Abstract

Gon?i belongs to the South-Central branch of Dravidian. It is spoken by perhaps two million people in the central Indian states of Maharashtra (1,300,000), Madhya Pradesh (450,000), Andhra Pradesh (270,000) and Orissa (84,000). Gondi’s extensive dialect variation may be attributed to several factors: it covers a wide geographic area, has no written tradition and lacks official status.