A language belonging to the
Eastern Hindi subgroup, Bagheli is one of the languages designated as a '
dialect of awadhi' by the
Indian Census Report of 2011. Bagheli is a regional language used for intra-group and inter-group communication.
George Abraham Grierson in his
Linguistic Survey of India classified Bagheli under
Eastern Hindi. The extensive research conducted by local specialist Dr.Bhagawati Prasad Shukla is commensurate with Grierson's classification. Ethnologue cites Godwani, Kumhari and Rewa as dialects of Bagheli. According to Shukla, the Bagheli language has three varieties: • Pure Bagheli • Western-Mixed Bagheli • Southern-Broken Bagheli Like many other
Indo-Aryan languages, it has often been subject to erroneous, arbitrary, or politically-motivated designation as a
dialect, instead of a
language. Furthermore, as is the case with other
Hindi languages, Bagheli speakers have been conflated with those of
Standard Hindi in censuses. == Geographical distribution ==