TheMahakiranti orMaha-Kiranti ('Greater Kiranti') languages are a proposed intermediate level of classification of theSino-Tibetan languages, consisting of theKiranti languages and neighbouring languages thought to be closely related to them. Researchers disagree on which languages belong in Mahakiranti, or even whether Mahakiranti is a valid group. The group was originally proposed byGeorge van Driem, who retracted his proposal in 2004 after a field study inBhutan.

van Driem (2001) posits that the Mahakiranti languages besides Kiranti proper areNewar,Baram, andThangmi. Baram and Thangmi are clearly related, but it is not yet clear if the similarities they share with Newar demonstrate a 'Para-Kiranti' family, as van Driem suggests, or if they are borrowings. He seesLepcha,Lhokpu, and theMagaric languages (in the narrow sense, whether or not Chepangic proves to be Magar) as the Bodic languages closest to Mahakiranti.

van Driem's conception of Mahakiranti

Matisoff's Mahakiranti includes the Newar and the Magaric languages along with Kiranti. He groups Mahakiranti with theTibeto-Kanauri languages (in which he includes Lepcha) asHimalayish.

Bradley (1997) adds Magar and Chepang to van Driem's Mahakiranti and calls the resultHimalayan. This, along with his "Bodish" (equivalent to Tibeto-Kanauri), constitutes his Bodic family.

Ethnologue (15th ed.) posits Magaric, Chepang, andNewar alongside Kiranti; Mahakiranti is in turn posited to be related to Tibeto-Kanauri in aHimalayish branch, largely equivalent to other scholars' Bodic.

Benedict (1972) included Newar and Chepangic, but not Magaric. He mistakenly classifiedVayu as Chepangic and thus named the familyBahing–Vayu.

After a field visit to Bhutan, van Driem, the original proponent of this hypothesis, collected data on theGongduk language which made him realize morphological traits common between Kiranti and Newar are not unique to either Kiranti or Newar but a shared retention of a far older trait. He retracted his proposal in 2004.^[1]

• George van Driem (2001).Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region. Brill.
• Mark Turing, Newar-Thangmi lexical correspondence, Journal of Asian and African Studies, No. 68, 2004.

• Mahakiranti languages

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