Dingal

Dingal (Devnagari: डिंगल; IAST: ḍiṁgala; also spelled Dimgala), also known as Old Western Rajasthani,[2] is an ancient Indian language written in Nagri script and having literature in prose as well as poetry.

Dingal is also described as one of five "pre-modern Hindi literary dialects", listed together with Braj, Avadhi, Sadhu and Maithili.

[6] The usage of the word "Dingal" is also found in "Uḍiṁgala Nāma Mālā" by the Jain poet Vācaka Kuśalābha and in "Nāga Damana" by the saint-poet Sāyājī Jhūlā, both written at the beginning of the 15th century.

Meghani considered Dingal both as a language and poetic medium which "flowed freely between Rajasthan and Suarashtra and conformed to the contours of other phonetic tongues like Sindhi and Kutchi".

I have shown elsewhere that the Dingaļa language of the Cāraṇas of Rajputana is ultimately but Old Mārwārī, or , to use a more comprehensive term , Old Western Rājasthāni.

-L. P. Tessitori (1916) [9]An interesting feature of Dingal is that it preserves archaic words from the early medieval period which are not found anywhere else.

[6] Owing to its geographical origin at Western Rajasthan, Dingal vocabulary also shares words common with Sindhi, Persian, Punjabi, and Sanskrit.

[10] Tessitori explains the archaic vocabulary of Dingal poets as follows: "The bards have been more conservative in the matter of lexicon than in the matter of grammar, and most of the poetical and archaic words which were used by them five hundred years ago, can still be used by the bards of the present day, though their meaning may be no longer intelligible to any of his hearers or readers, but the initiated.

This fact of the preservation of archaic words in Ḍiṇgaḷa is easily explained by the existence of the poetical glossaries such as the Hamīranāmamālā and the Mānamañjarināmamālā, etc., and the large part they have been playing in the curriculum of the studies of the bards for the last three centuries or more.

A great part of these obsolete words are borrowed from the vocabulary of the Sanskrit poetry, and it is chiefly to these that the extraordinary richness in synonyms of Ḍiṇgaḷa is ultimately due".

In Rukamaṇī Maṃgala or Haraji ro Vyanwalo, late 15th-century Akhyan Kavya text, composed by Padam Bhagat is in the spoken language.

Although it is true that most of the Dingal literature was composed by the Charans, other castes also adopted it and made great contributions.

In addition to the Charans, Dingal poetry is available in sufficient quantity by many poets of the Rajput, Pancholi (Kayastha), Motisar, Brahmin, Rawal, Jain, Muhata, and Bhat communities.

[12] Several Rajput kings wrote poems in Dingal, particularly Maharaja Man Singh Rathore (reign 1803-1843) of Marwar.

Originally a resident Ghadoi village of Marwar, Hamir Dan lived in Bhuj city of Kutch for most of his life.

Born in Thabukda village of Marwar, he lived in Bhuj city in Kutch and was a great scholar of his time.

Ingal[21] is an ancient Indian language, a form of Prakrit popular in Sindh and nearby areas.

Pingal[22] is an ancient and now extinct Indian language, it was a form of Prakrit popular in Rajasthan and nearby areas.