The Mundas are one of the oldest settlers in India, with their concentration in the Chotanagpur region of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa.
The Mundari language is a subject of great interest to both the ethnologist and the philologist, since it is the key to the understanding of the material and religious culture and social system of all the Munda tribes and it may be taken as the basis for the analysis and study of a number of tribal languages in India. It is interesting to note that this language contains such roots and vocables which appear to be cognates not only to those of Indo-Aryan languages including Sanskrit but also to the roots of such distant Indo-European languages as Greek, German, Flemish and English.
The Encyclopaedia Mundarica records all the pure Mundari words and those borrowed from neighbouring languages and presents the etymology, different shades of meaning in usage, syntactical and grammatical peculiarities of those words and their relation to various cultural and religious concepts. It also contains lists and descriptions of flora, especially edible, medicinal and poisonous plants and their properties, with their Mundari names. Well-written articles on the economic, social, moral and religious life of the Mundas is another salient feature of this work.
The compilers have taken due notice of the Mundari poetry, music and dances. There are very exact drawings of all that the Mundas possess and use in the shape of implements, furniture and dwellings. It is an authentic account of the Munda land of its people and their customs.
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