Devotional practice
The Ramcharitmanas recitation
Village Ramayana circles read a fixed portion nightly, ending in a shared meal on the ninth day.
Language profile
Awadhi
अवधी
Awadhi in Nepal's western Tarai shares the literary inheritance of Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas, recited nightly in village mandalis, alongside a rich harvest-song tradition.
- Language family
- Indo-European › Indo-Aryan
- Script
- Devanagari, Kaithi
- Speakers
- ≈ 500,000 in Nepal
- Status
- Vulnerable
- Also called
- Kohli, Purbi
- Greeting
- Pranam / Ram Ram
Where Awadhi is spoken
Where it is spoken
Geographic distribution
KapilvastuBankeBardiyaRupandehiDang
Script
Devanagari, Kaithi
Writing sample
अवधी
Scripts carry more than sound: letterforms, numerals and orthographic conventions record centuries of contact, patronage and revival.
Note
Numeral documentation for Awadhi is in progress with community contributors.
Words & expressions
Everyday speech
कइसन बाटे?
Kaisan bate?
How are you?
राम राम
Ram Ram
Greetings
Alphabet
Letters and numerals
Devanagari
Official script of Nepal, used for Nepali and most Indo-Aryan and many Tibeto-Burman languages of the country.
Vowels
अआइईउऊऋएऐओऔअंअः
Consonants
कखगघङचछजझञटठडढणतथदधनपफबभमयरलवशषसहक्षत्रज्ञ
Numerals
०१२३४५६७८९
Words
Core vocabulary
माई
maai
mother
पानी
paani
water
गाँव
gaanv
village
राम
Ram
Ram
चौपाई
chaupai
quatrain metre
होरी
hori
spring song
भवानी
Bhawani
the goddess
खेत
khet
field
Idioms & sayings
How the language thinks
जस देस तस भेस
Jas des tas bhes
Dress as the country dresses.
History
How Awadhi came to be written and spoken
16th century
Tulsidas composes the Ramcharitmanas in Awadhi; Jayasi's Padmavat precedes it.
Colonial period
Awadhi displaced from administration by Hindi standardisation, surviving in song and theatre.
Today
Spoken across Nepal's western Tarai, in folk theatre, wedding song and provincial broadcasting.
Tales
Told and retold
Indigenous knowledge
Knowledge carried in the language, not in books
Wedding song cycles
Women's repertoires order every ritual step, from oil-anointing to departure, with a song per act.
Threshing-floor measures
Grain shares for potter, barber and blacksmith fixed by customary volume, not price.
AI preparedness index
How ready is Awadhi for language technology?
Overall readiness
1.13%
readiness score from the global index of 6,000+ world languages
AI resource readiness0.01%
Infrastructural readiness34.80%
Socioeconomic readiness4.21%
ISO 639-3
awa
Speakers (index)
22,000,000
Endangerment
Potentially vulnerable
Open datasets
38
Published models
102
Wikipedia articles
0
Dictionary exists
Yes
Full text corpus
Yes
These figures place Awadhi on the readiness index: how much machine-readable text, speech and model work already exists, and how far the digital and socioeconomic conditions around its speakers support building them. A low AI resource score is exactly where corpus collection changes the outcome.
Source: global language readiness index (Awadhi, awa). Scores are readiness percentages across the full index of 6,000+ languages.
Stories
Oral tradition
Recitation circle
Ramayan mandali
Villagers gather through the winter to chant the Ramcharitmanas in chaupai metre, one chapter a night, with harmonium and dholak.
Songs & music
Sung heritage
♪
Sohar
Birth song
Sung by women at the birth of a child.
Recording being catalogued
♪
Kajari
Monsoon song
Songs of the rains and of longing.
Recording being catalogued
Culture & traditions
Festivals, dress, food, craft
Festivals
HoliChhathBuddha Jayanti
Dress
Sari and lehenga; men's kurta-dhoti with safa.
Food
Bafauri, kadhi-bari, gud ka chawal.
Crafts
Mud-and-cow-dung wall art, terracotta votive horses.
People & community
The people who keep Awadhi alive
Farming communities of Kapilvastu and Banke, close-knit with the Buddha's birthplace region.
Language → People → Place → Culture → Heritage
Awadhi → Farming communities of Kapilvastu and Banke → Kapilvastu, Banke, Bardiya → Holi → audio, video, text and images held with community consent.
Related languages
Bhojpuri
भोजपुरी
Indo-European › Eastern Indo-Aryan
Tharu
थारू
Indo-European › Indo-Aryan (cluster)
Maithili
𑒧𑒻𑒟𑒱𑒪𑒲 / मैथिली
Indo-European › Eastern Indo-Aryan
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