Chepang
PrintA language of Nepal
36,800 (2001 census), decreasing. No monolinguals. Ethnic population: 52,200.
Narayani Zone, Makwanpur, Chitwan districts; Bagmati Zone, southern Dhading district; Gandaki Zone, southern Gorkha district.
6b (Threatened). Language of recognized nationality (2002, NFDIN Act, No. 20, Section 2C).
Eastern Chepang, Western Chepang. Bhujel [byj] is closely related to Western Chepang, but has difficult intelligibility with Chepang due to different pronominal suffix morphology. Dialects of Chepang differ in verb forms. Similar in morphology to Kirati languages. Lexical similarity: 98% with Bhujel [byh] (2004 R. Caughley, based on 100-item word list).
SOV; postpositions; noun head final; no noun classes or genders; relatives before or without noun heads; content q-word in situ; no prefixes, up to 8 suffixes; clause constituents indicated by case-marking; affixes indicate case of noun phrase; verbal affixation marks person and number; ergative; tense and aspect; voice; causatives; comparatives; CV to CCCVCCC with certain restrictions; 18 consonant and 6 vowel phonemes; nontonal (not phonemic, but phonetic pitch). Whistle speech
Home; mixed use: Friends, religion, work. Young adults and older. Some use among children and adolescents. Positive attitudes. Speakers over 5 know some Nepali [npi]. It is often learned in school. Men can talk about most common topics and political affairs. Women know greetings and vocabulary for trade. Young people may sometimes speak Nepali to each other.
Traditional religion, Christian.