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Maithili is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in parts of India and Nepal. It is native to the Mithila region, which encompasses parts of the Indian states of Bihar and Jharkhand as well as Nepal's eastern Terai. It is one of the 22 officially recognised languages of India and the second most spoken language of Nepal. It was once described by linguist Sir George Abraham Grierson as the "sweetest language".
The Northern Indo-Aryan languages, also known as Pahāṛi languages, are a proposed group of Indo-Aryan languages spoken in the lower ranges of the Himalayas, from Nepal in the east, through the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab(not to be confused with the various other languages with that name) was coined by G. A. Grierson.
Mahakali was one of the fourteen zones located in the Far-Western Development Region of Nepal, covering an area of 6,205 km2 in the most western part of the country. It stretches along Nepal's far western border with India, marked by the Kali River or Mahakali River.
Limbu is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken by the Limbu people of Nepal and Northeastern India as well as expatriate communities in Bhutan. The Limbu refer to themselves as Yakthung and their language as Yakthungpan. Yakthungpan has four main dialects: Phedape, Chhathare, Tambarkhole and Panthare dialects.
Magar Dhut is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken mainly in Nepal, southern Bhutan, and in Darjeeling and Sikkim, India, by the Magar people. It is divided into two groups and further dialect divisions give distinct tribal identity. In Nepal 788,530 people speak the language.
Tamang is a term used to collectively refer to a dialect cluster spoken mainly in Nepal, Sikkim, West Bengal (Darjeeling) and North-Eastern India. It comprises Eastern Tamang, Northwestern Tamang, Southwestern Tamang, Eastern Gorkha Tamang, and Western Tamang. Lexical similarity between Eastern Tamang and other Tamang languages varies between 81% and 63%. For comparison, lexical similarity between Spanish and Portuguese, is estimated at 89%.
Yakkha is a language spoken in parts of Nepal, Darjeeling district and Sikkim. The Yakkha-speaking villages are located to the East of the Arun river, in the southern part of the Sankhuwasabha district and in the northern part of the Dhankuta district of Nepal. About 14,000 people still speak the language, out of 17,003 ethnic Yakkha in Nepal. Genealogically, Yakkha belongs to the Eastern Kiranti languages and is in one subgroup with several Limbu languages, e.g. Belhare, Athpare, Chintang and Chulung. Ethnically however, the Yakkha people perceive themselves as distinct from the other Kiranti groups such as Limbu.
Wambule is a Kiranti language language spoken by the Wambule Rai, one of the Rai groups belonging to the Kiranti (किरान्ती) ethnolinguistic family of eastern Nepal. Wambule is spoken by more than 5000 people living around the confluence of the Sunkosi (सुनकोसी) and Dudhkosi (दूधकोसी) rivers near Kui-Bhir Hill. The Wambule-speaking area comprises the southernmost part of Okhaldhunga district, the westernmost part of Khotang district, the northernmost part of Udayapur district, and the northeasternmost part of Sindhuli district.
Bahing is a language spoken by 14449 people of the Bahing ethnic group in Nepal. It belongs to the family of Kiranti languages, a subgroup of Sino-Tibetan.
The Bantawa Language, is a Kiranti language spoken in the eastern Himalayan hills of eastern Nepal by Kirati Bantawa ethnic groups. They use a syllabic alphabet system known as Kirat Rai script. Among the Khambu or Rai people of Eastern Nepal, Sikkim, Darjeeling and Kalimpong in India. Bantawa is the largest language spoken. According to the 2001 National Census, at least 1.63% of the Nepal's total population speaks Bantawa. About 370,000 speak Bantawa Language mostly in eastern hilly regions of Nepal (2001). Although Bantawa is among the more widely used variety of the Bantawa language, it falls in the below-100,000 category of endangered languages. It is experiencing language shift to Nepali, especially in the northern region.
Languages of Nepal, referred to as Nepalese languages in the country's constitution, are the languages having at least an ancient history or origin inside the sovereign territory of Nepal spoken by Nepalis. The 2011 national census lists 123 languages spoken as a mother tongue in Nepal. Most belong to the Indo-Aryan and Sino-Tibetan language families.
Bajjika (Western Maithili) is an Indo-Aryan language variety spoken in parts of Bihar, India and in Nepal. It is closely related to Maithili (of which it is often considered a dialect).
The Tharu or Tharuhat languages are any of the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by the Tharu people of the Terai region in Nepal, and neighboring regions of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in India.
Pahari, or Pahadi is an ambiguous term that has been used for a variety of languages, dialects and language groups, most of which are found in the lower Himalayas.
Jerung or Jero is a moribund Kiranti language spoken in Nepal. The native language consultants whom Opgenort (2005) consulted, preferred the term ‘Jero’ to designate the language. The term ‘Jerung’, by contrast, is a toponym used in the names of several villages within the language area as well as the name of a village in the Wambule-speaking area. The Jerung language is mutually intelligible with Wambule. Jerung is spoken by more than 2,000 people living in Okhalḍhuṅgā and Sindhulī districts of eastern Nepal. Gerd Hanßon (1991) claims that there are three to four dialects of Jerung: Madhavpur, Balkhu-Sisneri, and Ratnawati (Sindhuli). However, according to Opgenort's (2005) consultants, there are only two major dialects: a northern dialect, which is spoken in Okhaldhunga District (ओखलढुङ्गा), and a southern dialect, which is spoken in Sindhuli District (सिनधुली).
Mewahang (Meohang), or Newahang, is a Kiranti language spoken in Nepal. The eastern and western dialects are structurally distinct.
Thakali is a Sino-Tibetan language of Nepal spoken by the Thakali people, mainly in the Myagdi and Mustang Districts. Its dialects have limited mutual intelligibility.
Tilung is a moribund Kiranti language spoken in Nepal. According to Opgenort, Tilung occupies an independent position within the Kiranti language family, and can be placed roughly between the Western languages Thulung, Khaling and Dumi, on the one side, and the Southern Central Kiranti languages Kulung, Chamling and Bantawa, on the other. Even though Tilung is spoken directly to the south of the Wambule speaking area, Tilung and Wambule are not mutually intelligible. The Choskule and Dorungkecha "dialects" may be related languages.
Doteli, or Dotyali (डोटेली) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by about 800,000 people, most of whom live in Nepal. It is a dialect of Khas, which is an ancient form of the modern Nepali language, and is written in the Devanagari script. It has official status in Nepal as per Part 1, Section 6 of the Constitution of Nepal 2072 (2015). There are four main dialects of Doteli, namely Baitadeli, Bajhangi Nepali, Darchuli and Doteli. The mutual intelligibility between these dialects is high and all dialects of Doteli are able to share language-based materials.
Nepali is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Himalayas region of South Asia. It is the official, and most widely spoken, language of Nepal, where it also serves as a lingua franca. Nepali has official status in the Indian state of Sikkim and in the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration of West Bengal. It is spoken by about a quarter of Bhutan's population. Nepali also has a significant number of speakers in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Uttarakhand. In Myanmar it is spoken by the Burmese Gurkhas. The Nepali diaspora in the Middle East, Brunei, Australia and worldwide also use the language. Nepali is spoken by approximately 16 million native speakers and another 9 million as a second language.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 Dumi at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ↑ Driem, George van (2011-07-22). A Grammar of Dumi. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 9783110880915.
