Jangshung is an underdocumented Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Kinnaur district,

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; Sanskrit: ''himācāl prādes;'' "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a States and union territories of India, state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen Indian Himalayan ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. Most Jangshung speakers reside in the villages of Jangi, Lippa and Asrang. They belong to the upper caste, while the lower castes in the same villages speak

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 distinct language of the Kinnauric branch. Jangshung is closely related to its larger neighbor Kinnauri and sometimes considered one of its

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

s. Like most language varieties of Himachal Pradesh, Jangshung was occasionally written in the traditional

Takri script The Tākri script (Takri ( Chamba): ; Takri (Jammu/Dogra): ; sometimes called Tankri ) is an abugida writing system of the Brahmic family of scripts. It is derived from the Sharada script formerly employed for Kashmiri. It is the sister scrip ...

, but it has largely fallen out of use in the 20th century. Today, it is mostly a spoken language. Most Jangshung speakers are multilingual and typically use

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

and English in writing and other formal contexts.

References

{{Bodic languages Languages of Himachal Pradesh Kinnaur district Endangered languages of India West Himalayish languages