Magar language
| 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 cited 2001–2006)[1] |
| Akkha script (official), Devanagari, Latin script | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | File:Flag of India.svg India |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:mgp – Eastern Magarmrd – Western Magar |
| Glottolog | maga1261 |
| ELP | Lua error in Module:Endangered_Languages_Project at line 21: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). |
Magar Dhut (Nepali: मगर ढुट, Nepali: [ɖʱuʈ]) is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken mainly in Nepal, southern Bhutan, and in Darjeeling, Assam 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
[edit | edit source]Western Magar
[edit | edit source]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
[edit | edit source]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
- Southern Bhutan
India
[edit | edit source]- Sikkim (Magar language is one of the official languages)
- Darjeeling district and Kalimpong district of West Bengal
- Golaghat district, Sonitpur district and Tinsukia district districts of Assam
- Some parts of Manipur
Phonology
[edit | edit source]Consonants
[edit | edit source]| 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
[edit | edit source]| 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
[edit | edit source]- ^ a b Eastern Magar at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
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Further reading
[edit | edit source]- Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- 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
[edit | edit source]
- detailed language map, western Nepal. Eastern Magar is language #33; Western Magar is #113.
- ELAR archive of Magar language documentation materials Archived 1 June 2016 at the Wayback Machine
- The Magar language - Linguistics research - Folktales in Magar (Western) - Nepal
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