Kathmandu, May 3 (RSS): Two Kirati mother tongues (first languages) have been found in the country.
A team of linguists recently reached Dhankuta in course of determining the alphabets of Yakhkha language has identified two mother tongues (Mugali and Marek Yakhkha) spoken in Dhankuta, said linguist and member of Language Commission Prof Dr Madhav Pokharel.
The newly identified ‘Marek Yakhkha’ is spoken in Marek of Dhankuta. Linguist Pokharel further shared that the ‘Mugali’ language spoken in Mugu and mentioned in the census is different from newly identified Mugali language, this new ‘Mugali’ language is a dialect of the Kirati language while ‘Mugali’ spoken in Mugu is a dialect of Tibeto-Burman language family.
Meanwhile, the linguists’ team led by Prof Pokharel has further added seven alphabets in Yakhkha language spoken in Dhankuta and Sankhuwasabha districts.
Prof Pokharel added that the alphabets of the language were determined by him in course of developing dictionary of the language by Ram Ji Kongren 11 year back.
These new alphabets were added after holding interaction with native speakers where as previous alphabets were determined only being based on a single speaker of the language.
