Pahari is an endangered
Tibeto-Burman language
The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non-Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people speak ...
spoken by about 3,500 people in central
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
.
Pahari is closely related to
Newar
Newar (; new, नेवार, endonym: Newa; new, नेवा, Pracalit script:) or Nepami, are the historical inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley and its surrounding areas in Nepal and the creators of its historic heritage and civilisatio ...
, and has until recently been treated in the linguistic literature as a dialect of it. Pahari shares 55–65% of its basic vocabulary with Newar, which suggests the two are not
mutually intelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
, and their speakers consider them to be separate languages.
The language is
endangered
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inva ...
as it is no longer being passed on to the next generation. The ethnic population number (as of 2011), but only a quarter of them are native speakers of the language.
[; .] Almost all Paharis speak
Nepali, while some are also fluent in the ethnic languages of their neighbours, like
Tamang
The Tamang (; Devanagari: तामाङ; ''tāmāṅ'') are an Tibeto-Burmese ethnic group of Nepal. In Nepal Tamang/Moormi people constitute 5.6% of the Nepalese population at over 1.3 million in 2001, increasing to 1,539,830 as of the 2011 c ...
or Newar. Pahari speakers are most numerous in
Lalitpur district, but there are also communities in nearby regions:
Sindhupalchok
Sindhupalchowk District ( ne, सिन्धुपाल्चोक जिल्ला ) is a part of Bagmati Province and one of the seventy-seven districts of Nepal, with an area of . The district's headquarters is in Chautara. In 2006, 336, ...
,
Makwanpur
Makwanpur District( ne, मकवानपुर जिल्ला; , a part of Bagmati Province, earlier a part of Narayani Zone, is one of the seventy-seven districts of Nepal. The district, with Hetauda as its district headquarter, as well as ...
,
Ramechhap
Ramechhap Municipality is a municipality in Ramechhap District in Bagmati Province of Nepal. It was established on 2 December 2014 by merging the former village development committees Old-Ramechhap, Okhreni and Sukajor. At the time of the 2011 ...
,
Rautahat
Rautahat is a village development committee in Saptari District in the Sagarmatha Zone of south-eastern Nepal. At the time of the 1991 Nepal census it had a population of 2252 people living in 468 individual households.
Jung Bahadur Rana
...
,
Sindhuli
Sindhuli District ( ne, :ne:सिन्धुली जिल्ला, सिन्धुली जिल्ला), a part of the Bagmati Province, is one of the seventy-seven districts of Nepal, a landlocked country of South Asia. The district ...
and
Kavre
Kavrepalanchok District ( ne, काभ्रेपलाञ्चोक जिल्ला; ) is one of the 77 districts of Nepal. The district, with Dhulikhel as its district headquarters, covers an area of . It is a part of Bagmati Provinc ...
. There are at least two dialects – of Lalitpur and Sindhupalchok – and they are not mutually intelligible.
The term ''Pahari'' (पहरी ''paharī'', variously romanised as ''Pahari'', ''Pahri'', ''Pahi'', ''Padhi'', and ''Phri'') is an
exonym
An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...
, although the speakers themselves use it. The Paharis' own terms for the language are ''Pihi'' in Lalitpur District and ''Pahara'' in Sindhupalchok. The term ''Nagarkoti'' has also been in use since the 19th century by speakers in Lalitpur district. The word ''Pahari'' is ambiguous: it is also sometimes used in rural areas to refer to Nepali, and it is the common name for
several other languages of South Asia.
References
Sources
*
*
description of the variety of the hamlet of Kodku, Badikhel VDC, Lalitpur district*{{cite report, last = Smith, first = Brianne J., year= 2022, title = A Sociolinguistic Study of Pahari: A Language of Nepal, series = Journal of Language Survey Reports. 2022-003, url = https://www.sil.org/resources/publications/entry/92594
Mahakiranti languages
Languages of Nepal