Chepang language

Chepang
Chyo-bang
Region	Nepal
Ethnicity	Chepang
Native speakers	49,000 (2011 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 37,000 people in South-Central Nepal. 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

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n̪			ŋ
Stop	Voiceless	p	t̪	t͡s		k
	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. 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__)
• Syllable Final
  • Full closure at the end of words — (ʔ / __#) or when following a vowel and preceding a voiceless consonant — (ʔ / V__C)
  • Laryngealization following a vowel and preceding a glottal stop — (◌̰ / V__ʔ)
  • And falling pitch in all other contexts

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.

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

Vowels

Chepang vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e	ə	o
Open		a

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.

External links

• The Chepang Language - Linguistics research and language documentation -
• The Leopard and the Cat - Chepang Audio Recording