Magar language
Sino-Tibetan language of Nepal, Bhutan and India
| Magar | |
|---|---|
| मगर ढुट (magar ḍhuṭ) | |
| Native to | Nepal, India |
| Region | Nepal; significant communities in Bhutan; Sikkim; Assam and Darjeeling district of India |
| Ethnicity | 2.0 million Magar (2021 census of Nepal)[1] |
Native speakers | 810,000 (2001–2006)[1] |
Language family | Sino-Tibetan
|
Writing system | Akkha script (official), Devanagari, Latin script |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  India |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:mgp – Eastern Magarmrd – Western Magar |
| Glottolog | maga1261 |
| This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. | |
Magar Dhut (Nepali: मगर ढुट, Nepali: [ɖʱuʈ]) 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 (Eastern and Western) and further dialect divisions give distinct tribal identity.[3] In Nepal 810,000 people speak the language.
While the government of Nepal developed Magar language curricula, as provisioned by the constitution, the teaching materials have never successfully reached Magar schools, where most school instruction is in the Nepali language.[4] It is not unusual for groups with their own language to feel that the "mother-tongue" is an essential part of identity.
The Dhut Magar language is sometimes lumped with the Magar Kham language spoken further west in Bheri, Dhaulagiri, and Rapti zones. Although the two languages share many common words, they have major structural differences and are not mutually intelligible.[5]
Geographical distribution
Western Magar
Western Magar (dialects: Palpa and Syangja) is spoken in the following districts of Nepal (Ethnologue).
- Lumbini Province: Palpa District
- Gandaki Province: Syangja District, and a small part of the Tanahun District (west of the Bagmati River)
- Small border area in Gandaki Province: Parbat District
- Scattered throughout Karnali Province: especially in Surkhet District, Jajarkot District, and Dailekh District
Eastern Magar
Eastern Magar (dialects: Gorkha, Nawalparasi, and Tanahu) is spoken in the following districts of Nepal (Ethnologue).
- Zone 1: central mountains of Nepal east of the Bagmati River
- Gandaki Province: Tanahun District and southern Gorkha District
- Lumbini Province: Palpa District Kapilvastu District and Nawalparasi District
- Small border area in Bagmati Province: Dhading District
- Zone 2: eastern Nepal
- Sindhuli District, Bagmati Province
- Okhaldhunga District, Koshi Province
- Udayapur District, Koshi Province
- Scattered communities in central Koshi Province, Dhankuta District, Bhojpur and southern Koshi Province, Ilam District, Jhapa District
- Some areas in India: Sikkim, Darjeeling, Assam, Manipur
- Southern Bhutan
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | sibilant | |||||||
| Stop | voiceless | p | t̪* | t | t͡s | k | (ʔ) | |
| aspirated | pʰ | t̪ʰ* | tʰ | t͡sʰ | kʰ | |||
| voiced | b | d̪* | d | d͡z | ɡ | |||
| murmured | bʱ | d̪ʱ* | dʱ | d͡zʱ | ɡʱ | |||
| Fricative | voiceless | s | h | |||||
| voiced | ɦ | |||||||
| Nasal | voiced | m | n | ŋ | ||||
| murmured | mʱ | nʱ | ŋʱ | |||||
| Lateral | voiced | l | ||||||
| murmured | lʱ | |||||||
| Approximant | voiced | w | ɹ | j | ||||
| murmured | wʱ | ɹʱ | jʱ | |||||
*-only occur in the Tanahu dialect.
/ʔ/ is only a marginal phoneme.[6]
| Phoneme | Allophones |
|---|---|
| /p/ | [p̚] |
| /pʰ/ | [ɸ] |
| /t/ | [tʲ], [t̚], [ʈ] |
| /tʰ/ | [θ] |
| /d/ | [dʲ], [ɖ], [ɽ] |
| /k/ | [kʲ], [k̚] |
| /kʰ/ | [x] |
| /ɡ/ | [ɡʲ] |
| /t͡s/ | [t͡ʃ] |
| /t͡sʰ/ | [t͡ʃʰ] |
| /dz/ | [dʒ] |
| /d͡zʱ/ | [d͡ʒʱ] |
| /s/ | [ʃ] |
| /h/ | [ɦ] |
| /n/ | [nʲ] |
| /ŋ/ | [ŋʲ] |
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| ʌ | |||
| Open | a |
| Diphthongs |
|---|
| /ia/ |
| /iu/ |
| /ei/ |
| /eu/ |
| /aɪ/ |
| /au/ |
| /oi/ |
| Phoneme | Allophones |
|---|---|
| /i/ | [i] [ɪ] [i̤] [i̤ː] [ĩ] |
| /e/ | [e] [ɛ] [ẽ] [e̤] [e̤ː] |
| /a/ | [ä] [æ] [ä̃] [äˑ] [ä̤] [ä̤ː] |
| /u/ | [u] [ʊ] [u̟] [ṳ] [ṳː] [ũ] |
| /ʌ/ | [ʌ] [ə] [ə̃] [ʌ̤] [ʌ̃] |
| /o/ | [o] [o̟] [õ] [oˑ] [o̤] [o̤ː] |
References
- ^ a b Eastern Magar at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
Western Magar at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) - ^ "50th Report of the Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities in India" (PDF). 16 July 2014. p. 109. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 January 2018. Retrieved 6 November 2016.
- ^ "The Eastern Magar of Nepal". Archived from the original on 18 March 2007. Retrieved 12 September 2007.
- ^ B. K. Rana. "Mother Tongue Education for Social Inclusion and Conflict Resolution". Appeals, News and Views from Endangered Communities. Foundation for Endangered Languages. Archived from the original on 16 February 2003. Retrieved 12 September 2007.
- ^ Kansakar, Tej R. (July 1993). "The Tibeto-Burman Languages of Nepal - A General Survey" (PDF). Contributions to Nepalese Studies. 20 (2): 165–173. Retrieved 7 December 2020.
- ^ a b Grunow-Hårsta, Karen A. (2008). A descriptive grammar of two Magar dialects of Nepal: Tanahu and Syangja Magar. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. pp. 32–67.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Further reading
- Nishi 西, Yoshio 義郎 (1992e). "マガル語" [Magar, (LSI) Māgarī, Magar, Mangar]. In 亀井 Kamei, 孝 Takashi; 河野 Kōno, 六郎 Rokurō; 千野 Chino, 栄一 Eichi (eds.). 三省堂言語学大辞典 The Sanseido Encyclopaedia of Linguistics (in Japanese). Vol. 4. Tokyo: 三省堂 Sanseido Press. pp. 28a–40b. ISBN 4385152128.
- Shepherd, Gary, and Barbara Shepherd. A Vocabulary of the Magar Language. Comparative vocabularies of languages of Nepal. Kirtipur: Summer Institute of Linguistics [and] Institute of Nepal Studies, Tribhuvan University, 1972.
- Shepherd, Gary, and Barbara Shepherd. Magar Phonemic Summary. Tibeto-Burman phonemic summaries, 8. Kirtipur: Summer Institute of Linguistics, Tribhuvan University, 1971.
External links
Magar language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator
- detailed language map, western Nepal. Eastern Magar is language #33; Western Magar is #113.
- ELAR archive of Magar language documentation materials
- The Magar language - Linguistics research - Folktales in Magar (Western) - Nepal
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Sino-Tibetan branches
(Himachal, Uttarakhand, Nepal, Sikkim)
| Greater Magaric |
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(Tibet, Bhutan, Arunachal)
| "Naga" | |
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| Sal |
| Burmo-Qiangic |
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(Arunachal)
| Greater Siangic |
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Italics indicates single languages that are also considered to be separate branches.
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