| Gurung | |
|---|---|
| तमु भाषा (Tamu Bhāṣā) | |
| तमु क्यी (Tamu Kyi) | |
 The word "Gurung" (Tamu Kyi) written in Devanagari script | |
| Native to | Nepal,India,Bhutan |
| Ethnicity | 540,000Gurung (2021 census)[1] |
Native speakers | 380,000 (2021 census)[1] |
| Khema,Devanagari andTibetan | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  India |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | gvr |
| Glottolog | guru1261 |
Gurung (Devanagari:गुरुङ), also known asTamu Kyi (तमु क्यी,tamu kyī;Tibetan:རྟམུ་སྐད་) orTamu Bhāṣā (तमु भाषा,tamu bhāṣā), is aSino-Tibetan language spoken by theGurung people of Nepal. The total number of all Gurung speakers inNepal was 227,918 in 1991 and 325,622 in 2011.
The official language of Nepal,Nepali, is anIndo-European language, whereas Gurung is aSino-Tibetan language. Gurung is one of the major languages of Nepal, and is also spoken in India, Bhutan, and by diaspora communities in places such asSingapore andHong Kong.
Gurung is spoken in the following districts of Nepal and India (Ethnologue):
At higher levels, Gurung is a member of theTibeto-Burman (or Trans-Himalayan) family. Robert Shafer classified Gurung within theBodic division, sub-grouping that intoBodish andWest Central Himalayish. Within the Bodish "Section", he located "Bodish" languages (including theTibetan varieties) and also the "Gurung Branch", including Gurung,Tamang (Murmi), andThakali (Thaksya). Based on lexical cognates established by Shafer and updated byGeorge van Driem, Shafer constructed the Bodish sub-grouping into three sub-divisions: (1) Western, (2) Central and Southern (a.k.a. “old Bodish”, including Tibetan), and (3) Eastern (containing “archaic” languages likeMönpa) and mainstream languages.[3][4] Noonan referred to the Western sub-grouping within Bodish asManange/Nyeshangte andNar-Phu and Gurungic (containing Gurung, Thakali andChantyal).[5][6] He noted that Chantyal is structurally deviant due to more extensive contact-induced language change from Nepali. Sten Konow classified Himalayan T-B languages into pronominalized and non-prominalized, where Gurung is located.[7] This classification is similar to Voeglin & Voeglin (1965), but within a "Gyarung-Mishmi" sub-family within Sino-Tibetan.[8]
Phonetically, Gurung languages aretonal.
Some miscellaneous grammatical features of the Gurung languages are:
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Low | a |
For indigenous languages of Nepal, including Gurung, the rise of pluralism and ethnic consciousness has resulted in movements to develop and deploy community orthographies, but it has also resulted in variation and disagreements.[11]
As Noonan (2005)[12] reports, in Gurung, writing primarily has been done through the medium of another language, and so community orthographies tend to be based on pre-existing models of languages of wider communication. According to Glover (2004),[13] attempts at developing an orthography in Gurung go back to 1976, with work to compile the first dictionary of the language.[14] Glover describes the different scripts that have been under consideration by the community, each with their own potential benefits and challenges. Four scripts have been proposed: a system based on theTibetan script,Devanagari, aKhemaa lipi script (also known asTamu Khema Phri orKhema Phri), which is a unique alphasyllabary adaptation of Tibetan and Devanagari,[15] and aRomanized script. Glover reported that a plan was in place in 2002 for a forthcoming dictionary of Gurung which included both an (adapted) Devanagari script and also a Roman script, benefitting both literate Gurungs in Nepal and diaspora Gurungs (28-29).
Examples of Gurung language publications that employ orthographies include three books published by Tamu.[16][17][18] These use a modified Devanagari orthography, which include subscript dots fornasalized vowels and other special symbols forconsonant clusters and tonal andphonation distinctions that are found in Gurung, but not in Nepali. Also included is a 2000 Gurung-Nepali-English dictionary produced by the Tamu Bauddha Sewa Samiti Nepal (Gurung Culture Organization),[19] which also uses a modified Devanagari, and which also includes numerals (e.g., मी1 /mi/ 'eye' vs. मी2 /mi/ 'name') to indicate tone category for individual words. A 2020 Gurung-English-Nepali dictionary, based on the Sikkim variety of Gurung also makes use of a modified Devanagari script, but does not indicate tone.[20]
{{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link) CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help)[permanent dead link]{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal= (help)Sino-Tibetan branches | |||||
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| WesternHimalayas (Himachal, Uttarakhand,Nepal,Sikkim) |
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| EasternHimalayas (Tibet,Bhutan,Arunachal) | |||||
| Myanmar and Indo- Burmese border |
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| East andSoutheast Asia |
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| Dubious (possible isolates,Arunachal) |
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| Proto-languages | |||||
Italics indicates single languages that are also considered to be separate branches. | |||||
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