In Marathi, "aali" specifically denotes:
A lane or narrow street, especially within towns and villages.
It is often used in toponyms to indicate small streets or clusters of houses, often inhabited by specific communities (for example, "Bhandari Aali" would historically signify a lane or cluster where Bhandari community lived).
The word also appears in poetic or colloquial use to mean "row" or "line".
Etymology and Usage
"Aali" is borrowed from older Indo-European linguistic roots and has been used for centuries in Marathi, Konkani, and related Western Indian languages.
Its reference to a street predates British colonial influence and is not derived from English but coincidentally resembles "alley".
Place names like "Vadali" (from "vad" meaning banyan tree + "aali") show how it denotes not only streets but also settlement clusters, often identified by a dominant tree or a community, such as "Bhandari Aali" for the Bhandari folks.
Historical Place Name Patterns
In Mumbai and Thane, "aali" in local street names reflects the habit of marking urban space by its social, occupational, or regional groups, such as "Bhandari Aali" (the lane of the Bhandaris), "Koli Aali" (fisherfolk lane), etc., a tradition that continues today.
English words like "alley" for similar spaces drew from their own European contexts but in Maharashtra, the usage of "aali" has always been uniquely indigenous
