Kiranti languages

Kiranti
Ethnicity:	Kiranti: Sunwar, Limbu, Rai, etc.
Geographic distribution:	Nepal, Sikkim, Darjeeling
Linguistic classification:	Sino-Tibetan Mahakiranti ? Kiranti
Subdivisions:	Limbu Eastern Central Western
Glottolog:	kira1253

The Kiranti languages (also called Bahing–Vayu in the terminology of Benedict (1972)) are a major family of Sino-Tibetan languages spoken in Nepal, Sikkim and Darjeeling Hills by the Kiranti people.

Classification

The Kiranti languages are frequently posited to form part of a Mahakiranti family, although specialists are not completely certain of either the existence of a Kiranti subgroup or its precise membership. LaPolla (2003), though, proposes that Kiranti may be part of a larger "Rung" group.

Languages

There are about two dozen Kiranti languages. The better known are Sunuwar, Bahing, Limbu, Vayu, Lohorung and Kulung. Overall, they are:

Limbu

• Limbu (affinities to Eastern Kiranti)

Eastern Kiranti

• Greater Yakkha: Yakkha, Belhare, Athpare, Chintang, Chulung
• Upper Arun River: Yamphu–Lohorung, Meohang, Waling?

Central Kiranti

• Khambu (Rai): Kulung, Nachhiring, Sampang, Saam
• Southern: Bantawa, Puma, Chamling, Dungmali

Western Kiranti

• Midwestern: Thulung (perhaps a primary branch of Kiranti)
• Chaurasiya: Wambule, Jerung
• Upper Dudhkosi River: Khaling, Dumi, Koi
• Northwestern (Sunuwar Kõits): Bahing, Sunwar, Vayu

Ethnologue adds Tilung to Western Kiranti, based on Opgenort (2011).

Kiranti verbs are not easily segmentable, due in large part to the presence of portmanteau morphemes, crowded affix strings, and extensive (and often nonintuitive) allomorphy.

References

• George van Driem (2001) Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region. Brill.
• Bickel, Balthasar, G. Banjade, M. Gaenszle, E. Lieven, N. P. Paudyal, & I. Purna Rai et al. (2007). Free prefix ordering in Chintang. Language, 83 (1), 43–73.
• James A. Matisoff: Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman. University of California Press 2003.
• Graham Thurgood (2003) "A Subgrouping of the Sino-Tibetan Languages: The Interaction between Language Contact, Change, and Inheritance," The Sino-Tibetan Languages. Routledge. pp. 3–21.
• Karen H. Ebert (2003) "Kiranti Languages: An Overview," The Sino-Tibetan Languages. Routledge. pp. 505–517.

Reconstructions

• Michailovsky, Boyd. 1991. Big black notebook of Kiranti, proto-Kiranti forms. (unpublished ms. contributed to STEDT).
• Opgenort, Jean Robert. 2011. A note on Tilung and its position within Kiranti. Himalayan Linguistics 10.1:253-271.