Varieties
In the Manang Languages Project, Hildebrandt, et al. list four varieties of Manang. *Manang * Nar-Phu * Gyasumdo *NyeshangteClassification
The classification system of the language often varies throughout the literature, and multiple terms are often used to describe the same language family. Although the existence of the Sino-Tibetan family is agreed upon, it is here that the breakdown can vary. In this, Sino-Tibetan (orPhonology
Consonants
There are 29 consonants in Manange, which are summarized in the table below. The contrastive status of the consonants in parentheses is questionable, as they are rare idiosyncratic in distribution. As the table shows, voicing is not contrastive in Manange, although in word-medial position, consonants may be voiced intervocalically. The retroflex stop in Manange occurs only in word-initial position, with one or two exceptions. The retroflex fricative /ʂ/ is subject to some inter-speaker variation, realized either as or as by different speakers. The retroflex is a commonly observed place of articulation in language of South Asia, but by having both a retroflex stop and fricative series, Manange represents a smaller sub-set of Tibeto-Burman languages, resembling languages like Purik, Ladakhi, Zanskari, Spiti, and a few non-Tibeto-Burman (Indo-Aryan) languages.Vowels
There are six oral vowels and five nasalized vowels, which contrast with the oral vowels. Length is emergent and not phonemic.Tone
There are four distinct tones in the TGTM sub-family, each of which differs by the overall pitch, as well as how breathy the sound is. Using a rating of 1 to 5, which correlates to low to high pitch respectively, the beginning and ending sound of everySyllables
The structure of syllables is represented as (C1)(C2)V(C3), with C1-3 corresponding to three consonants, and the V representing the vowel.Isao Honda. 2002The Lexicon
The Manange lexicon is composed largely of words that are clearly of Tibeto-Burman/Sino-Tibetan origin, as found in the glossaries published by Hildebrandt (2004), Hoshi and Nagano. However, due to more recent contact with Indo-European languages (primarily Nepali), some areas of the Manange lexicon have either been replaced with Indic (or English) forms, or else there is observed lexical switching between Manange and Indic forms in everyday Manange discourse. Hildebrandt reports that of a Loanword Typology Meaning database (found in Haspelamth and Tadmoor) of 1,127 word-forms, 133 show varying degrees of evidence for loanword status. This amounts to just under 12% of the lexicon, based on that database. However, Hildebrandt notes that loanwords are not used equally by all segments of the Manange-speaking population, and that there is a noticeable split between the vocabulary found in the daily use of Mananges who were born and raised in Nepali-speaking areas such as Kathmandu versus those born and raised in traditional Manange-speaking villages and towns in Manang District. Hildebrandt also notes that within-family borrowing is also likely, but is harder to determine because of extreme lexical similarity across Tibetic languages of the region. Loanwords in Manange are primarily nouns, including semantic categories of clothing, food, and concepts that encode the modern world. Some loan blends (blended native and loaned materials) include ''4tʰa 1suŋkuɾ'' 'pig', ''(2naka) 4pʰale'' 'rooster/cock', and ''kʰapʌɾ 4tʃʰe'' 'newspaper'. Loaned verbs in Manange incorporate a "dummy affix" ''ti'', and then carry the full range of aspect and modality morphology. Manange has two classes of adjectives: verb-like adjectives and true adjectives (a smaller class), which do not host verbal morphology, but rather are morpho-syntactically distinct. There are very few observed loaned adjectives in Manange, but those that are observed are part of the true adjectives class, such as ''3tsok''Nouns
Nouns are the largest and most productive word class in the language. Nouns may take a definite enclitic ko, an indefinite enclitic ''ri'', a plural enclitic ''tse'', and may host case markers. : The plural enclitic may occur with both animate and inanimate nouns. However, when numerals are overtly present, plural marking is optional. Nouns do not identify gender, or whether something is inanimate or alive. Rather, there are completely separate words to identify men from women, and girls from boys. The most common way of making nouns plural is by adding ''tse'' to the end. As with English, there are some exceptions, and the entire form of the word may change rather than having an ending attached. The structure of compound nouns varies. One interesting compound structural type is where the leftmost word gives additional meaning to the word on the right. For example, the word ''phémwi'' meaning 'coin', breaks down into ''phe'' meaning 'metal' and ''mwi'' meaning 'money'. The money is being described as metallic, making it known that the currency is in coin form rather than a paper bill. Like other related languages, Manange displays a sizable set of post-nominal locator nouns, that may or may not be followed by the locational enclitic ''ri~re''. These nouns encode a wide range of topological relations, and the linguistic frame of reference system encoded in these forms is primarily relative (i.e. oriented on the speaker's own viewing perspective). Some of these locator nouns are listed here: :Proper Nouns
The set of proper nouns in Manange includes people's names, place names, names of deities, and names of the week or months, for example. These are not marked for plural, they do not take determiners, but they can be marked for case.Pronouns
Pronouns include personal pronouns and interrogative pronouns. The first person plural pronoun shows an inclusive/exclusive distinction, while the third person pronouns do not show animacy or gender distinctions. Interrogative pronouns are used to form questions. Some of these are a single lexical item, and others are compounds or collocated word-forms. :Status
The status of this language is currently rated as a 6b according to the Ethnologue rating system, classifying it as threatened. While the language is able to be spoken by older generations, and continuing to be passed onto newer ones, the rate at which it is being taught is sharply declining. The Nepalese Revolution of 1990 allowed for more freedom of languages, so identifying with a native ancestral language was of great importance to many. In reality however, fewer people actually spoke the languages they claimed to, leading to exaggerated speaker numbers being listed. Despite the relatively small number of speakers, allowing the language to die out entirely will be detrimental to the world as a whole. Even the least spoken languages hold stories, traditions, and potentially useful knowledge of the world, which will be lost if the language is gone. The endangered status of Manang means that researchers should attempt to collect as much detailed documentation and audio recordings now, before the language is potentially lost.References
Bibliography
* Carol Genetti (2008). "Syntactic Aspects of Nominalization in Five Tibeto-Burman Languages of the Himalayan Area". ''Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area'', 31: 97-143. *Kristine A. Hildebrandt (2005). "A Phonetic Analysis of Manange Segmental and Suprasegmental Properties". ''Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area'', 28:1-36. *Michael Muhlich (1997). "Credit Relations in Nepal: A Preliminary Report on the Khatsara and Manange Kidu Systems". ''Nepalese Studies'', 24: 201–215. *Michael Noonan (2007). "Nominalizers in Tamangic Languages". Presented at the International Workshop on Nominalizers and Copulas in East Asian and Neighboring Languages, Hong Kong, China, January. *Stan Mumford (1989). Himalayan Dialogue: Tibetan Lamas and Gurung Shamans In Nepal. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press. *Nareshwar Jang Gurung. 1976. "An Introduction to the Socio-Economic Structure of Manang District", Kailash. 4: 295–308. * *Kristine A. Hildebrandt, D.N. Dhakal, Oliver Bond, Matt Vallejo and Andrea Fyffe. (2015). “A sociolinguistic survey of the languages of Manang, Nepal: Co-existence and endangerment.”External links