| Nar Phu | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Nepal |
| Region | Manang district |
Native speakers | 600 (2011)[1] |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | npa |
| Glottolog | narp1239 |
| ELP | Nar Phu |
Nar Phu, or ’Narpa, is a Sino-Tibetan variety spoken in the two villages of Nar and Phu, in the Valley of the Nar Khola in the Manang district of Nepal. It forms a dialect continuum with Manang and may be intelligible with it; however, the Nar and Phu share a secret language to confound Gyasumdo and Manang who would otherwise understand them.[1]
| Front | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u |
| Close-mid | e | o |
| Open-mid | ɛ | |
| Low | a | ɑ |
The language lacks all middle vowels and the open mid vowel /ɔ/.
| Bilabial | Dental | Retroflex | Alveolo-palatal | Velar | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | unaspirated | p | t | ʈ | k | |
| aspirated | pʰ | tʰ | ʈʰ | kʰ | ||
| Affricate | unaspirated | ts | tɕ | |||
| aspirated | tsʰ | tɕʰ | ||||
| Fricative | s | ɕ | ||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Lateral | voiced | l | ||||
| voiceless | l̥ | |||||
| Rhotic | voiced | r | ||||
| voiceless | r̥ | |||||
| Approximant | w | j | ɰ | |||
Comparatively to the English language, the /g/ is not in the language.
Nar Phu distinguishes four tones: high falling, high level, low rising murmured, and mid/low falling murmured.
Nar-Phu has a different vowel system than other Tamangic languages, due to the amount of front vowels. Nar-Phu is a four-tone language. Tones 1 and 4 are falling; tones 3 and 4 are murmured. Tone 2 is distinguished by its clear, high quality. Nar-Phu has no formal gendered language system, but some suffixes are used to describe animals, even castrated male animals. Honorific Noun phrases are used when there is not a noun in place for said words. [1]
[1]