Memoni (, ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by Kathiawari Memons from the Kathiawar region of Gujarat, India. The Kathiawari Memons are a sub-group of the Memon people, a Muslim community in India and Pakistan. After the partition of India in 1947, Memons of the Kathiawar region migrated to neighboring states, cities and towns within India, but a large number of Memons settled in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Malawi, Kenya, as well as the United States and Canada. History The origin of the Memoni language is still debated among the historians of the region. It has several different dialects and accents due to the influence of other languages in areas of settlement. Memoni is a mixture of Sindhi, Kutchi and Gujarati languages. Haji Mohammed Husein Abdel Kareem Nagani spent 40 years inventing a Memoni alphabet in order to bring the Memoni language up to the standard of other major languages in the world. The Memon community is generally divided into three major subgroups, Kathiawari Memons, who originated in the Kathiawar region (who speak Memoni), Sindhi Memons (who speak Sindhi) and Kutchi Memons (who speak Kutchi). The Memon people from Kathiawar were largely Muslims who followed Hanafi Islam. Sindhi and Kutchi are spoken by both Muslims and non-Muslims, in contrast to the Memoni language, which is exclusively spoken by Memons of Kathiawar origin, who are almost entirely Muslims. In stress, intonation, and everyday speech, Memoni is very similar to Sindhi or Kutchi, but it borrows extensively from Gujarati, Hindustani and Arabic. Like most languages of the Indian subcontinent, the sentence structure of Memoni generally follows subject–object–verb order. Especially in Pakistan, Memoni language has adopted many Urdu words and phrases. Even between different villages of Kathiawar, variations have arisen. Nouns Most nouns have a grammatical gender, either masculine or feminine, and often have singular and plural forms. Vast majorities of nouns have been borrowed from Hindustani (umbrella term for Urdu and Hindi), and English vocabulary is extensively used. Example Articles and determiner There is no equivalent for the definite article the, and the indefinite article a is further inflected as masculine or feminine with its object. Pronouns The second person nominative pronoun 'you' is expressed two different ways: the polite form (cognate with in standard Sindhi), generally used for respected strangers, the elderly, parents and older relatives, and the familiar form , used among close friends and when addressing subordinates. The