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Sunwar

A language of Nepal

ISO 639-3: suz

Population	40,000 (2002 UNESCO). Ethnic population: 95,254.
Region	Janakpur zone, Ramechhap and Dolakha districts, east hills; Sagarmatha zone, northwest Okhaldhunga District.
Language map	Eastern Nepal, reference number 99
Alternate names	Koyktsa, Koynts Lo, Kwoico Lo, Mukhiya, Sonowal, Sonowar, Sunbar, Sunuwar, Sunwari, Kiranti-Koits
Dialects	Surel. Related to Bahing [bhj], and more distantly to Thulung [tdh], Wambule [wme], Jerung [jee]. Most similar to Hayu [vay].
Classification	Sino-Tibetan, Tibeto-Burman, Himalayish, Mahakiranti, Kham-Magar-Chepang-Sunwari, Sunwari
Language use	Home, religion. Also use Tamang [taj] or Nepali [nep].
Language development	Literacy rate in L1: 12%. Literacy rate in L2: Males 15% in villages, 20% in Kathmandu. Poetry. Dictionary. NT: 1992.
Writing system	Devanagari script.
Comments	Sunwar and Surel recognized as official nationalities. SOV; postpositions; genitives after noun heads; relatives before noun heads; question word initial; maximum number of prefixes 1; suffixes 3; verb affixes mark person, number; causatives; comparatives; CV, CVC CVV, CCV, CCVC, V, VC; tonal. Pastoralists; hunter-gatherers; peasant agriculturalists. Traditional religion.

Entries from the SIL Bibliography about this language:

Academic Publications

Bieri, Dora and Marlene Schulze. 1969. Sunwar phonemic summary.

Bieri, Dora and Marlene Schulze. 1970. "Sunwar segmental synopsis."

Bieri, Dora and Marlene Schulze. 1970. "Sunwar texts."

Bieri, Dora and Marlene Schulze. 1970. "Sunwar tone and higher levels."

Bieri, Dora and Marlene Schulze. 1971. A guide to Sunwar tone.

Bieri, Dora and Marlene Schulze. 1971. A vocabulary of the Sunwar language.

Bieri, Dora, Marlene Schulze, and Austin Hale. 1973. "An approach to Sunwar discourse."  

Bieri, Dora. 1978. "Covariance relations in Sunwar."  

Glover, Warren W. 1970. "Cognate counts via the Swadesh list in some Tibeto-Burman languages of Nepal."

Hale, Austin and David E. Watters, editors. 1973. Clause, sentence, and discourse patterns in selected languages of Nepal 2: Clause.  

Hale, Austin and Kenneth L. Pike, editors. 1970. Tone systems of the Tibeto-Burman languages of Nepal 2: Lexical lists and comparative studies.

Hale, Austin and Kenneth L. Pike, editors. 1970. Tone systems of the Tibeto-Burman languages of Nepal 3: Texts 1.

Hale, Austin and Kenneth L. Pike, editors. 1970. Tone systems of Tibeto-Burman languages of Nepal 1: Studies on tone and phonological segments.

Hale, Austin and Kenneth L. Pike, editors. 1970. Tone systems of Tibeto-Burman languages of Nepal 4: Texts 2.

Hale, Austin, editor. 1973. Clause, sentence, and discourse patterns in selected languages of Nepal 1: General approach.  

Hale, Austin, editor. 1973. Clause, sentence, and discourse patterns in selected languages of Nepal 3: Texts.  

Hale, Austin, editor. 1973. Clause, sentence, and discourse patterns in selected languages of Nepal 4: Word lists.  

Hale, Austin. 1970. "A phonological survey of seven Bodic languages of Nepal."

Schulze, Marlene and Dora Bieri. 1973. "Chaining and spotlighting: Two types of paragraph boundaries in Sunwar."  

Schulze, Marlene. 1978. "Rhetorical questions in Sunwar."  

Schulze, Marlene. 1987. "Intense action adverbials in Sunwar: a verbal intensifier system."

Schulze, Marlene. 1995. "Local words and directionals in Sunuwar."

Schulze, Marlene. 1995. "Report of a seminar on Sunuwar verbs of Nepali origin."

Vernacular Publications

kõicə breksə shõsəyə: kõicə grumtik. 2009.