Bhojpuri region in the context of "History of Bihar"

Bhojpuri (IPA: /ˌboʊdʒˈpʊəri/; Devanagari: भोजपुरी, Kaithi: 𑂦𑂷𑂔𑂣𑂳𑂩𑂲, (IPA: [bʰoːdʒpʊɾiː])) is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Bhojpur-Purvanchal region of India and the Terai region of Nepal. It is chiefly spoken in eastern Uttar Pradesh, western Bihar, and northwestern Jharkhand in India, as well as western Madhesh, eastern Lumbini. According to the 2011 Census of India, it is spoken by approximately 50.5 million people.

It is also a minority language in Fiji, Mauritius, Suriname and historically primarily in the Natal province of South Africa. Fiji Hindi, an official language of Fiji, is a dialect of Bhojpuri spoken by the Indo-Fijians. Caribbean Hindustani is spoken by the Indo-Caribbean people in Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. In Mauritius, it is recognised by the government and taught in university as well.

Indo-Caribbean or Indian-Caribbean people are people from the Caribbean who trace their ancestry to the Indian subcontinent. They are descendants of the Jahaji indentured laborers from British India, who were brought by the British, Dutch, and French during the colonial era from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century.

Indo-Caribbean people largely trace their ancestry back to the Bhojpur and Awadh regions of the Hindi Belt and the Bengal region in North India, in the present-day states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Bengal and Jharkhand, with a significant minority coming from the Madras Presidency in South India, especially present-day Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Other notable regions of origin include Western Uttar Pradesh, Mithila, Magadh, Chota Nagpur, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Pashtunistan, Punjab, Sindh, Kutch, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Kashmir. Most Indians in the French West Indies are of South Indian origin and Indians in Barbados are mostly of Bengali and Gujarati origin.

The Bhojpuri people, also known as Bhojpuriya-sawb (Devanagari: भोजपुरिया सब; Kaithi: 𑂦𑂷𑂔𑂣𑂳𑂩𑂲𑂨𑂰 𑂮𑂥; Romanized: bhojapuriyā sab) are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group from the Indian subcontinent who speak the Bhojpuri language and inhabit the Bhojpur-Purvanchal region. This area is now divided between the western part of the Indian state of Bihar, the eastern part of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, western part of the Indian state of Jharkhand, along with some neighbouring districts in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh as well as the Madhesh province and Lumbini province of Nepal. A significant population of the Bihari diaspora of Bhojpuris can be found in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname, other parts of the Caribbean, Fiji, South Africa (Natal), Seychelles, Mauritius, United States, Canada, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

Indo-Fijians (Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी के हिंदुस्तानी / فجی کے ہندوستانی) are Fijians of South Asian descent whose ancestors were indentured labourers. Indo-Fijians trace their ancestry to various regions of the Indian subcontinent.

Although Indo-Fijians constituted a majority of Fiji's population from 1956 through to the late 1980s, discrimination triggered immigration, resulted in them numbering 313,798 (37.6%) (2007 census) out of a total of 827,900 people living in Fiji as of 2007. Although they hailed from various regions in the subcontinent, just about half of Indo-Fijians trace their origins to the Awadh and Bhojpur regions of the Hindi Belt in northern India. Indo-Fijians speak Fiji Hindi in Fiji also known as 'Fiji Baat' which is based on the Awadhi dialect with influence from Bhojpuri. It is a koiné language with its own grammatical features, distinct to the Modern Standard Hindi and Modern Standard Urdu spoken in South Asia. The major home districts of Fiji's North Indian labourers were Basti, Gonda, Lucknow, Kanpur, Faizabad, Ballia, Ghazipur, Gorakhpur, Sultanpur, Siwan, Shahabad, Saran, and Azamgarh, in the present-day Awadh region of Uttar Pradesh and the present-day Bhojpur region of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand. Others (in a smaller quantity) originated in West Bengal, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and the Telugu regions. A small contingent of indentured labourers came from Afghanistan and Nepal. Many of the Muslim Indo-Fijians also came from Sindh, West Punjab and various other parts of South Asia. Fiji's British colonial rulers brought South Asian people to the Colony of Fiji as indentured labourers between 1879 and 1916 to work on Fiji's sugar-cane plantations, with a small minority were also used in Rice farming.

Caribbean Hindustani (Devanagari: कैरेबियाई हिंदुस्तानी; Kaithi: 𑂍𑂶𑂩𑂵𑂥𑂱𑂨𑂰𑂆⸱𑂯𑂱𑂁𑂠𑂳𑂮𑂹𑂞𑂰𑂢𑂲; Perso-Arabic: کَیریبیائی ہندوستانی) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Indo-Caribbean people and the Indo-Caribbean diaspora. It is a koiné language mainly based on the Bhojpuri and Awadhi languages. These were the most-spoken languages by the Indians who came as immigrants to the Caribbean from India as indentured laborers. It is closely related to Fiji Hindi and the Bhojpuri-Hindustani spoken in Mauritius and South Africa.

Because a majority of people came from the Bhojpur region in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand, and the Awadh region in Uttar Pradesh, Caribbean Hindustani is most influenced by Bhojpuri, Awadhi and other Eastern Hindi-Bihari dialects. Hindustani (Standard Hindi-Standard Urdu) has also influenced the language due to the arrival of Bollywood films, music, and other media from India. It also has a minor influence from Tamil and other South Asian languages. The language has also borrowed many words from Dutch and English in Suriname and Guyana, and English and French in Trinidad and Tobago. Many words unique to Caribbean Hindustani have been created to cater for the new environment that Indo-Caribbean people now live in. After the introduction of Standard Hindustani to the Caribbean, Caribbean Hindustani was seen by many Indo-Caribbean people as a broken version of Hindi, however due to later academic research it was seen as deriving from Bhojpuri, Awadhi, and other dialects and was in fact not a broken language, but its own unique language mainly deriving from the Bhojpuri and Awadhi dialects, and not the Khariboli dialect like Standard Hindi and Urdu did, thus the difference.