized tribes in northern India have formerly belonged to the Mundi stock. Such are the Cheros of Behar and Chota Nagpur, the Kherwars, who are found in the same localities, in Mirzapur and elsewhere, the Savaras, who formerly extended as far north as Shahabad, and others. An old Munda, element is present in some Tibeto-Burman
dialects spoken in the Himalayas from Bashahr eastwards.
They are short, dark skinned, broad nosed, with curly hair, with medium to long heads—features possessed by the jungle tribes of southern India, the Veddas, Sakai, etc.
The Munda family of languages in India proper belongs to the Austro-Asiatic division of the Austric family. They must have been settled in India from a very early period. The Sabaras, the ancestors of the Savaras, are already mentioned in old Vedic literature.
The Munda languages abound in vowels, and also possess a richly developed system of consonants. They avoid beginning a word with more than one consonant. They shorten short conso nants at the end of words. The usual stopped consonants—viz., k, c (i.e., English ch), t and pare formed by stopping the current of Mummies ; G. Elliot Smith, Contribution to the Study of Mummification (1906) ; The Royal Mummies (1912) ; G. Elliot Smith and W. R. Dawson, Egyptian Mummies (1924) ; W. R. Dawson, "Contributions to the History of Mummification," Proceedings Royal Society of Medicine, vol. xx. (1927) ; "Making a Mummy," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. xiii. (1927). (W R. D.)