A native speaker discussing the state of access to public information in and online use of Bangani language in 2019Balbeer Singh Rawat, a Bangani speaker discussing the Bangani languageUttarkashi District
Bangani is of interest amongst scholars of Indo-European languages, due to some unusual features.
Since the 1980s, Claus Peter Zoller – a scholar of Indian linguistics and literature – has hypothesised, controversially, that Bangani has a substrate from a centum-group Indo-European language. Zoller also suggests that Bangani has been misclassified as a dialect of Garhwali and is more closely related to the Western Pahari languages.
While Zoller's centum substrate hypothesis remains controversial, it and his underlying data have been supported by 21st century linguists and indologists, such as Anvita Abbi, Hans Henrich Hock,[4] and Koenraad Elst.[5] Abbi visited Bangan and confirmed the accuracy of Zoller's data.[6]
The substance of Zoller's claims has been rejected by George van Driem and Suhnu Sharma, in publications since 1996,[7] which claim that Zoller's data was flawed and that Bangani is an unambiguously satem language.
Zoller does not accept the findings by van Driem and Sharma, and claims that there are methodological issues and factual errors in van Driem and Sharma's work.[8][9] In addition, Zoller also notes the two scholars did not set foot in Bangan but interviewed speakers at another location near Bangan.[6]
References
↑Zoller, Claus Peter (2007). "Is Bangani a V2 language?"(PDF). European Bulletin of Himalayan Research. 31: 83–142.
↑"Religion and Global empire". The Newsletter Issue 54. International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS). Archived from the original on 19 October 2006. Retrieved 4 September 2010.
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