If you’re not overly familiar with the linguistic layout of India, you might assume most people in the highly populated nation speak Hindi as their first language. But in reality, fewer than half of Indians speak Hindi as their first language—and in fact, many people in the south of India don’t speak the language at all. With more than 450 languages spanning its vast landmass, India is one of the world’s most linguistically diverse countries, and many of its minority languages are used by millions of native speakers. A good example is Bajjika.
Bajjika isn’t recognized as an official language anywhere in India, and most people outside of the country have never heard of it—but nonetheless, Bajjika boasts more than 20 million native speakers. Native to northern India, Bajjika must contend with Hindi’s hegemony as the regional lingua franca, which puts the language at risk, irrespective of its high number of speakers. But it’s not just Hindi—Maithili, another minority language, also threatens Bajjika’s vitality. Tensions are high between the Maithili and Bajjika communities, even though Bajjika is sometimes classified as a Maithili dialect, which leads most translation companies to avoid Bajjika.
But here at TranslationServices.com, we proudly offer translation services for both Maithili and Bajjika (as well as Bajjika’s sister language Angika). Interested in a free quote? All you have to do is ask!
Bajjika: a proud language facing many challenges
The Bajjika-speaking community is primarily situated in the northeastern Indian state of Bihar, where close to 20 million speakers reside. More precisely, Bajjika speakers generally occupy the districts of Samastipur, Sitamarhi, Muzaffarpur, Vaishali, and Sheohar. An additional 230,000 or so speakers can also be found across the border in Nepal’s Madhesh Province. The state of Bihar recognizes Hindi as its official language, but in truth, languages like Bhojpuri, Maithili, and Magahi tend to dominate.
Like many other languages in northern India, Bajjika comes from the Indo–Aryan subfamily, making it related to Hindi and most other languages used in the state. It’s closely related to both Bhojpuri and Maithili, all falling into the Bihari branch of the family, but it’s Maithili that Bajjika speakers feel more threatened by. When Maithili speakers demanded education in their language in the early 20th century, Bajjika speakers opposed the movement, preferring to learn in Hindi. Maithili speakers, in turn, saw pro-Bajjika movements as aimed at weakening the status of Maithili, and thus a fierce rivalry was born.
Our Bajjika translators are eager to help with your project.
Here at TranslationServices.com, we aren’t taking sides in the Bajjika–Maithili rivalry—rather, we support both communities and want to see both languages thrive. That’s why we’ve built dedicated translation teams for both languages, although we’re focusing on Bajjika today. We’ve gone all around Bihar (and Nepal’s Madhesh Province) to find talented, experienced, and motivated Bajjika translators eager to help clients from across South Asia and beyond break down language barriers. It doesn’t matter whether you’re looking for translation to or from Bajjika, because our skilled translation team can seamlessly navigate both directions.
And that’s not all—we also cater to many different types of translation specialties, offering tailored services for a wide range of documents. Bajjika business translation is perfect for anyone who wishes to tap into Bihar’s Bajjika-speaking market, and our academic translation services are well suited to those wishing to translate educational materials into Bajjika to support Bajjika-language education. Anyone looking to spread awareness and appreciation of Bajjika culture is invited to send Bajjika-language literary texts to us for translation into English—and similarly, anyone interested in bringing more great stories and media to Bajjika speakers can send English-language books, poems, stories, apps, games, or websites to our team.
The passion of our Bajjika translators drives them to deliver high quality in every translation order. See for yourself today—send us a message to get started!