Tamang
तामाङ, རྟ་དམག་ / རྟ་མང་/
Native to	Nepal India Bhutan
Ethnicity	Tamang/Moormi
Native speakers	1.4 million in Nepal (2021 census)[1] 20,154 in India (2011 census)[2]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tamangic Gurung–Tamang Tamang
Writing system	Tamyig script,Devanagari,Tibetan
Official status
Official language in	Nepal Bagmati Province &Madhesh Province (additional official) India Sikkim[3]
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Variously: taj – Eastern Tamang tdg – Western Tamang tge – Eastern Gorkha Tamang
Glottolog	nucl1729
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TheTamang language is spoken mainly in Tamangsaling Land inNepal,Sikkim,West Bengal (Darjeeling) andNorth-Eastern India. It comprisesEastern Tamang, Northwestern Tamang, Southwestern Tamang, Eastern Gorkha Tamang, andWestern Tamang.Lexical similarity between Eastern Tamang (which is regarded as the most prominent) and other Tamang languages varies between 81% and 63%. For comparison, the lexical similarity betweenSpanish andPortuguese is estimated at 89%.^[4]

Ethnologue divides Tamang into the following varieties due to mutual unintelligibility.

• Eastern Tamang: 759,000 in Nepal (2000 WCD). Population total all countries: 773,000. Sub-dialects are as follows.
  • Outer-Eastern Tamang (Sailung Tamang)
  • Central-Eastern Tamang (Temal Tamang)
  • Southwestern Tamang (Kath-Bhotiya, Lama Bhote, Murmi, Rongba, Sain, Tamang Gyoi, Tamang Gyot, Tamang Lengmo, Tamang Tam)
• Western Tamang: 323,000 (2000 WCD). Sub-dialects are as follows.
  • Trisuli (Nuwakot)
  • Rasuwa
  • Northwestern dialect of Western Tamang (Dhading) — was having separate ISO code tmk, merged with tdg in 2023.^[5] Population 55,000 (1991 census). Spoken in the central mountainous strip ofNuwakot District,Bagmati Province.
  • Southwestern dialect of Western Tamang
• Eastern Gorkha Tamang: 4,000 (2000 WCD). Sub-dialects are as follows.
  • Kasigaon
  • Kerounja

The Tamang language is the most widely spokenSino-Tibetan language in Nepal.

Ethnologue gives the following location information for the varieties of Tamang.

Eastern Tamang

• Bagmati Province:Bhaktapur District,Chitwan District,Dolkha District,Kathmandu District,Kavrepalanchok District,Lalitpur District,Makwanpur District, easternNuwakot District,Ramechhap District,Sindhuli District and westernSindhupalchowk District
• Province No. 1:Okhaldhunga District, westernKhotang District, andUdayapur District

Southwestern Tamang

• Bagmati Province:Chitwan District, southernDhading District, western and northwesternKathmandu District area and northwesternMakwanpur District
• Province No. 2:Bara District,Parsa District andRautahat District

Western Tamang

• Bagmati Province: westernNuwakot District,Rasuwa District, andDhading District
• central mountainous strip ofNuwakot District,Bagmati Province (Northwestern Tamang)
• northeasternSindhupalchok District,Bagmati Province: Bhote Namlan, and Bhote Chaur, on Trishuli river west bank toward Budhi Gandaki river
• northwesternMakwanpur District,Bagmati Province: Phakel, Chakhel, Khulekhani, Markhu, Tistung, and Palung
• northernKathmandu District,Bagmati Province: Jhor, Thoka, and Gagal Phedi

Eastern Tamang

• south and east ofJagat, northernGorkha District,Gandaki Province

Some grammatical features of the Tamang languages include:

• A canonical word order ofSOV
• Use ofpostpositions;
• Thegenitives precedenouns;
• question wordmedial;
• It is anergative–absolutive language;
• CV, CVC, CCV, V, CCVC;

Phonetically Tamang languages aretonal.

Nasality only marginally occurs, and is typically transcribed with a[ã] mark.

Four tones occur as high falling[â], mid-high level[á], mid-low level[à], very low[ȁ].^[6]

Tamang language is written inprakriti.

• Perumalsamy, P. 2009 “ Tamang Language ” in Linguistic Survey

of India: Sikkim volume I, New Delhi: Office of Registrar General India, pp: 388-455https://censusindia.gov.in/census.website/data/LSI

• Hwang, Hyunkyung; Lee, Seunghun J.; P. Gerber; S. Grollmann (2019). "Laryngeal contrast and tone in Tamang: an analysis based on a new set of Tamang data".Journal of the Phonetic Society of Japan.23 (1):41–50.doi:10.24467/onseikenkyu.23.0_41.

Eastern Tamang test ofWikipedia atWikimedia Incubator

Western Tamang test ofWikipedia atWikimedia Incubator

• Counting in Tamang
• ELAR archive ofTamang
• [1]

• Languages of Nepal
• Tamangic languages
• Languages of Sikkim
• Languages of Bhutan
• Subject–object–verb languages
• Languages of Bagmati Province
• Languages of Koshi Province
• Languages of Madhesh Province
• Languages of Gandaki Province
• Languages written in Devanagari

• Language articles citing Ethnologue 27
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from August 2019
• ISO language articles citing sources other than Ethnologue
• Pages with plain IPA