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How Maithili packages meaning
Maithili grammar at a glance
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Common questions about Maithili
How does Maithili verb agreement track the object's status?
This is Maithili's most distinctive feature. The auxiliary verb changes shape depending on the honorific level of the OBJECT — not just the subject. छी for no specific object, छियैक for a non-honorific third-person object, छियौक for a non-honorific second-person object. No other major Indo-Aryan language has object-honorific agreement built into the verb system like this.
What are the three politeness levels in Maithili?
तोँ (tõ, non-honorific — for intimates, children, lower-status), अहाँ (ahā̃, mid-honorific — for peers, respectful equals), and अपने (apne, high-honorific — for elders, authority, formal situations). Each triggers a completely different set of verb auxiliaries. The system extends to third-person reference where the same pronoun can be honorific or not depending on verb agreement.
Does Maithili have grammatical gender?
Yes — masculine and feminine. Gender surfaces on verb agreement and adjectives. However, unlike Hindi, Maithili gender marking is less prominent in the pronoun system. The honorific system takes priority over gender: when an honorific form is used, gender distinctions may neutralize in the verb ending.
Is Maithili written in Devanagari?
Yes, Maithili is primarily written in Devanagari script today. Historically it had its own script — Tirhuta (तिरहुता) or Mithilakshar — which is now used mainly for ceremonial purposes. The Devanagari orthography for Maithili follows the same general conventions as Hindi but represents Maithili-specific sounds and distinctions.
How is Maithili different from Bhojpuri and Hindi?
Maithili's object-honorific agreement is its signature: the verb form changes based on who you're talking about, not just who's talking. Bhojpuri instead marks definiteness on the noun. Hindi has neither feature. Maithili also maintains a more conservative verb system preserving distinctions that Hindi merged. The three languages share vocabulary but differ fundamentally in how they package grammatical information.
Sources for Maithili
The grammatical descriptions on this page are informed by the following published reference and descriptive grammars. Grammatical facts themselves are not subject to copyright; the scholars who documented them deserve attribution.
- Yadav, Ramawatar (1996). A Reference Grammar of Maithili. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
- Jha, Subhadra (1958). The Formation of the Maithili Language. London: Luzac & Co.
- Yadav, Ramawatar (2003). "Maithili." In G. Cardona & D. Jain (eds.), The Indo-Aryan Languages, pp. 523–546. London: Routledge.
- Singh, Udaya Narayana (2007). Maithili Grammar. Munich: Lincom Europa.