Note 154 — K (continued 5)

In a note on the Kui, Kandhī, or Khond language, Mr. G. A. Grierson writes as follows.154 “The Kandhs or Khonds are a Dravidian tribe in the hills of Orissa and neighbouring districts. The tribe is commonly known under the name of Khond. The Oriyās call them Kandhs, and the Telugu people Gōnds or Kōds. The name which they use themselves is Ku, and their language should accordingly be denominated Kui. The word Ku is probably related to Kōī, one of the names by which the Gōnds used to denote themselves. The Kōī dialect of Gōndi is, however, quite different from Kui. The Khonds live in the midst of the Oriyā territory. Their habitat is the hills separating the districts of Ganjam and Vizagapatam in the Madras Presidency, and continuing northwards into the Orissa Tributary States, Bōd, Daspalla, and Nayagarh, and, crossing the Mahānadi, into Angul and the Khondmals. The Khond area further extends into the Central Provinces, covering the northern part Kalahandi, and the south of Patna. Kui is surrounded on all sides by Oriyā. Towards the south it extends towards the confines of the Telugu territory. The language varies locally, all over this area. The differences are not, however, great, though a man from one part of the country often experiences difficulty in understanding the Kui spoken in other parts. There are two principal dialects, one eastern, spoken in Gumsur and the adjoining parts of Bengal, and one western, spoken in Chinna Kimedi. In the north, Kui has come under the influence of the neighbouring Aryan forms of speech, and a specimen forwarded from the Patna State was written in Oriyā with a slight admixture of Chattisgarhī. The number of Kandhs returned at the census of 1891 was 627,388. The language returns, however, give a much smaller figure. The reason is that many Kandhs have abandoned their native speech.”