Linguistic Variation and Change in Bhojpuri

Bhojpuri is a Bihari language, spoken primarily in the western part of the state of Bihar and the eastern part of the state of Uttar Pradesh. As per Grierson (1903), two copular forms have been attested in Bhojpuri in the Present Tense: -h and -ba. H was the minority form that was restricted in use, and ba was the dominant form. Over the years, due to mobility and contact with the neighbouring areas of Hajipur and Patna, it is proposed that -h forms have seen a rise in the daily use and frequency of speech. We have taken a diachronic sociohistorical perspective to deal with the issue of dialect contact and change in this paper. Multivariate analysis is done as a standard statistical tool to analyse different socio-regional factors.