#tamang

The Yolmo evidential system includes a category for generally known facts. Things like lemons are sour or tea is sweet (in Nepal at least) are marked using the general fact evidential òŋge. The form òŋ is also the verb ‘to come’.

This evidential turns up in every dialect of Yolmo documented to date, but it doesn’t exist in any other Tibetic language, not the specific form, or the even the semantic category. There is one language with a similar category though, and that’s the variety of Tamang spoken near the Melamchi Yolmo villages. The Tamang form kha-pa covers similar evidential semantics, and is also based on the lexical verb ‘come’.

In this paper we look at these similar forms, and how the similarities between them and social history of the area indicates the Yolmo òŋge is likely a calque from the Tamang kha-pa. I’m very grateful to my colleagues Thomas Owen-Smith for working with me on this paper. Thomas was working on the documentation of this variety of Tamang while I was writing my thesis about Yolmo evidentiality. Chatting with him helped me make sense of this unique feature of Yolmo and I’m so happy we’ve turned our long conversations into a not very long paper setting out our analysis.

Abstract

This paper examines the similarity of the Yolmo ‘general fact’ evidential and the ‘generic fact’ evidential in the Tamang dialect spoken in the valley of the Indrawati Khola. Yolmo òŋge is unlike any evidential attested in other Tibetic languages, but shares features with 1kha-pa in the local dialect of Tamang. Semantically, they both are used for situations that are generally known facts. Structurally, both are copulas with evidential functions that are formed using the lexical verb ‘come’. We argue that language contact between Tamang speakers of the Indrawati Khola area and Yolmo speakers in the Melamchi Valley led to the Yolmo language calquing the Tamang form. We illustrate these copulas and their relationship because grammaticalisation of copulas from a lexical verb ‘come’ is cross-linguistically uncommon.

Reference

Nepal 🇳🇵

Basic facts

Official name: सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल (Saṅghīya Lokatāntrika Gaṇatantra Nepāla) (Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal)

Capital city: Kathmandu

Population: 30.7 million (2023)

Demonym: Nepali

Type of government: federal parliamentary republic

Head of state: Ram Chandra Poudel (President)

Head of government: K. P. Sharma Oli (Prime Minister)

Gross domestic product (purchasing power parity): $150.80 billion (2023)

Gini coefficient of wealth inequality: 32.8% (medium) (2010)

Human Development Index: 0.602 (medium) (2022)

Currency: Nepalese rupee (NPR)

Fun fact: It has the only non-rectangular flag in the world.

Etymology

The country’s name comes from the Kathmandu Valley, known as Nepāl. According to Hindu mythology, the name derives from a sage called Ne and the Pali word pala, which means “to protect”. Therefore, it would mean “protected by Ne”.

Another theory proposes that it is a compound of Nipa (“foot of a mountain”) and -ala (short for alaya, meaning “abode”), which would make Nepal the “abode at the foot of the mountain”.

Geography

Nepal is located in South Asia and borders China to the north and India to the east, south, and west.

There are four main climates: tundra and monsoon-influenced subarctic in the north, monsoon-influenced subtropical highland in the center, and monsoon-influenced humid subtropical in the south. Temperatures range from −7 °C (19.4 °F) in winter to 39 °C (100.4 °F) in summer. The average annual temperature is 19.7 °C (67.4 °F).

The country is divided into seven provinces (praśāsanik vibhājana), which are further divided into 77 districts (swayatta pradeśharū). The largest cities in Nepal are Kathmandu, Pokhara, Bharatpur, Lalitpur, and Birgunj.

History

1700 BCE-467 CE: Magadha Empire

800 BCE-300 CE: Kirati Kingdom

700-200 BCE: Northern Black Polished Ware culture

2nd century BCE-3rd century: Kuninda Kingdom

205-305 CE: Soma dynasty

240-550: Gupta Empire

450-750: Licchavi dynasty

600-1200: Thakuri dynasty

700-1065: Karttikeyapur Kingdom

1097-1324: Karnata dynasty

1201-1769: Malla confederacy

1207-1358: Khasa Kingdom

1518-1762: Senas of Makwanpur

1559-1768: Gorkha Empire

16th century-1744: Baise Rajya; Chaubisi Rajya

1744-1816: unification of Nepal

1768-2008: Kingdom of Nepal

1948-2008: democracy movement

1960: coup d’état

1996-2006: Nepalese CIvil War

2008-present: Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal

Economy

Nepal mainly imports from India, China, and Argentina and exports to India, the United States, and Türkiye. Its top exports are soybean oil, palm oil, and synthetic yarn.

It has small cobalt, copper, iron, and zinc deposits. Services represent 61.8% of the GDP, followed by agriculture (24.5%) and industry (13.7%).

Nepal is a member of the Bay of Bengal Initiative and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.

Demographics

The largest ethnic group is the Khas Arya tribe (30.1%), followed by the Magars (6.9%), Tharu (6.2%), Tamang (5.6%), Kami (5%), Musalman (4.8%), Newar (4.6%), Yadav (4.2%), and Rai (2.2%). The main religion is Hinduism, practiced by 81.1% of the population.

It has a negative net migration rate and a fertility rate of 1.9 children per woman. 18.6% of the population lives in urban areas. Life expectancy is 72.4 years and the median age is 21.6 years. The literacy rate is 67.9%.

Languages

The official language of the country is Nepali, spoken natively by 44.6% of the population. Other major languages include Maithili (11.7%), Bhojpuri (6%), Thary (5.8%), Tamang (5.1%), Newar (3.2%), Magar (3%), Doteli (3%), Urdu (2.6%), and Awadhi (1.8%).

Culture

Nepali society is defined by its caste system. Arranged and child marriages are very common.

Men traditionally wear a loose shirt (daura), loose pants (suruwal), and a tall cloth hat. Women wear a blouse (choli) and a sari.

Architecture

Traditional houses in Nepal have stone and mud brick walls, wooden porches, and thatched or slate roofs.

Cuisine

The Nepali diet is based on fish, meat, rice, and vegetables. Typical dishes include choila (grilled water buffalo with spices), jhol momo (dumpling soup), samay baji (a dish of black soybeans, boiled egg, buffalo meat, greens, lentil and rice pancakes, and rice), sel roti (a ring-shaped, sweet fried dough made from rice flour), and tarua (deep-fried vegetables).

Holidays and festivals

Like other Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, and Muslim countries, Nepal celebrates Buddha Jayanti, Christmas Day, Maha Shivaratri, Holi, Ram Nawami, Raksha Bandhan, Krishna Janmashtami, Dashain, Vijayadashami, Laxmi Puka, Chhath, and Mawlid. It also commemorates New Year’s Day, International Women’s Day, and Labor Day.

Specific Nepali holidays include Prithvi Jayanti on January 11, Martyrs’ Day on January 30, Democracy Day on February 19, Republic Day on May 29, and Constitution Day on September 19, as well as the different New Year’s days celebrated by the different ethnic groups.

Prithvi Jayanti

Other celebrations include the Gadhimai festival, which involves large-scale sacrificial slaughter of animals to please the goddess of power; Maghi, which features ritual bathing, and Teej, which celebrates the arrival of monsoon season with dance, fasting, prayers, and songs.

Teej

Landmarks

There are four UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Chitwan National Park, Kathmandu Valley, Lumbini, the Birthplace of the Lord Budda, and Sagarmatha National Park.

Chitwan National Park

Other landmarks include the Gorkha Palace, the Mustang Caves, the Ram Janaki Temple, the Pokhara Valley, and the Swayambhunath Stupa.

Ram Janaki Temple

Famous people

Ani Chovina Drolma - monk and singer

Araniko - painter

Baburam Acharya - writer

Jhamak Ghimire - writer

Manisha Koirala - actress

Mira Rai - athlete

Paras Khadka - cricket player

Pramila Giri - painter and sculptor

Rajesh Hamal - actor

Tenzing Norgay - mountain climber, one of the first two people to climb Mount Everest

Paras Khadka

Tamang people. Old lady.

January 28, 2016 // Saturday

Sonam Lhosar aka Tamang New Year

Rooster year begins!

Attended Lhosar Party, danced till 2 AM

In December I wrote a short piece for the Inside Himalayas blog about just some of the languages you might come across while travelling in Nepal.

From the introduction:

Nepal is home to 123 languages, some of which are spoken across entire regions, while others only have a small number of speakers. The more you travel around Nepal, the more you will get the chance to meet speakers of these languages. All native languages are recognised as national languages in the Constitution of Nepal, although Nepali is the official language of government administration.