Sunuwar
Kiranti-Kõits
सुनुवार, कोइँच, किराँती-कोइँच, मुखिया
'Kõica' in Jenticha script; 'Sunuwar' in Tikamuli and Devanagari script
Region	Nepal; India (Sikkim andWest Bengal)
Ethnicity	Sunuwar
Native speakers	37,898 (2011)[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Mahakiranti (?) Kiranti Western Northwestern Sunuwar
Dialects	Surel
Writing system	Devanagari Sunuwar (Sikkim, India) Tikamuli (2005)
Official status
Official language in	India Sikkim[2]
Language codes
ISO 639-3	suz
Glottolog	sunw1242
ELP	Sunwar

Sunuwar, orKoinch (कोइँच;kõich; other spellings are Koinch and Koincha), is aKiranti language of theSino-Tibetan language family spoken inNepal andIndia by theSunuwar people. It was first comprehensively attested by theHimalayan Languages Project. It is also known asKõits Lo (कोइँच लो ;kõica lo),Kiranti-Kõits (किराँती-कोइँच ;kirā̃tī-kõich), andMukhiya (मुखिया ;mukhiyā).^[3][4]

The Sunuwar language is one of the smaller members of theTibeto-Burman language family. About 40,000 speakers are residing in eastern Nepal.

The language is commonly known asKoic, for many ethnic Sunuwar speakers also refer to the language as “Sunuwar, Koinch^[5], Koinch orKoincha (कोइँच);Kõits Lo (कोइँच लो),Kiranti-Kõits (किराँती-कोइँच) orMukhiya (मुखिया).”

Moreover, most Sunwar speakers have the surname (सुनुवार),Sunuvār inLatin script.^[6]

The Sunuwar language is commonly spoken in a cluster of Sunuwar villages, located around the region of the core spoken language. These villages are scattered alongside the river banks ofLikhu Khola, in two bordering central-eastern districts of Nepal, distant from the main Nepalese road system:^[6] in theOkhaldhū۠ngā District (part ofKoshi Province), around the village of Vacul; and in theRāmechāp District (part ofBagmati Province), around the villages ofPahare and ofKũbhu Kãsthālī for a smaller group of Sunwar speakers. The majority of the Sunwar speakers live on the southern border area of this region, between the villages of Pahare and Vacul.

Located 1,800 meters above sea level, their fields aren’t all fallow from year round cultivation^[6] (Borchers, 2008). Therefore, many Sunwar households are farmers, own a small lot of land and livestock. Moreover, each village often visits their neighboring village markets to purchase inaccessible goods such as spices, sugar, tea, and salt. In the winter, they experience no snow but freezing temperatures. In warmer weather, they experience a lot of rainfall, in the summer, monsoon rainfall. Especially between June and August, it is when they experience the most rain, more so monsoon rainfall.

According to Borchers, there are other villages located outside of the core region. The Surel are claimed to be Sunwar speakers however there are no certainties that it is true.

Sunuwar speakers from Nepal andSikkim, northeasternIndia, use the Sunuwar alphabet (ISO 15924 script code:Sunu) for printed materials such as newspapers and literature. The alphabet, also known as Sunuwar alphabet, Sunuwar Lipi, Koĩts Lipi, was promoted in 1932 by Karna Bahadur Sunuwar (1926-1991), and got official recognition in Sikkim and Eastern Nepal where it is taught in schools. The Sunuwar script, is unrelated to any other scripts (even if some letter shapes have some resemblance to Latin and Limbu letter forms with similar phonetic value), and behaves like an alphabet with 35 base letters, written left-to-right, with syllabic features, extended with combining diacritics. The script also features its own set of decimal digits.

Unlike other Indic scripts derived from Brahmic, the Sunuwar alphabet includes no combining vowel signs: the script was initially a pure alphabet and the base consonants initially did not have any inherent vowel. But a second version of the script modified the orthographic rules to imply its presence, where the inherent vowel would be altered when appending any independent vowel letters, or suppressed by using a virama (or halant) sign in some consonant clusters or for consonants in final position of syllables. The independent letter form for the inherent vowel is now removed in most cases from the normal orthography in the middle of words, only used in isolation (i.e. no longer written when following a leading consonant, unless it is at end of words). A number of glyphic forms (conjuncts using consonants in half forms) were added to the script after this orthographic change for more easily writing consonant clusters, instead of writing multiple consonants with virama signs.^[3][7]

Although Sunwar has no traditional written language in Nepal, most literate speakers use theDevanagari abugida,^[6][5] also used for writingNepali.

Independent vowels and diphthongs

Consonants with inherent vowel

Combining diacritics

The sign्, known in Sunuwar assangmilu, represents avirama or halant; it is used to silent the inherentvowel after theconsonant.^[8]

The signँ, known in Sunuwar astaslathenk, corresponds to thecandrabindu inDevanagari; it is used to nasalize the vowel.^[8]

In 2005, another syllabic alphabet or abugida was developed for Sunuwar; it is known as Tikamuli.^[9]

Sunwarphonology is significantly influenced by the language ofNepali.

The Sunwar language has a mid-sized arrangement of thirty-twoconsonantalphonemes:

• Sound in parentheses only are heard in words borrowed from Nepali. Sounds in brackets are only heard as allophones.^[6]
• The implosive sound [ɓ] was heard phonemically until recently among dialects. It is now heard as a plosive [b] in the village of Saipu, and as an approximant [w] in the village of Kũbhu. It is only heard rarely in word-initial position among the speakers of Saipu.^[6]

According to Borchers,^[6] there are eleven vowel phonemes in Sunwar:

⟨a⟩ [a~ɑ], /ā / [aː], /e/ [e~ɛ], /i/ [i], /o/ [o], /u/ [u], / ū/ [uː~y], /ã/ [ã~ɑ̃], /ã̄/ [ãː], /ẽ/ [ẽ~ɛ̃], /ĩ/ [ĩ]

• Vowels with bar - Represents long vowels
• Vowels with tilde -  Represents short nasalized vowels
• Vowels with bar and tilde - Represents long and nasalized vowels

There are a total of eightdiphthongs in Sunuwar: /ai/ [aɪ], /aĩ/ [aɪ̃], /au/ [au], /eu/ [eu], /oi/ [oi], /oĩ/ [oĩ], /ui/ [ui], /uĩ/ [uĩ]

According to Borchers,^[6] a principled way to distinguish diphthongs from a sequence of twomonophthongs does not exist in the Sunwar language.

As exemplified by Borchers,^[6] this table consists of examples of contrasts betweendiphthongs:

Syllable Structure of Sunuwar: C(C)V(V)(C)(C)

According to Borchers,^[6] “allcase markers in the Sunuwar language aresuffixes.”

As exemplified by Borchers,^[6] this table consists of the noun case markers.

A dual marker can be associated with dual/pair or the cardinal number ‘two’.^[6]

Example of dual marker by Borchers:^[6]

In the Sunuwar language, bothnouns andpronouns can be marked as dual or plural.

In addition items in a group can be marked plural.^[6]

Examples of the plural marker used to point at items in a group by Borchers:^[6]

According to Borchers,^[6] the Sunuwar language does not have a zero morpheme, but it can still indicate the number amount of something through verbal agreement markers or numerals.

Example of the absent marker by Borchers:^[6]

According to Borchers,^[6] the possessivesuffix⟨-ke⟩ is attached to a human or animate agent to indicate a possessive relationship.

Examples of the possessive⟨-ke⟩ by Borchers:^[6]

According to Borchers,^[6] inanimate subjects are marked with the possessivesuffix⟨-ke⟩ to indicate what it is "made of".Example of possessive⟨-ke⟩ indicating what it is "made of" by Borchers:^[6]

Quantifiers in the Sunwar language are loaned from Nepali. Quantifiers are used for amounts or masses.^[6]As exemplified by Borchers,^[6] this table consists of quantifiers; including some that are loaned from Nepali.

Examples ofquantifiers that indicate amounts or masses by Borchers:^[6]

According to Borchers,^[6]adjectives can belong to the verbal noun form, with an attached⟨ʃo⟩. In the Sunwar language, someadjectives are borrowed fromNepali.

Borchers also notes thatadjectives can belong to the form/term color.^[6]As exemplified by Borchers, this table consists of the color form/terms.^[6]

The Sunwar language has a category foradjectives under the form ‘others’, that are notverbal nouns. In addition, some adjectives may be interchangeable as anadverb.^[6]As exemplified by Borchers, this table consists of the adjectives that are not verbal nouns ending in⟨-ʃo⟩ form/terms.^[6]

Examples of adjectives that are notverbal nouns ending in⟨-ʃo⟩ by Borchers:^[6]

As exemplified by Borchers, this table consists ofparticles in correlation to various relationships.^[6]

According to Borchers, the Sunwar language borrows particles from Nepali that indicate the relationship between clauses.^[6]Examples of postpositionalparticles by Borchers:^[6]

Example by Borchers:^[6]

Examples of order:Subject/Object/Verb by Borchers.^[6]

Seu+wa+la (Sewala)

Inlinguistic typology, asubject+object+verb (SOV) language is one in which thesubject,object, andverb of a sentence always or usually appear in that order. IfEnglish were SOV, "Sam oranges ate" would be an ordinary sentence, as opposed to the actualStandard English "Sam ate oranges". (A Grammar of Sunwar)^[10]

Sunwar people called "Khangsa" sign language with voice and direct action, for foreign people who don't understand a sunuwar language.^{[citation needed][4]}

^[11]

Sunwar language test ofWikipedia atWikimedia Incubator

• Sunwar language website

• Languages of Nepal
• Kiranti languages
• Languages of Sikkim
• Brahmic scripts
• Languages of Koshi Province
• Languages written in Devanagari

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from August 2019
• Articles containing Sunwar-language text
• ISO language articles citing sources other than Ethnologue
• Pages with plain IPA
• Pages with interlinear glosses using more than three unnamed parameters
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from August 2019