Raji–Raute is a branch of the

Sino-Tibetan language family Sino-Tibetan (also referred to as Trans-Himalayan) is a language family, family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European languages, Indo-European in number of native speakers. Around 1.4 billion people speak a Sino-Tibetan languag ...

that includes the three closely related languages, namely Raji, Raute, and Rawat. They are spoken by small

hunter-gatherer A hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living in a community, or according to an ancestrally derived Lifestyle, lifestyle, in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local naturally occurring sources, esp ...

communities in the

Terai The Terai or Tarai is a lowland region in parts of southern Nepal and northern India that lies to the south of the outer foothills of the Himalayas, the Sivalik Hills and north of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. This lowland belt is characterised by ...

region of

Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

and in neighboring

Uttarakhand Uttarakhand (, ), also known as Uttaranchal ( ; List of renamed places in India, the official name until 2007), is a States and union territories of India, state in North India, northern India. The state is bordered by Himachal Pradesh to the n ...

, India. Like some other Tibeto-Burman languages, Raji–Raute languages have

voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...

sonorant In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels a ...

Classification

Raute and Rawat are closely related; Raji is more distantly related.Fortier, Jana
Creating an Orthography for the Raute and Rawat
Fortier classifies the Raji–Raute languages as follows. Note that language varieties that classify within the Rawat subgroup are known by various names; Raute of Dadeldhura/Darchula is taxonomically a Rawat language, and is not to be confused with Raute proper. ;Raji–Raute *Raute–Rawat ** Raute (nomadic groups) ** Rawat ***Rajwar (spoken in Khirdwari) ***Rawat ****Rawat (also known as ''Ban Raji'') ****Raute of Dadeldhura/Darchula * Raji **Naukule **Bandale, Purbia

Schorer (2016)

Schorer (2016:293)Schorer, Nicolas. 2016. ''The Dura Language: Grammar and Phylogeny''. Leiden: Brill. classifies Raji–Raute as part of his newly proposed Greater Magaric group. ; Greater Magaric *Dura **'' Dura'' **'' Tandrange'' * Magaric: ''

Kham Kham (; ) is one of the three traditional Tibet, Tibetan regions, the others being Domey also known as Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The official name of this Tibetan region/province is Dotoe (). The original residents of ...

'', '' Magar'' *Chepangic-Raji ** Chepangic: '' Chepang'', ''

Bhujel Bhujel are a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group now living in Nepal, India, and Bhutan. They are scattered in several districts, mostly in Tanahu and Syangja. The inhabitants living near the Bhuji Khola river called Bhujel. Bhujel are divided into four ...

'' **Raji-Raute

Fortier (2012)

A database of 700 words for items from households of Raute and Ban Rawat speakers (Fortier 2012) indicates a largely Sino-Tibetan language ancestry. Deep Root items include 58 words of Sino-Tibetan origin and 7 of

Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages ( ) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority popu ...

origin. Proto-family items include 281 morphemes of Proto-

Tibeto-Burman 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 ...

origin. Meso-root, or subfamily items include 34 words of Proto-

Kuki-Chin The Kuki-Chin languages (also called Kukish or South-Central Tibeto-Burman languages) are a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family spoken in northeastern India, western Myanmar and southeastern Bangladesh. Most notable Kuki-Chin-speaking ...

origin, 23 of Proto- Tani origin, 6 of Proto- Tangkulic origin, and 1 of Northern Chin origin. The database omits most loans of Indo-Aryan origin although 43 items were of

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

origin. Work remains on identifying etymologies of the remaining 247 items in the Raute–Rawat database.

Distribution

Raji-Raute varieties are spoken in the following areas of Nepal and India. *Dadeldhura/Darchula Raute: Darchula District and Dadeldhura District, Nepal *Ban Raji/ Rawat:

Pithoragarh District Pithoragarh district is the easternmost district in the state of Uttarakhand. It is located in the Himalayas and has an area of and a population of 483,439 (as of 2011). The city of Pithoragarh, located in Saur Valley, is its headquarters. Th ...

, India *Khirdwari Rajwar: Champawat District,

, India * Raute: nomadic, 10 districts of western Nepal *Bandale Raji:

Surkhet District Surkhet District (, ) is a district in Karnali Province of mid-western Nepal. Surkhet is one of the ten districts of Karnali located about west of the national capital Kathmandu. The district's area is . It had 288,527 population in 2001 and 350 ...

and

Kailali District Kailali District (), a part of Sudurpashchim Province in Terai plain, is one of the 77 districts of Nepal. The district, with Dhangadhi as its district headquarters, covers an area of and has a population of 911,155 (2021 census) and (775,709 ...

, Nepal *Naukule Raji:

, Nepal *Purbia Raji: Bardia District, Nepal

Vocabulary

The comparative vocabulary lists of Raji and Raute below are from Rastogi & Fortier (2005). Rastogi & Fortier (2005) also provide Purbia Raji and Janggali Raute forms.

Swadesh list

The following is a 100-word

Swadesh list A Swadesh list () is a compilation of cultural universal, tentatively universal concepts for the purposes of lexicostatistics. That is, a Swadesh list is a list of forms and concepts which all languages, without exception, have terms for, such as ...

from Rastogi & Fortier (2005).

Body parts

Rastogi & Fortier (2005) list the following body part terms.

Footnotes

References

* George van Driem (2001) ''Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region.'' Brill. *Fortier, Jana (2012) "Annotated Dictionary of Raute and Rawat Languages

*Rastogi, Kavita and Jana Fortier. 2005. Daa, Nii, Sum/Khung: Comparative Vocabulary of the West-Central Himalayan Languages Rawati (Raji) and Khamci (Raute). Indian Linguistics 66. 105–115.