Patterns of Consonant Weakening and Alternation in Ganjami Odia

Abstract

The paper focuses on the consonantal restructuring such as deletion, lenition in intervocalic positions and word-initial substitution in the Odia speech variety known as Ganjami Odia, which is mainly spoken in Ganjam and its neighbouring districts in Odisha state. Based on synchronic data collected from 88 adult vernalcular speakers across eight contact-intensive localities, the distribution of /b/, /s/, /g/, /h/, and /m/ reduction alongside word-initial /l/ ? /n/ substitution is analysed. The results present an interaction among phonetic reduction, morphological conditioning and language contact. The research region comprises the speakers of Odia (Indo-Aryan), Telugu and other Dravidian languages. The regular and constant contact between these speakers has consequently contributed to the regular sound changes and conventionalization of these reduced forms. The results include a verbal paradigm that provides a structural environment in which variable phonetic realisations can become regularised in the intervocalic positions in Ganjami Odia. This interpretation is consistent with the characterisation of Odisha as a mini-linguistic area, where prolonged multilingual interaction has encouraged phonological and grammatical convergence among Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, and Munda languages (Reddy, 2016). The language, therefore, demonstrates how sound changes can interact with grammatical structure and contact-induced convergence to produce stable dialectal patterns. Adopting an areal-convergence framework can reveal contact-induced change (François, 2011) and provide a more detailed account of the processes that shape the phonemic, syllabic, and morphological structure of Ganjami Odia.