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Chepang
Chepang
च्योःबाङ्
	The word "Chepang" written in Devanagari script
Region	Nepal
Ethnicity	Chepang
Native speakers	59,000 (2021 census)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Chepangic Chepang; ;
Writing system	Devanagari
Language codes
ISO 639-3	cdm
Glottolog	chep1245
ELP	Chepang
	Chepang is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Chepang is a language spoken by approximately 59,000 people in South-Central Nepal.^[1] The people are known as Chepang. Randy LaPolla (2003) proposes that Chepang may be part of a larger "Rung" group. Another group who speaks Chepang, living across the Narayani river, call themselves Bujheli.

Phonology

Consonants

Chepang consonants^[2]
		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n̪			ŋ
Stop	Voiceless	p	t̪	t͡s		k
Stop	Voiced	b	d̪	d͡z		g
Fricative				s			h
Approximant				l	j	w

Phonetic Realizations

The glottal stop is realized in some contexts, though usually not as a full closure and is instead presented as falling pitch, laryngealization, re-articulation, or by lengthening of the segment before.^[3] Some example of possible occurrences are listed below:

Syllable Initial
- Full closure [ʔ] at the beginning of words — (ʔ / #__)
- Re-articulation [<] at the beginning of words — (< / #__)
- Laryngealization [◌̰] after a vowel and a glottal stop /ʔ/ — (~ / Vʔ__)
- Lengthening of previous segment [:] after non-glottal consonants — ( : / C[-glottal]__)
Syllable Final
- Full closure at the end of words — (ʔ / __#) or when following a vowel and preceding a voiceless consonant — (ʔ / V__C[-voice])
- Laryngealization following a vowel and preceding a glottal stop — (◌̰ / V__ʔ)
- And falling pitch in all other contexts

^[3] The glottal fricative /h/ is realized in many ways and it is much more predictable in the environments that realizations occur. For example:

In the case of two contiguous segments, if at the beginning of a word the first phoneme becomes voiceless
If at the end of a word then the second phoneme becomes voiceless
- the word aal (meaning 'the track or scent of an animal') is phonemically transcribed as [ḁal]
- and the word samm (meaning 'fuzz of bamboo') is phonemically transcribed as [samm̥]
Strong aspiration occurs on voiceless obstruents
- the word phek (meaning 'broom') is phonemically transcribed as [p^hek]
Breathy voice on the initial part of the syllable in the environment of voiced obstruents
- the word gaŋ (meaning 'hole') is transcribed as [ɡ̈a̤ŋ]
/h/ may become /s/ in fast speech when following /j/ and preceding /k/
/h/ may also become /x/ when contiguous to /j/ and preceding /ʔ/

The voiceless alveolar sibilant /s/ is also realized as /ʃ/ before front vowels.^[3]

/w/ when directly next to front vowels is realized as the labio-dental approximant [ʋ] ^[3]

Vowels

Chepang vowels^[2]
	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e	ə	o
Open		a

Research suggests that Chepang may have had a three vowel system at one point in time.^[3] Those vowels being /i/ /u/ and /ə/, this is uncommon for a three vowel system as commonly they consist of /a/ /i/ and /u/ as seen in Classical Arabic, Greenlandic and Quechua.

Syntax

Chepang can be described as having a basic word order of Subject Object Verb (SOV) with some alterations due to context. The text below provides an example:

ʔuyhle

Formerly

kəsyaʔ-ʔl

deer-AG

manta-kay

person-DO

mayʔ

meat

jeʔ-ʔo

eat-NMZ

kheʔ-to

be

Formerly, deer used to eat people

But it is difficult to define a subject and object for the language in Chepang and may be more accurately described as a verb-final language. The verb does, for the most part, follow its related noun phrases and other constituents. Though it is not uncommon to see the NP follow the verb used as an afterthought.

budhl-kay

wife-DO

jan-ʔaka-n

scold-PST-AG

budha-ʔl

husband-AG

He scolded his wife, the husband (did)

Geographical distribution

Chepang is spoken in the following districts of Nepal (Ethnologue).

Makwanpur District, Bagmati Province
Chitwan District, Bagmati Province
Southern Dhading District, Bagmati Province
Southern Gorkha District, Gandaki Province

Dialects are Western Chepang and Eastern Chepang.

References

^ ^a ^b Chepang at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
^ ^a ^b Moran, Steven; McCloy, Daniel; Wright, Richard (2012). "Revisiting population size vs. phoneme inventory size". Language. 88 (4): 877–893. doi:10.1353/lan.2012.0087. hdl:1773/25269. ISSN 1535-0665. S2CID 145423518.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Caughley, Ross C. (1982). The Syntax and Morphology of the Verb in Chepang. Melbourne: Pacific Linguistics. p. 1.