Sunamalso known as or spelled Sungam, Sungnam, Thebor, Thebör Skadd, Thebarshad, Central Kinnauri, or Sangnaur is an underdocumented Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Sunnam village, Kinnaur district, Himachal Pradesh, India.

Language situation

Sunam is spoken by the upper caste Scheduled Tribe community of Sunnam that makes up about 58% of the village's population. It exists in intese contact with

Shumcho Shumcho is an underdocumented Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Kinnaur district, Himachal Pradesh, India. Shumcho speakers make up a majority of the population in the villages of Kanam, Labrang, Spillo, Shyaso, Rushkalang ...

, a related but not mutually intelligible language spoken by the lower Scheduled Caste community in the same village, as well as regional

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...

Kinnauri and Hindi and English that dominate the school system of Himachal Pradesh. Nepali and various

Western Pahari The Western Pahari languages are a range of languages and dialects of Northern Indo-Aryan languages spoken in the western parts of the Himalayan range, primarily in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. They are also spoken in Jammu and Jaunsar ...

languages are spoken by migratory laborers also present in the village. Despite its small size and widespread

multilingualism Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. When the languages are just two, it is usually called bilingualism. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolin ...

, the Sunam-speaking community has a positive attitude towards its language, which is still transmitted to children and used in all domains of daily life.

References

Languages of Himachal Pradesh Kinnaur district Endangered languages of India West Himalayish languages {{st-lang-stub