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 ma ...

spoken by the Thakali people, 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 114,447 ...

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 ...

. 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, be ...

, 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 valley and in the upper part of the Kali Gandaki Gorge (also known as Thak Khola), in Mustang District, Dhawalagiri Zone. 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 diffic ...

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 comprehensi ...

''). 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, Dhawalagiri Zone. 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