Mandeali
maṇḍiyālī
𑚢𑚘𑚶𑚖𑚮𑚣𑚭𑚥𑚯, मण्डियाली
Mandeali written in Mandi-Suket Takri Script[1]
Native to	India
Region	Himachal Pradesh
Ethnicity	Mandyali People
Native speakers	623,000 (2011 Census)[2]
Language family	Indo-European Indo-Iranian Indo-Aryan Northern Western Pahari Mandeali
Writing system	Devanagari Mandiali Takri
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mjl – Mandeali
Glottolog	mand1409  Mandeali

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Mandeali (Takri:𑚢𑚘𑚶𑚖𑚮𑚣𑚭𑚥𑚯) is aWestern Pahari language, spoken in northernIndia, predominantly in theMandi district ofHimachal Pradesh by the people of the Mandi Valley and particularly in the major city ofMandi. Other spellings for the name are Mandiyali and Mandiali. UNESCO reports it is one of thehighly endangered languages ofIndia.^[3] Speakers of the dialect have decreased by 21% from 1961 to 2001.

The language is distantly related to Kullvi. The Chambealic varieties are often considered separate languages, but at least some are 90–95% intelligible with Mandeali proper. Its sub-dialect are different than mandeali^[4]

Preliminary survey suggests speakers have functional intelligibility of Kangri. People in southeast Mandi district may have more difficulty understanding Kangri. Standard Mandeali is spoken throughout the broad valley running north and south from Jogindernagar to Sundarnagar. Mandeali Pahari is spoken north around Barot, east of Uhl River. Intelligible with difficulty to standard Mandeali. May be intermediate variety between Mandeali and Kullui. The dialect is very close to the Kullvi spoken in neighbouring lug valley region of Kullu district and are culturally, linguistically closer to Kullu. Southeast district contains transition to Mahasui. The dialect spoken is also sometimes referred as Suketi or dialect of Outer Seraj Area as dialect is an intermediate variety of Kullvi and Upper Mahasuvi of neighbouring Shimla and Kullu district. In the west, Sarkaghat is also a bit different from standard Mandeali, perhaps forming a transition towards Hamirpur and Bilaspur areas. Lexical similarity: 89% with Palampuri dialect of Kangri, 83% with Chambeali.^[5]

• [ŋ] is heard when a nasal occurs before velar stops.
• [f] can be heard as an allophone of pʰ.
• Aspirated versions of m, n,ɳ, l,ɭ, r, w can be considered as separate phonemes.

The vowels of Mandeali language are shown below.

Mandeali distinguishes twogenders (Masculine and feminine), twonumbers (Singular and plural) and fourcases ofdirect,oblique,vocative, andergative. Oblique also serves as locative and ergative also performs the function of instrumental. Nouns may be further divided intoextended andunextendeddeclensional subtypes, with the former characteristically consisting of masculines ending in unaccented-ā and feminines in-ī.

The following tables displays the suffix paradigms.

The following table of noundeclensions shows those suffix paradigms in action. Examples includeghōṛā "stallion", mhaṭhī "girl",ghəːr "house",kāndh "wall".

The pronouns of Mandeali for different persons and numbers are as follows:

Using the nounघर (/gʱəːr/, "home") as an example, the cases in Mandeali are:

The native script of the language is a variety ofTakri called Mandeali Takri.

For a list of words relating to Mandeali language, see theMandeali language category of words inWiktionary, the free dictionary.

Traditionally, the month formats is based onHindu calendar.

Days are generally indic.

•Twār is a loan word from Urdu (Itwār)

The language is commonly calledPahari orHimachali, just like many other neighbouring languages. The language has no official status. According to theUnited Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the language is of definitely endangered category, i.e. many Mandeali children are not learning Mandeali as their mother tongue anymore.^[6]

The demand for the inclusion of 'Pahari (Himachali)' under the Eight Schedule of the Constitution, which is supposed to represent multiple Pahari languages of Himachal Pradesh, had been made in the year 2010 by the state's Vidhan Sabha.^[7] There has been no positive progress on this matter since then even when small organisations strive to save the language and demand it.^[8] Due to political interest, the language is currently recorded as a dialect of Hindi,^[9] even when having a poor mutual intelligibility with it and being close to other Pahari languages such asKahluri andKangri.

• Northern Indo-Aryan languages
• Languages of Himachal Pradesh
• Mandi, Himachal Pradesh
• Endangered languages of India
• Languages written in Takri
• Languages written in Devanagari
• Languages listed as Hindi dialects in latest census

• Language articles citing Ethnologue 24
• Pages containing links to subscription-only content
• Language articles citing Ethnologue 18
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use British English from January 2014
• All Wikipedia articles written in British English
• Use dmy dates from January 2014
• Languages which need ISO 639-3 comment
• Articles containing Mandeali-language text