Rambani is an Indo-Aryan language variety spoken in

Ramban district Ramban district is a district in the Indian union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, located in the lap of the Pir Panjal range. It was carved out as a separate district from erstwhile Doda district in 2007. It is located in the Jammu division. Th ...

, which is located in the mountainous parts of the

Jammu region The Jammu division (; ) is a revenue and administrative division within Jammu and Kashmir, a union territory of India. It consists of the districts of Jammu, Doda, Kathua, Ramban, Reasi, Kishtwar, Poonch, Rajouri, Udhampur and Samba. Most of ...

of Jammu and Kashmir, India. In P.K. Kaul's view, Rambani belongs to the

Western Pahari The Western Pahari languages are a group of Northern Indo-Aryan languages that are spoken in the state of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir and parts of Uttarakhand and Punjab Languages The following lists the languages cla ...

group, and has been influenced by languages like

Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to: * People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir * Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley * Kashmiri language, their language People with the name * Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...

Poguli Pogali or Pugali, more recently known, together with neighboring languages, as Panchali or Khah, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in parts of the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir, India. Its area encompasses the Pogal and Paristan valleys, and c ...

and

Dogri Dogri ( Name Dogra Akkhar: ; Devanagari: डोगरी; Nastaliq: ; ) is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken in the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir, India, with smaller groups of speakers in adjoining regions of western Himachal Prad ...

. Rambani is likely

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 in ...

. It is spoken by relatively few people, but the exact number of speakers is unknown. In the 1981 census, there were only 120 people who identified their language as Rambani, but this number is not reliable given that in the area there were sizeable census returns for " Pahari", a much broader term that could conceivably have been chosen by some speakers of Rambani. Grammar sketches of Rambani are found in T. Grahame Bailey's 1908 ''The Languages of the Northern Himalayas'' and in

G.A. Grierson Sir George Abraham Grierson (7 January 1851 – 9 March 1941) was an Irish administrator and linguist in British India. He worked in the Indian Civil Service but an interest in philology and linguistics led him to pursue studies in the languag ...

's ''

Linguistic Survey of India The Linguistic Survey of India (LSI) is a comprehensive survey of the languages of British India, describing 364 languages and dialects. The Survey was first proposed by George Abraham Grierson, a member of the Indian Civil Service and a linguist ...

''.

References

Bibliography

*{{cite book, last = Kaul, first = Pritam Krishen, year = 2006, title = Pahāṛi and Other Tribal Dialects of Jammu, volume = 1, place = Delhi, publisher = Eastern Book Linkers, isbn = 8178541017 Indo-Aryan languages Languages of Jammu and Kashmir