Gurung language
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Gurung language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator |
| Gurung | |
|---|---|
| Tamu Kyi | |
| Native to | Nepal, India, Bhutan |
| Ethnicity | Gurung people |
| Native speakers | 430,000 (2007)[1] |
| Language family |
Sino-Tibetan
|
| Writing system | Tibetan script, Devanagari script |
| Official status | |
| Official language in |  Sikkim |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either: ggn – Eastern Gurung gvr – Western Gurung |
Gurung (also, Tamu Kyi, Devanagari:तमु क्यी) is spoken by the Gurung people in two dialects with limited mutual intelligibility. Total number of all Gurung speakers in Nepal is 227,918 (1991 census). Perhaps, a distinction should be made between Gurung as an ethnic group and the number of people who actually speak the language.
Nepali, Nepal's official language, is an Indo-European language, whereas Gurung is a Tibeto-Burman language. Gurung are recognized as an official nationality by the Government of Nepal.
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Classification [edit]
According to ethnologue, Gurung is two languages, Eastern [ggn] and Western [gvr].
Grammar [edit]
Some miscellaneous grammatical features of the Gurung languages are;
- SOV;
- postpositions;
- genitives;
- adjectives relatives before noun heads;
- numerals after noun heads;
- rising intonation in bipolar questions;
- 1 prefix on negative verbs;
- maximum number of suffixes 3;
- case of noun phrase shown by preposition;
- no subject or object referencing in verbs;
- split ergative system according to tense;
- causatives;
- benefactives;
- CV, CCV, CCCV;
Phonetically, Gurung languages are tonal.
Writing system [edit]
While there is no written form, Gurung languages can use Devanāgarī script to limited effect in approximating their phonetics.
See also [edit]
References [edit]
- ^ Eastern Gurung at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009)
Western Gurung at Ethnologue (16th ed., 2009)
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