Tamang language

Tamang
तामाङ, རྟ་དམག་ / རྟ་མང་/
Native to	Nepal India Bhutan
Ethnicity	Tamang/Moormi
Native speakers	1.4 million in Nepal (2021 census) [1] 20,154 in India (2011 census) [2]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tamangic Gurung–Tamang Tamang
Writing system	Tamyig script, Devanagari, Tibetan
Official status
Official language in	Nepal Bagmati Province & Madhesh Province (additional official) India Sikkim [3]
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Variously: taj  – Eastern Tamang tdg  – Western Tamang tge  – Eastern Gorkha Tamang
Glottolog	nucl1729
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Selected ethnic groups of Nepal; Bhotia, Sherpa, Thakali, Gurung, Kirant, Rai, Limbu, Nepal Bhasa , Pahari, Tamang (note that Kulu Rodu (Kulung) territories are mistakenly marked as Tamu/Gurung territories in this map)

Tamangic language is spoken mainly in Tamangsaling Land 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 (which is regarded as the most prominent) and other Tamang languages varies between 81% and 63%. For comparison, the lexical similarity between Spanish and Portuguese is estimated at 89%. ^[4]

Dialects

Ethnologue divides Tamang into the following varieties due to mutual unintelligibility.

• Eastern Tamang: 759,000 in Nepal (2000 WCD). Population total all countries: 773,000. Sub-dialects are as follows.
  • Outer-Eastern Tamang (Sailung Tamang)
  • Central-Eastern Tamang (Temal Tamang)
  • Southwestern Tamang (Kath-Bhotiya, Lama Bhote, Murmi, Rongba, Sain, Tamang Gyoi, Tamang Gyot, Tamang Lengmo, Tamang Tam)
• Western Tamang: 323,000 (2000 WCD). Sub-dialects are as follows.
  • Trisuli (Nuwakot)
  • Rasuwa
  • Northwestern dialect of Western Tamang (Dhading) — was having separate ISO code tmk, merged with tdg in 2023. ^[5] Population 55,000 (1991 census). Spoken in the central mountainous strip of Nuwakot District, Bagmati Province.
  • Southwestern dialect of Western Tamang
• Eastern Gorkha Tamang: 4,000 (2000 WCD). Sub-dialects are as follows.
  • Kasigaon
  • Kerounja

The Tamang language is the most widely spoken Sino-Tibetan language in Nepal.

Geographical distribution

Ethnologue gives the following location information for the varieties of Tamang.

Eastern Tamang

• Bagmati Province: Bhaktapur District, Chitwan District, Dolkha District, Kathmandu District, Kavrepalanchok District, Lalitpur District, Makwanpur District, eastern Nuwakot District, Ramechhap District, Sindhuli District and western Sindhupalchowk District
• Province No. 1: Okhaldhunga District, western Khotang District, and Udayapur District

Southwestern Tamang

• Bagmati Province: Chitwan District, southern Dhading District, western and northwestern Kathmandu District area and northwestern Makwanpur District
• Province No. 2: Bara District, Parsa District and Rautahat District

Western Tamang

• Bagmati Province: western Nuwakot District, Rasuwa District, and Dhading District
• central mountainous strip of Nuwakot District, Bagmati Province (Northwestern Tamang)
• northeastern Sindhupalchok District, Bagmati Province: Bhote Namlan, and Bhote Chaur, on Trishuli river west bank toward Budhi Gandaki river
• northwestern Makwanpur District, Bagmati Province: Phakel, Chakhel, Khulekhani, Markhu, Tistung, and Palung
• northern Kathmandu District, Bagmati Province: Jhor, Thoka, and Gagal Phedi

Eastern Tamang

• south and east of Jagat, northern Gorkha District, Gandaki Province

Grammar

Some grammatical features of the Tamang languages include:

• A canonical word order of SOV
• Use of postpositions;
• The genitives follow nouns;
• question word medial;
• It is an ergative–absolutive language;
• CV, CVC, CCV, V, CCVC;

Phonetically Tamang languages are tonal.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar		Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n				ŋ
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	ts	ʈ		k
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	tsʰ	ʈʰ		kʰ
	palatalized	pʲ	tʲ	tsʲ	ʈʲ		kʲ
	labialized	pʷ	tʷ	tsʷ	ʈʷ		kʷ
Fricative			s					h
Rhotic			r
Approximant		w	l			j

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i iː	u uː
Mid	e eː	o oː
Open	a aː

Nasality only marginally occurs, and is typically transcribed with a [ã] mark.

Tones

Four tones occur as high falling [â], mid-high level [á], mid-low level [à], very low [ȁ]. ^[6]

Writing system

Tamang language is written in prakriti.

References

1. Eastern Tamang at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
   Western Tamang at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
   Eastern Gorkha Tamang at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
2. "Statement 1: Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues - 2011". www.censusindia.gov.in. Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. Retrieved 7 July 2018.
3. "The Sikkim Official Languages Act" (PDF). sikkim.gov.in. Government of Sikkim. Retrieved 27 June 2025.
4. Ethnologue report for Spanish
5. "Change Request Documentation: 2022-001". ISO 639-3. SIL International. Retrieved 27 January 2023.
6. Mazaudon (2003)

Bibliography

• Perumalsamy, P. 2009 “ Tamang Language ” in Linguistic Survey

of India: Sikkim volume I, New Delhi: Office of Registrar General India, pp: 388-455 https://censusindia.gov.in/census.website/data/LSI

• Hwang, Hyunkyung; Lee, Seunghun J.; P. Gerber; S. Grollmann (2019). "Laryngeal contrast and tone in Tamang: an analysis based on a new set of Tamang data". Journal of the Phonetic Society of Japan. 23 (1): 41–50. doi:10.24467/onseikenkyu.23.0_41.

External links

• Counting in Tamang
• ELAR archive of Tamang