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The Rai are an ethnolinguistic group belonging to the Kirat family and primarily Tibeto-Burman linguistic ethnicity. They mainly reside in the eastern parts of Nepal, the Indian states of Sikkim, West Bengal and in south western Bhutan.
Puma is a Kiranti language spoken by about 4,310 people in Sagarmatha Zone, Nepal. The actual population may be somewhat higher. The same term ‘Puma’ refers both to the people and the language they speak [Sharma 2014].
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 ancestors named Paiwa, Dungmowa, Rukhusalu, Waripsawa, Timriwa, Dhimriwa, Nayango, Dhayango, Khaliwa/Khaluwa, Rendukpa/Rendu, Rungbu/Rumdali/Diburcha/Thamrocha) is a language spoken by 11,658 people of the Bahing ethnic group in Nepal. It belongs to the family of Kiranti languages, a subgroup of Sino-Tibetan.
Belhare, also known as Athpariya II, is a Kirati language spoken by some 2,000 people living on Belhara Hill, at the southern foothills of the Himalayas situated in the Dhankuta District, Koshi Province in eastern Nepal. All speakers of Belhare are bilingual in Nepali, which results in frequent code mixing and a large amount of Nepali loan-words. Nevertheless, the grammar of Belhare has maintained its distinct Kiranti characteristics.
Yamphu language is a Kirati language spoken by the Kirat Yamphu people, a Kirati people of the Himalayas of Nepal. Tomyang (Chongka) is a recently discovered dialect spoken by only 20 people. Both it and Yamphe are distinct. Southern Yamphu is also considered to be Southern Kirat Lorung language. These varieties are all closely related.
Chintang is an eastern Kirati languages language spoken by 5,000 to 6,000 people in Chhintang VDC and Ahale VDC in Dhankuta District, Province No. 1, Nepal. The language has two dialects, Mulgaun and Sambhugaon. Most speakers of Chintang are also fluent speakers of the Indo-European Nepali language, which is the lingua franca of Nepal and the sole language of instruction in school, and the Sino-Tibetan Bantawa language, which is closely related to Chintang. The UNESCO World Atlas of Languages classifies the language as definitely endangered.
Khaling is a Kiranti language spoken in Solukhumbu district, Nepal and Sikkim, Darjeeling, and Kalimpong in India. It is one of the few Kiranti languages with tonal contrasts, which are of secondary origin.
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.
Kulung is one of the Rai languages; it is spoken by an estimated 33,000 people. Van Driem (2001) includes Chukwa as a dialect.
The Kiranti languages are a major family of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in Nepal and India by the Kirati people.
The Kulung Rai also call Kulunge Rai/Rodu are one of the major subgroup of Rai people and indigenous communities of Nepal, as well as parts of northeastern Sikkim and Darjeeling district of India, having their own Kulung language, culture, history and tradition.
Thangmi, also called Thāmī, Thangmi Kham, Thangmi Wakhe, and Thani, is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in central-eastern Nepal and northeastern India by the Thami people. The Thami refer to their language as Thangmi Kham or Thangmi Wakhe while the rest of Nepal refers to it as Thāmī. The majority of these speakers, however, live in Nepal in their traditional homeland of Dolakhā District. In India, the Thami population is concentrated mostly in Darjeeling. The Thangmi language is written using the Devanagari script. Thangmi has been extensively documented by Mark Turin.
Koyee [कोयी] is a Sino-Tibetan language belonging to the Kiranti languages spoken in the Khotang district of Nepal. Like other Kiranti languages, it displays a fairly complex system of person-marking and stem alternations. No full description of this language exists, but Lahaussois provides some grammatical information, and stories have been archived at the Lacito Archive.
Lohorung are a major subgroup of Rai people and ethnic native people of eastern Nepal. The Lohorung homeland is Sankhuwasabha district in the northern part of the Arun watershed, a tributary to the Koshi. At present they are found in eight other districts of Nepal: Ilam, Jhapa, Sunsari, Morang, Dhankuta, Terhathum, Lalitpur and Kathmandu. They also live in northeastern states of India: Darjeeling, Kalimpong & Kumai in West Bengal, Sikkim and Assam, and even Bhutan, Australia, United Kingdom and United States.
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).
Dungmali, or Dungmali-Bantawa, is a Kiranti language spoken in Nepal. It is largely cognate with Bantawa language, but differs grammatically and phonologically.
Nachhiring is a Kirati language spoken mostly in the eastern hills of Nepal. It not merges into Kulung in the north and Sampang in the south. A follower of the Nachiring sub-caste
Koshi Province is the easternmost of the seven provinces established by the Constitution of Nepal, which was adopted on 20 September 2015. The province covers an area of 25,905 km2, about 17.5% of the country's total area. With the industrial city of Biratnagar as its capital, the province covers other major eastern towns including Birtamod, Birat Chowk, Damak, Dharan, Itahari, Triyuga and Mechinagar and includes several mountains including the Everest, Kangchenjunga, and Ama Dablam. Koshi River, the largest river of the nation, circumvents the province's western boundary. Adhering to the first-past-the-post voting system issued by the Constituency Delimitation Commission, Nepal, the province hosts 28 parliamentary seats and 56 provincial seats.
References
- ↑ Eastern at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Western at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Sino-Tibetan branches | |||||
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| Western Himalayas (Himachal, Uttarakhand, Nepal, Sikkim) |
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| Eastern Himalayas (Tibet, Bhutan, Arunachal) | |||||
| Myanmar and Indo-Burmese border |
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| East and Southeast Asia |
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| Dubious (possible isolates) (Arunachal) |
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| Proposed groupings | |||||
| Proto-languages | |||||
Italics indicates single languages that are also considered to be separate branches. | |||||
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