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Meaning of Munda in English:

Munda

Pronunciation /ˈmʊndə/

nounplural noun Munda, plural noun Mundas

  • 1A member of a group of indigenous peoples living scattered in a region from east central India to Nepal and Bangladesh.

    ‘Throughout central and southern India there are tribal populations such as Mundas, Oraons and Santals, there are Dravidian groups in southern India such as Tamils and the Malayalam-speaking peoples in Kerala.’
    • ‘It is the Mundas who brought rice cultivation from Southeast Asia to the Ganga basin, whence it reached the Indus Valley towards the end of the Harappan age.’
    • ‘A Bombay weekly marvelled at the high turn-out in the tribal forest districts of Orissa: Santhals and Mundas coming to the booth with bows and arrows.’
    • ‘The police sources also said that the pamphlet spews venom on the Munda, Oraon, Kharia and Santhali tribes since they ‘do not agree to join the Hindus - the nation's mainstream.’’

  • 2mass noun A family of languages spoken by the Munda, distantly related to the Mon-Khmer family, with which they are sometimes classified as Austro-Asiatic. The most widely spoken is Santali.

    ‘Austro-Asiatic languages (e.g., Munda, Ho, and Khasi) are spoken by tribal groups in central India and the northeastern hills.’
    • ‘In addition, a language with no relatives at all, Nahali, is spoken in central India, whereas in the east, Tibeto-Burman and Munda languages are spoken.’
    1. 2.1Any language of the Munda family.

adjective

  • Relating to the Munda or their languages.

    ‘Yaldiz first came to India in the early 1960s, lived with the Munda tribals in the Santhal belt, learnt their language at about the same time that Meera Mukherjee had set about her own anthropological journey in the jungles of Bastar.’
    • ‘In the course of the rebellion, Munda converts not only resisted imperialism but also refused to accept the codes of the Church.’
    • ‘She says this word is of Munda origin and the word for rice Vrihi is also believed to be of Dravidian origin.’

Origin

The name in Munda.