Gurung | |
---|---|
गुरुङ, ཏམུ་ཀི | |
Tamu Kyi, Manangi, Mustangi and Seke | |
Native to | Nepal, India, Bhutan |
Ethnicity | Gurung people |
Native speakers | 325,622 (2011 census)[1] |
Sino-Tibetan
| |
Khema (Devanagari) and Tibetan | |
Official status | |
Official language in | ![]() |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | gvr |
Glottolog | guru1261 |
ELP |
Gurung language differs from place to place. Gurung of Nepal not only speak Tamu Kyi but also speaks Manangi, Mustangi and Seke. The total number of all Gurung speakers in Nepal was 227,918 (1991 census). Nepal's official language Nepali, is an Indo-European language, whereas Gurung is a Sino-Tibetan language. Gurung is one of the major languages of Nepal, and is also spoken in India, Bhutan, and by diaspora communities in other countries such as Singapore and Hong Kong.
Gurung is spoken in the following districts of Nepal (Ethnologue):
At higher levels, Gurung is a member of the Tibeto-Burman (or Trans-Himalayan) family. Based on lexical cognates established by Robert Shafer and updated by George van Driem, Shafer constructed the Bodish sub-grouping into three sub-divisions: Western, Central and Southern (a.k.a. “old Bodish”, including Tibetan), and Eastern (containing “archaic” languages like Mönpa) and mainstream languages.[3][4] Noonan referred to this sub-grouping within Bodish as Manange/Nyeshangte and Nar-Phu and Gurungic (containing Gurung, Thakali and Chantyal).[5] [6] He noted that Chantyal is structurally deviant due to more extensive contact-induced language change from Nepali. Sten Konow classified Himalayan T-B languages into pronominalized and non-prominalized, where Gurung is located.[7] This classification is similar to Voeglin & Voeglin (1965), but within a "Gyarung-Mishmi" sub-family within Sino-Tibetan.[8] Shafer classified Gurung within the Bodic division, sub-grouping that into Bodish and West Central Himalayish. Within the Bodish "Section", he located "Bodish" languages (including the Tibetan varieties) and also the "Gurung Branch", including Gurung, Tamang (Murmi), and Thakali (Thaksya).
Some miscellaneous grammatical features of the Gurung languages are:
Phonetically, Gurung languages are tonal.