- Bahing language
language
name=Bahing
region=Okhaldhunga district ,Nepal
speakers=2,765 in Nepal (2001 census)
iso2=sit
iso3=bhj
familycolor=Sino-Tibetan
fam1=Sino-Tibetan
fam2=Tibeto-Burman
fam3=Himalayish
fam4=Mahakiranti
fam5=Kham-Magar-Chepang-Sunwari
fam6=Sunwari
script=
nation=Nepal Bahing (also known as Rumdali) is a language spoken by 2,765 people (
2001 census) of the Bahing ethnic group in theOkhaldhunga district ofNepal and belongs to the family ofKiranti languages , a subgroup of Tibeto-Burman.The Bahing language was described by
Brian Houghton Hodgson (1857 ,1858 ) as having a very complex verbal morphology. By the 1970s, only vestiges were left, making Bahing a case study of grammatical attrition and language death.Bahing and the related
Khaling language have synchronic ten-vowel systems [http://www.iias.nl/host/himalaya/conferences/hls/1st_abstracts/mic.html] . The difference of IPA| [mərə] "monkey" vs. IPA| [mɯrɯ] "man" is difficult to perceive for speakers of even neighboring dialects, which makes for "an unlimited source of fun to the Bahing people" ( [http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/deboer01evolvingSound.html de Boer 2002] ).Hodgson (1857) reported a middle voice formed by a suffix "-s(i)" added to the verbal stem, corresponding to reflexives in other
Kiranti languages [http://www.opgenort.nl/jropgenort.lectures.php] .External links
* [http://www.iias.nl/himalaya/?q=bahing Himalayan Languages Project]
* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=bhj Ethnologue report about Bahing]
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