Chhattisgarh

 state, invisible, first-level administrative division

Chhattisgarh ( छत्तीसगढ़ ), a state in central India, formed when the sixteen Chhattisgarhi-speaking southeastern districts of Madhya Pradesh gained statehood on November 1, 2000. Raipur serves as its capital. It is the 10th largest state of India by area. Chhattisgarh takes its name from 36 (Chattis is thirty-six in Hindi and Garh is Fort) princely states in this region from very old times, though the listing of these 36 states has always remaied a point of dispute.

It borders Madhya Pradesh on the northwest, Maharashtra on the west, Andhra Pradesh on the south, Orissa on the east, Jharkhand on the northeast and Uttar Pradesh on the north.

The Chhattisgarhi language, part of the East-Central group of Indo-Aryan languages, is the predominant language in the region. It is often regarded by linguists to be a dialect of the western Hindi, which is the official language of the state. People in southern Chhattisgarh, Bastar, speak dialects of Dravidian languages. Other languages spoken in Chhattishgarh are Hindi, Oriya, Marathi and tribal languages. The officially recognized and patronized version of the dialect is spoken in the general area in the plains of Raipur and Bilaspur division that was under the direct British administration in the 19th and (the first four decades of)the 20th centuries. The dialect in the earstwhile princely-states-area has carried a flavour distinct from that that was spolken in the "Khalsa Chhattisgarh" as the British area was known as. The language in the northern Sarguja State area has the influence on it of dialects of Vindya Padesh, UP and Bihar. As against Chhattisgarhi, the language over there is proudly called "Sargujia" by the people of that region. Likewise, in areas in the Eastern part that came under Raigarh, Sarangarh and Phuljhar (Saraipali) States, the language has a distint influnce of Oriya on the language.