Qaydo Cutchijo

ENGLISH

Dr. J. M. I. SAIT

CUTCHI HERITAGE IS GOLD
FOR IT IS CENTURIES OLD

Qaydo Cutchi Jo

(ENGLISH)

© COPYRIGHT
2020-2030

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
BY THE AUTHOR

DR. J. M. I. SAIT

1

THE CUTCHI LANGUAGE

Cutchi can claim to be older than Sanskrit. It belongs to the
ancient group of Prakrit languages, the fore-runners of
Sanskrit. They were the spoken languages of the common
people of India. Two specific characteristics which identify
Sindhi with Prakrit are (1) double consonants are not
allowed. One of the consonants is stressed and the other
muted. For example in Bengali River Padma is written as
PADMA but pronounced as PADDA. In Sindhi and Cutchi
Rakt -blood- is Ratt; and the red colour (colour of the
blood) is Ratto; Garbhini GoN (Pregnant Cow) is GabhNi
GoN , Dhoort (spendthrift) is Dhootaro - 'r' being omitted.

Sindhi was the language of the people south of Persia
reaching up to the banks of River Sindhu (Indus). Whether
Sindhi or Cutchi had a script of its own is unknown, though
it is said that the Bhuj museum had some specimens of
writings on rocks in Cutchi. Having migrated to Gujarat the
Cutchi Memons had resorted to using Gujarati or Sindhi as
the medium for education and commerce, so much so,
Cutchi remained scriptless. Muslims used modified Arabic
Script and others either Devanagari or Gujarati.

2

Cutchi is a variant of Sindhi differing only in intonation of
certain words and vocabulary added later from Urdu and
Gujarati owing to the Sindhi migration to Urdu and Gujarati
speaking areas. In the areas of later settlements of Cutchi
migrants, the intonations have also acquired the
characteristics of the local languages. In spite of the fact
that Cutchi has been influenced by various local languages
it is uniformly understood by most Cutchi and Sindhi
speakers all over the world.

Unfortunately, Cutchi is totally forgotten and gone into
disuse in many parts of the world where the local
languages have taken its place. Surprisingly, this has
happened even in Cutch, giving way to Gujarati and Hindi.
Quite a few of the residents of those places had time and
again expressed their desire to learn the language at least
to maintain a sentimental relationship. This work is a
humble attempt to reinstate the language, fully realizing
that a comprehensive and authentic version is not possible
without the active cooperation of the knowledgeable
people. It is our earnest request to all the readers to kindly
comment and correct us so that we can improve the
knowledge and perfect the Qaydo to a higher level.

3

In English and other Roman script languages Cutchi is
written differently as Kachchi, Katchhi, Katchi and so on.

A set of Sindhi characters is given in the following table
along side their equivalents in other scripts.ome of the
Arabic based letters used in Sindhi, particularly words
which have roots in Urdu or Arabic do not have exact
equivalent sounds in other languages. They are ‫ﺾ ﺯ ﺫ ﺥ‬
‫ ﻍ ﻉ ﻖ ﻆ ﮋ‬The nearest available sounds are : Z for ‫ ;ﻆ ﮋ ﺯ ﺫ‬Q
for ‫ ; ﻖ‬g for ‫ ; ﮋ‬a gutteral A for ‫ ﻉ‬and a guttural Gh for ‫ﻍ‬

The scheme of lessons is as follows:

Lesson 1: Pronouns and Relationships
Lesson 2: Nouns – Seasons, People, Organs, Household
articles and food items
Lesson 3: Verbs
Lesson 4: Adjectives, Adverbs
Lesson 5: Sentences
Lesson 6: Conversation
Descriptions and word meanings are given in all 4
languages as far as possible. You may learn the
language at your own pace. A voice pack is also being
planned to go with the text, in future.

4

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6

Cutchi Grammar:
Rule of numbers:

In Cutchi there are two number levels: Singular and Plural.
Singular nouns generally end with 'o' or 'i' sounds. In plural
'o' ending nouns change to 'a' and 'i' ending nouns change
to 'iyun'.Nouns ending in consonents generally do not
change.

Example : Singular Plural

Boy Chokro Boys Chokra

Girl Chokry Girls Chokriyun

Dove Kabutar Doves Kabutar

However, there are some exceptions. This rule is not

applicable when a plural noun is used to denote respect.

There is no 'dual number' in Cutchi as found in Arabic,

Sanskrit and certain other languages.

7

LESSON 1 NOUNS

In this lesson we will see different categories of
nouns which are peculiar to Cutchi. Words
imported from other regional languages have been
avoided as they are well known in the respective
areas and equivalent cutchi words could not be
found. The words are grouped into classes as:

Pronouns
Relationships
Seasons
People and Professions
House and household articles
Metals, Tools and Jewels
Animals
Human body
Food articles
Planets & Days

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CUTCHI GRAMMAR

RULE OF GENDER

In Cutchi every living thing is identifi
non-living things are classified into eit
a general rule all non-living things th
Those ending in 'I' or 'Y' are feminine.
third or neuter gender. Gender is also

Examples

ied with its biological gender as Male or Female. All
ther male or female according to custom or usage. As
hat end in 'O' in their singular form are masculine.
. Others are either masculine or feminine. There is no
determined according to the origin of the nouns.

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Metals, Tools and Jewels

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Animals and Other Living Things