Thakali is a

Sino-Tibetan Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Chinese languages. ...

language of

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 ...

spoken by the

Thakali people The Thakali are an ethnolinguistic group originating from the Thak Khola region of Mustang District in the Dhaulagiri zone of Nepal. Thak-sat-se is the traditional area of the Thakali community, which lies over Mustang District, the valley of ...

, mainly in the

Myagdi Myagdi District ( ne, म्याग्दी जिल्ला ), a part of Gandaki Province, is one of the seventy-seven districts of Nepal. The district, with Beni as its district headquarters, covers an area of , had a population of 114,44 ...

and Mustang Districts. Its dialects have limited

mutual intelligibility 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 ...

. Seke (

Tangbe Tangbe (Taye in Tibetan) is a small village in the village development committee of Chhusang in the Mustang District of Nepal. It is located on a promontory with a good view over the Kali Gandaki Gorge on the Upper Mustang trekking route, bet ...

, Tetang, Chuksang) is sometimes considered a separate language. Other names and dialect names are Barhagaule, Marpha, Panchgaunle, Puntan Thakali, Syang, Tamhang Thakali, Thaksaatsaye, Thaksatsae, Thaksya, Tukuche, Yhulkasom.

Geographical distribution

Thakali is spoken in the middle of the

Kali Gandaki River The Gandaki River, also known as the Narayani and the Gandak, is one of the major rivers in Nepal and a left bank tributary of the Ganges in India. Its total catchment area amounts to , most of it in Nepal. In the Nepal Himalayas, it is notabl ...

valley and in the upper part of the

Kali Gandaki Gorge The Kali Gandaki Gorge or Andha Galchi is the Canyon, gorge of the Kali Gandaki (or Gandaki River) in the Himalayas in Nepal. By some sources, it may be one of the deepest gorges in the world. The upper part of the gorge is also called Thak Khol ...

(also known as Thak Khola), in Mustang District,

Dhawalagiri Zone Dhaulagiri ( ne, धौलागिरी अञ्चल ) was one of the fourteen zones which Nepal was divided into for administrative purposes, prior to the September 10, 2015 adoption of a new Constitution, which divided the nation instead ...

. The Thakali area is bounded by

Annapurna Annapurna (; ne, अन्नपूर्ण) is a mountain situated in the Annapurna mountain range of Gandaki Province, north-central Nepal. It is the tenth highest mountain in the world at above sea level and is well known for the difficu ...

Himal on one side and Dhawalagiri Himal on the other, with Tatopani village in the south and Jomsom in the north (''

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensiv ...

''). The Tukuche dialect is spoken from Tukuche to Thaksatsae, in 13 villages: Tukuche, Khanti, Kobang, Larjung, Dampu, Naurikot, Bhurjungkot, Nakung, Tithi, Kunjo, Taglung, Lete, Ghansa. Many live outside the area. Seke is spoken by Gurung of Chuksang, Tsaile, Tangbe, Tetang, and Gyakar villages of Mustang District,

. There are only 700 native speakers of this language, 100 of whom live in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Reportedly, half of the New York City speakers live in the same apartment building.

Dialects

'' lists the following dialects of Thakali. *Tukuche (Tamhang Thakali, Thaksaatsaye, Thaksatsae) *Marpha (Puntan Thakali) *Syang (Yhulkasom) Seke has the following dialects. *Tangbe *Tetang *Chuksang

References

External links

* * Tamangic languages Languages of Nepal Languages written in Tibetan script Languages written in Devanagari {{st-lang-stub