Dhimal language

Dhimal
Region	Nepal
Ethnicity	Toto people
Native speakers	20,000 (2011 census)[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Brahmaputran ? Dhimal Dhimal
Language codes
ISO 639-3	dhi
Glottolog	dhim1246[2]

Dhimal is a Sino-Tibetan language of Nepal and India spoken by about 20,000 people. There is an eastern and western dialect, which are separated by the Kankai River in Jhapa district, Mechi Zone, Nepal. Most people transcribe Dhimal into Devanagari and there are standard conventions for extra phonological distinctions.

Distribution

Dhimal is spoken in the following areas of Nepal:^[1]

• Mechi Zone: Jhapa District (24 villages)
• Koshi Zone: Morang District and Sunsari District (51 villages)

The eastern and western dialects are separated by the Kankai River in Jhapa District.^[1]

Phonology

Vowels

Dhimal has 16 primary vowel phonemes, distinguished by length and nasality, and six diphthongs.^[3]

i/i:/ĩ				u/u:/i
	e/e:/ẽ	ə	o/o:/õ
		a/a:/ɑ̃

iu				ui
	eu		oi
		au/ai

Consonants

Dhimal has 31 consonants, including a four-way distinction between voiced & voiceless, aspirated (breathy in the case of voiced) and unaspirated.

	Bilabial Unvoiced Unaspirated	Bilabial Unvoiced Aspirated	Bilabial Voiced Unaspirated	Bilabial Voiced Aspirated (Breathy)	Dental Unaspirated Voiceless	Dental Voiceless Aspirated	Dental Voiced Unaspirated	Dental Voiced Aspirated	Palatal unaspirated and/or voiceless	Palatal aspirated and/or voiced	Velar Unvoiced Unaspirated	Velar Unvoiced Aspirated	Velar Voiced Unaspirated	Velar Voiced Aspirated	Glottal
Nasal	m	m^h			n	n^h			ŋ
Stop/Plosive	p	p^h	b	b^h	t	t^h	d	d^h	c	j, j^h	k	k^h	g	g^h	ʔ
Fricative					s									h
Approximant	w	w^h			l	l^h
Rhotic					r	r^h

Grammar

Gender is marked morphologically, but only with body parts of human beings and on animate nouns. Animals may be marked for gender with distinct lexical items. Nouns are unmarked for number, except for personal pronouns. For personal pronouns, singular and plural are unmarked, and only the dual number is marked or distinguished.

References

1. Dhimal at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
2. Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Dhimal". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
3. King, John T. A Grammar of Dhimal. Brill Academic Pub. ISBN 978 90 04 17573 0.