Back बान्तवा भाषा AWA Bantaweg Breton Bantava keel Estonian Bantawaish GV Harshen Bantawa Hausa Bantawa jezik Croatian बान्तवा भाषा MAI ബന്താവ ഭാഷ Malayalam बान्तवा भाषा Nepali Lenga Bantawa PMS
| Bantawa | |
|---|---|
| बान्तावा | |
 The word "Bantawa" written in Devanagari script | |
| Region | Nepal, and Sikkim, Darjeeling, Kalimpong in India |
| Ethnicity | Bantawa Kirawa (natively) |
Native speakers | 170,000 (2001 & 2011 censuses)[1] |
Sino-Tibetan
| |
| Kirat Rai,[2] Devanagari | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | bap – inclusive codeIndividual code: wly – Waling |
| Glottolog | bant1280 |
| ELP | Bantawa |
 Bantawa is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
The Bantawa Language (also referred to as An Yüng, Bantaba, Bantawa Dum, Bantawa Yong, Bantawa Yüng, Bontawa, Kirawa Yüng), is a Kiranti language spoken in the eastern Himalayan hills of eastern Nepal by Kirati Bantawa ethnic groups. They use a syllabic alphabet system known as Kirat Rai. Among the Khambu or Rai people of Eastern Nepal, Sikkim, Darjeeling and Kalimpong in India, Bantawa is the largest language spoken.[3] According to the 2001 National Census, at least 1.63% of the Nepal's total population speaks Bantawa. About 370,000 speak Bantawa Language mostly in eastern hilly regions of Nepal (2001). Although Bantawa is among the more widely used variety of the Bantawa language, it falls in the below-100,000 category of endangered languages.[4] It is experiencing language shift to Nepali, especially in the northern region.[5]
Bantawa is spoken in subject-object-verb order, and has no noun classes or genders.[6]
- ^ Bantawa at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
Waling at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required) - ^ "Kirat Rai script:Omniglot".
- ^ "Language use among the Bantawa: Homogeneity, education, access, and relative prestige". SIL International. 2013-01-28. Retrieved 2017-02-10.
- ^ "Bantawa: observations of a threatened language". robbie.eugraph.com. Retrieved 2017-02-10.
- ^ "Bantawa". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2017-02-10.
- ^ "Bantawa". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2017-02-10.