1.
Nepal
–
Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked central Himalayan country in South Asia. Nepal is divided into 7 provinces and 75 districts and 744 local units including 4 metropolises,13 sub-metropolises,246 municipal councils and 481 village and it has a population of 26.4 million and is the 93rd largest country by area. Bordering China in the north and India in the south, east, Nepal does not border Bangladesh, which is located within only 27 km of its southeastern tip. It neither borders Bhutan due to the Indian state of Sikkim being located in between, Nepal has a diverse geography, including fertile plains, subalpine forested hills, and eight of the worlds ten tallest mountains, including Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. Kathmandu is the capital and largest city. It is a nation with Nepali as the official language. The territory of Nepal has a history since the Neolithic age. The name Nepal is first recorded in texts from the Vedic Age, the era which founded Hinduism, in the middle of the first millennium BCE, Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, was born in southern Nepal. Parts of northern Nepal were intertwined with the culture of Tibet, the Kathmandu Valley in central Nepal became known as Nepal proper because of its complex urban civilization. It was the seat of the prosperous Newar confederacy known as Nepal Mandala, the Himalayan branch of the ancient Silk Road was dominated by the valleys traders. The cosmopolitan region developed distinct traditional art and architecture, by the 18th century, the Gorkha Kingdom achieved the unification of Nepal. The Shah dynasty established the Kingdom of Nepal and later formed an alliance with the British Empire, the country was never colonized but served as a buffer state between Imperial China and Colonial India. In the 20th century, Nepal ended its isolation and forged ties with regional powers. Parliamentary democracy was introduced in 1951, but was suspended by Nepalese monarchs in 1960 and 2005. The Nepalese Civil War resulted in the proclamation of a republic in 2008, modern Nepal is a federal secular parliamentary republic. Nepal is a nation, ranking 144th on the Human Development Index in 2016. The country struggles with the transition from a monarchy to a republic and it also suffers from high levels of hunger and poverty. Despite these challenges, Nepal is making progress, with the government declaring its commitment to elevate the nation from least developed country status by 2022
Nepal
–
Lumbini, listed as the birthplace of
Gautama Buddha by the
UNESCO World Heritage Convention
Nepal
–
Flag
Nepal
–
Former royal palace at
Basantapur, Kathmandu
Nepal
–
Hindu temples in
Patan, capital of one of the three medieval
Newar kingdoms
2.
Tibet
–
Tibet is a region on the Tibetan Plateau in Asia, spanning about 2.4 million km2 and nearly a quarter of Chinas territory. Tibet is the highest region on Earth, with an elevation of 4,900 metres. The highest elevation in Tibet is Mount Everest, Earths highest mountain, the Tibetan Empire emerged in the 7th century, but with the fall of the empire the region soon divided into a variety of territories. The current borders of Tibet were generally established in the 18th century, following the Xinhai Revolution against the Qing dynasty in 1912, Qing soldiers were disarmed and escorted out of Tibet Area. The region subsequently declared its independence in 1913 without recognition by the subsequent Chinese Republican government, later, Lhasa took control of the western part of Xikang, China. There are tensions regarding Tibets political status and dissident groups that are active in exile and it is also said that Tibetan activists in Tibet have been arrested or tortured. The economy of Tibet is dominated by agriculture, though tourism has become a growing industry in recent decades. The dominant religion in Tibet is Tibetan Buddhism, in there is Bön, which is similar to Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism is an influence on the art, music. Tibetan architecture reflects Chinese and Indian influences, staple foods in Tibet are roasted barley, yak meat, and butter tea. The Tibetan name for their land, Bod བོད་, means Tibet or Tibetan Plateau, although it meant the central region around Lhasa. The Standard Tibetan pronunciation of Bod, is transcribed Bhö in Tournadre Phonetic Transcription, Bö in the THL Simplified Phonetic Transcription and Poi in Tibetan pinyin. Tibetan people, language, and culture, regardless of where they are from, are referred to as Zang although the geographical term Xīzàng is often limited to the Tibet Autonomous Region. The term Xīzàng was coined during the Qing dynasty in the reign of the Jiaqing Emperor through the addition of a prefix meaning west to Zang, the best-known medieval Chinese name for Tibet is Tubo. This name first appears in Chinese characters as 土番 in the 7th century, in the Middle Chinese spoken during that period, as reconstructed by William H. Baxter, 土番 was pronounced thux-phjon and 吐蕃 was pronounced thux-pjon. Other pre-modern Chinese names for Tibet include Wusiguo, Wusizang, Tubote, the English word Tibet or Thibet dates back to the 18th century. Historical linguists generally agree that Tibet names in European languages are loanwords from Semitic Ṭībat orTūbātt, itself deriving from Turkic Töbäd, literally, according to Matthew Kapstein, From the perspective of historical linguistics, Tibetan most closely resembles Burmese among the major languages of Asia. More controversial is the theory that the Tibeto-Burman family is part of a larger language family, called Sino-Tibetan
Tibet
–
"Greater Tibet" as claimed by Tibetan exile groups
Tibet
–
Tibetan family in
Kham attending a horse festival
Tibet
–
King
Songtsän Gampo
Tibet
–
Tibet in 1734. Royaume de Thibet ("Kingdom of Tibet") in la Chine, la Tartarie Chinoise, et le Thibet ("China, Chinese
Tartary, and Tibet") on a 1734 map by
Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d'Anville, based on earlier Jesuit maps.
3.
Bhutan
–
Bhutan, officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked country in Asia and the smallest state located entirely within the Himalaya mountain range. Located in the Eastern Himalayas, it is bordered by China in the north, Bhutan lacks a border with nearby Nepal due to the Indian state of Sikkim and with Bangladesh due to the Indian states of West Bengal and Assam. Bhutan is geopolitically in South Asia and is the second least populous nation after the Maldives. Thimphu is its capital and largest city, while Phuntsholing is its financial center, the independence of Bhutan has endured for centuries and the territory was never colonized in its history. Situated on the ancient Silk Road between Tibet, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia, the Bhutanese state developed a national identity based on Buddhism. Headed by a leader known as the Zhabdrung Rinpoche, the territory was composed of many fiefdoms. Following a civil war in the 19th century, the House of Wangchuck reunited the country, Bhutan fostered a strategic partnership with India during the rise of Chinese communism and has a disputed border with the Peoples Republic of China. The King of Bhutan is known as the Dragon King, Bhutan is also notable for pioneering the concept of gross national happiness. The countrys landscape ranges from subtropical plains in the south to the sub-alpine Himalayan mountains in the north. The highest mountain in Bhutan is the Gangkhar Puensum, which is also a candidate for the highest unclimbed mountain in the world. There is also diverse wildlife in Bhutan, in South Asia, Bhutan ranks first in economic freedom, ease of doing business and peace, second in per capita income and is the least corrupt country, as of 2016. However, Bhutan continues to be a least developed country, hydroelectricity accounts for the major share of its exports. The government is a parliamentary democracy, Bhutan maintains diplomatic relations with 52 countries and the European Union, but does not have formal ties with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council. It is a member of the United Nations, SAARC, BIMSTEC, the Royal Bhutan Army maintains extensive military relations with the Indian Armed Forces. The precise etymology of Bhutan is unknown, although it is likely to derive from the Tibetan endonym Bod used for Tibet. Traditionally, it is taken to be a transcription of the Sanskrit Bhoṭa-anta end of Tibet, since the 17th century the official name of Bhutan has been Druk yul and Bhutan only appears in English-language official correspondence. Names similar to Bhutan — including Bohtan, Buhtan, Bottanthis, Bottan, jean-Baptiste Taverniers 1676 Six Voyages is the first to record the name Boutan. However, in case, these seem to have been describing not modern Bhutan
Bhutan
Bhutan
Bhutan
–
The
Dzong in the
Paro valley, built in 1646.
4.
Language family
–
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestral language or parental language, called the proto-language of that family. Linguists therefore describe the languages within a language family as being genetically related. Estimates of the number of living languages vary from 5,000 to 8,000, depending on the precision of ones definition of language, the 2013 edition of Ethnologue catalogs just over 7,000 living human languages. A living language is one that is used as the primary form of communication of a group of people. There are also dead and extinct languages, as well as some that are still insufficiently studied to be classified. Membership of languages in a family is established by comparative linguistics. Sister languages are said to have a genetic or genealogical relationship, speakers of a language family belong to a common speech community. The divergence of a proto-language into daughter languages typically occurs through geographical separation, individuals belonging to other speech communities may also adopt languages from a different language family through the language shift process. Genealogically related languages present shared retentions, that is, features of the proto-language that cannot be explained by chance or borrowing, for example, Germanic languages are Germanic in that they share vocabulary and grammatical features that are not believed to have been present in the Proto-Indo-European language. These features are believed to be innovations that took place in Proto-Germanic, language families can be divided into smaller phylogenetic units, conventionally referred to as branches of the family because the history of a language family is often represented as a tree diagram. A family is a unit, all its members derive from a common ancestor. Some taxonomists restrict the term family to a level. Those who affix such labels also subdivide branches into groups, a top-level family is often called a phylum or stock. The closer the branches are to other, the closer the languages will be related. For example, the Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Romance, there is a remarkably similar pattern shown by the linguistic tree and the genetic tree of human ancestry that was verified statistically. Languages interpreted in terms of the phylogenetic tree of human languages are transmitted to a great extent vertically as opposed to horizontally. A speech variety may also be considered either a language or a dialect depending on social or political considerations, thus, different sources give sometimes wildly different accounts of the number of languages within a family. Classifications of the Japonic family, for example, range from one language to nearly twenty, most of the worlds languages are known to be related to others
Language family
–
Principal language families of the world (and in some cases geographic groups of families). For greater detail, see
Distribution of languages in the world.
5.
Sino-Tibetan languages
–
The Sino-Tibetan languages, in a few sources also known as Tibeto-Burman or Trans-Himalayan, are a family of more than 400 languages spoken in East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia. The family is only to the Indo-European languages in terms of the number of native speakers. The Sino-Tibetan languages with the most native speakers are the varieties of Chinese, Burmese, many Sino-Tibetan languages are spoken by small communities in remote mountain areas and as such are poorly documented. Several low-level groupings are well established, but the structure of the family remains unclear. A genetic relationship between Chinese, Tibetan, Burmese and other languages was first proposed in the early 19th century, and is now broadly accepted. The initial focus on languages of civilizations with long literary traditions has been broadened to include less widely spoken languages, some of which have recently, or never. However, the reconstruction of the family is less developed than for families such as Indo-European or Austroasiatic. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to access, and are often also sensitive border zones. During the 18th century, several scholars had noticed parallels between Tibetan and Burmese, both languages with extensive literary traditions. Early in the century, Brian Houghton Hodgson and others noted that many non-literary languages of the highlands of northeast India. The name Tibeto-Burman was first applied to this group in 1856 by James Richardson Logan, the third volume of the Linguistic Survey of India, edited by Sten Konow, was devoted to the Tibeto-Burman languages of British India. Studies of the Indo-Chinese languages of Southeast Asia from the century by Logan and others revealed that they comprised four families, Tibeto-Burman, Tai, Mon–Khmer. Julius Klaproth had noted in 1823 that Burmese, Tibetan and Chinese all shared common basic vocabulary but that Thai, Mon, Ernst Kuhn envisaged a group with two branches, Chinese-Siamese and Tibeto-Burman. August Conrady called this group Indo-Chinese in his influential 1896 classification, Conradys terminology was widely used, but there was uncertainty regarding his exclusion of Vietnamese. Franz Nikolaus Finck in 1909 placed Karen as a branch of Chinese-Siamese. Jean Przyluski introduced the term sino-tibétain as the title of his chapter on the group in Meillet and he retained Conradys two branches of Tibeto-Burman and Sino-Daic, with Miao–Yao included within Daic. The English translation Sino-Tibetan first appeared in a note by Przyluski. In 1935, the anthropologist Alfred Kroeber started the Sino-Tibetan Philology Project, funded by the Works Project Administration and based at the University of California, the project was supervised by Robert Shafer until late 1938, and then by Paul K. Benedict
Sino-Tibetan languages
–
Ancient Chinese text on
bamboo strips
Sino-Tibetan languages
Sino-Tibetan languages
–
Old Tibetan text found at
Turfan
6.
Sunuwar people
–
The Sunuwar are one of the indigenous peoples of Nepal and some areas in India. The majority of this tribe follow the Kirant religion and adopt the Mundhum culture, however, some population of this tribe is influenced by the Hinduism and Christianity also. According to the 2001 census, only 17. 4% were Kirant, the term ‘Kõinchs’ is also the name of the mother tongue. Other terms like Mukhiya or Mukhia are exonyms of the tribe, there is another common teasing name of the tribe coined from the Sunuwar language itself, e. g. Maaraapaache. Sunuwar have their language, religion, culture and social customs. They inhabit the hills of Nepal. They are autochthonous to the Molung Khola, Likhu Khola and Khimti Khola, by administrative division, they dwell in Okhaldhunga, Ramechhap and Dolakha districts of Nepal, politically known as Wallo Kirant after the fall of the Kirant dynasty at the ancient Nepal valley. Wallo Kirant in the past was their Kipat or communal land, most Sunuwar practice agriculture throughout the eastern hills of present-day Nepal. Crop cultivation and cattle farming are the agricultural works. Sunuwar people also took part in the Second World War and they were known as brave gorkhali, some Sunuwar still join the Nepal Army, Indian Army, Singapore Police Force and British Gurkha Army. Due to limited opportunities within the nation, people with education go abroad for work, attractive salaries and facilities in other countries motivate these people for jobs abroad. Only few Sunuwar people are involved in the government service and private sectors in Nepal, Sunuwar are very in rich culture and traditions. They have hundreds of traditional feasts and festivals which are difficult to explain in detail, every traditional feast and festival has its own objectives, characteristics and system of celebration. Some greatest traditional festivals such as Chandi Dance in, Sakela, Gil puja and they celebrate Shyadar-pidar festival on the Day of Buddha Purnima or after 5 days of Buddha Purnima according to Nepali calendar. Sunuwar New year is celebrated on the day of Basanta Panchami, as a community, they celebrate Meserani Pidar twice a year, with no specific date allocated as such. See more Sunuwar Dress Ne, सुनुवार पोसाक Sunuwari Song, Reuhita Ragimshumshaa Hal-Li Or HaliCha हाल्ली खेल Place, Khiji Chandeshwori DVC, Mainland after Kathmandu Month, November/Dec. Only One in the World Players, 12x12, As 12 Month Rule,1 Hali change the Area/court, arranged Marriage Escape Marriage Traction Marriage. Before but not now The 29 Kirat kings were as follows, Yalamber 2
Sunuwar people
–
Kirati Sunuwar
Sunuwar people
–
Sunuwar Udhauli at Nakhipot, Lalitpur, Nepal 6 Dec. 2014
Sunuwar people
–
Sunuwar girl
Sunuwar people
–
Sunuwar culture
7.
Ethnologue
–
Ethnologue, Languages of the World is a web-based publication that contains information about the 7,099 living languages in its 20th edition, which was released in 2017. The publication is well respected and widely used by linguists, Ethnologue is published by SIL International, a Christian linguistic service organization with an international office in Dallas, Texas. Ethnologue follows general linguistic criteria, which are based primarily on mutual intelligibility, shared language intelligibility features are complex, and usually include etymological and grammatical evidence that is agreed upon by experts. These lists of names are not necessarily complete, in 1984, Ethnologue released a three-letter coding system, called an SIL code, to identify each language that it described. This set of codes significantly exceeded the scope of other standards, e. g. ISO 639-1, the 14th edition, published in 2000, included 7,148 language codes. In 2002, Ethnologue was asked to work with the International Organization for Standardization to integrate its codes into an international standard. The 15th edition of Ethnologue was the first edition to use this standard and this standard is now administered separately from Ethnologue according to rules established by ISO, and since then Ethnologue relies on the standard to determine what is listed as a language. e. A language with which no-one retains a sense of ethnic identity, in December 2015, Ethnologue launched a soft paywall, users in high-income countries who want to refer to more than seven pages of data per month must buy a paid subscription. Ethnologues 18th edition describes 228 language families and six typological categories, in 1986, William Bright, then editor of the journal Language, wrote of Ethnologue that it is indispensable for any reference shelf on the languages of the world. In 2008 in the journal, Lyle Campbell and Verónica Grondona said, Ethnologue. has become the standard reference. However, he concluded that, on balance, Ethnologue is a comprehensive catalogue of world languages. Starting with the 17th edition, new editions of Ethnologue are to be published every year, linguasphere Observatory Register Glottolog Lists of languages List of language families Martin Everaert, Simon Musgrave, Alexis Dimitriadis, eds. The Use of Databases in Cross-Linguistic Studies, linguistic Genocide in Education-or Worldwide Diversity and Human Rights. Evaluating language statistics, the Ethnologue and beyond
Ethnologue
–
Three-volume 17th edition
8.
Dolakha District
–
Dolakha, often known as Dolkha or Dholkha, a part of Province No. 3, is one of the districts of Nepal. The district, with Charikot as its headquarters, covers an area of 2,191 km² and has a population of 204,229 in 2001 and 186,557 in 2011. It is a district with a religious affiliation. It is popularly known amongst most Nepalese for the temple of Dolakha Bhimeshawor, the Bhimeshwar temple is located in Dolakha Bazar of Bhimeshwar. The main statue of this temple is god Bhim, Bhimsen or Bhimeshwar or Bhim of Dolakha and is noted as one of the most popular throughout the country Nepal. He was the prince of panch pandav and notably worshiped by the traders or merchandizers as their will god. In Dolakha, the roofless temple constitutes the idol of Bhimsen, the idol in the temple is said to resemble three different gods, Bhimeshwar in the morning, Mahadeva during the day and the Narayana in the evening. Local legend has it that ages ago,12 porters coming from elsewhere stopped at this spot, after a few minutes, it was noticed that one side of the rice grains were cooked but the other side was raw. When the porter flipped the cooked side up, the cooked rice became raw again when it came in contact with the triangular-shaped black-stone. One of the porters became very angry and stubbed the stone with Paneu, later they realized that the stone is God Bhim. Worshippers started pouring in to pray God Bhim onwards, there are many faith-challenging incidents about the Bhimsen of Dolakha. The miraculous things of Bhimsen statue of Dolakha include sweating fluid like drops of warm water, people believe that if any bad incident is happening or going to happen in near future in the country then Bhimsen himself tries to protect his people by warning them through sweating etc. From the point of view of Shree Bhimeshwar Shivapuran, there was a kingdom of Bhima that was blessed by god Brahma at the side of mountain peak. The people, who lived in the Bhimas kingdom had to live very sorrowful lives from the Bhima, then god Shiva came from Gaurishanker and killed the king Bhima. According to the history after Bhimas death, the statue of god at that spot was named -Bhimeshwar, zones of Nepal Dolakha Newar Language Thangmi language Districts of Nepal
Dolakha District
–
Dolakha District
Dolakha District
–
Near
Charikot
Dolakha District
–
Dolakha Bhimsen Temple
9.
Ramechhap District
–
Ramechhap District, a part of Province No. 3, is one of the districts of Nepal, a landlocked country of South Asia. The district, known as Kirat Ramechhap, with Manthali as its district headquarter, covers an area of 1,546 km² and has a population of 202,646 and a density of 137.4 per km2. The district has the highest population of the native group the Kusunda and has the lowest population growth rate in Nepal. The district was named after Ramechhap village, the word Ramechhap comes from two Nepali words, Ram and Chhap. According to folklore, the village of Ramechhap was once occupied by Tamang people, a Tamang of the village, Ram by name received mukhtiyari of the village by royal decree. So, the ownership and other legal activities were performed in the village by the stamp of Ram. Similarly, according to folklore, the grassland of Ramechhap village was occupied by Tamang people. Those people daily used to rear their domesticated animals such as Buffalo, Goat, in Tamang language, Ra means Buffalo, Mey means Goat, and Chhawa means their small offspring. By the time and mouth to mouth pronunciation the meadow has become Ramechhap, hence, the district is called Ramechhap
Ramechhap District
–
Location of Ramechhap
10.
Janakpur Zone
–
The headquarters of Janakpur Zone and its main city is Janakpur. Close to the Indian border, it is a city of Hinduism. The city was believed to be the city of King Janak, the father in law of Lord Rama. The city was then called Mithila Nagari, the name of this zone is related to the historic King Janak and his capital Janakpur. Other cities within Janakpur Zone are Kamalamai and Bhimeshwor and Bardibas, Dhalkebar, Jaleshwor, Malangwa, Gaushala Bazar, Janakpur is divided into six districts, Development Regions of Nepal List of zones of Nepal List of districts of Nepal
Janakpur Zone
–
Janakpur जनकपुर अञ्चल
11.
Okhaldhunga District
–
Okhaldhunga District, a part of Province No. 1, is one of the districts of Nepal, a landlocked country of South Asia. The district, with Okhaldhunga as its headquarters, covers an area of 1,074.5 km² and had a population of 156,702 in 2001 and 147,984 in 2011. Okhaldhunga is part of area traditionally called Wallo Kirat, home to ethnic groups Rai. Apart from these ethnic groups, other ethnics and hill castes live in the district
Okhaldhunga District
–
Okhaldunga name originated from this big old Mortar/Okhal in Nepali
Okhaldhunga District
–
Okhaldhunga ओखलढुङ्गा
12.
Sagarmatha Zone
–
Sagarmāthā is one of the fourteen zones located in eastern Nepal. It includes mountain districts of the Himalayas in the north, hill districts in the center and it is bordered by China to the north, India to the south, the Kosi Zone to the east and the Janakpur Zone to the west. Sagarmāthā is divided into six districts, The main city of the Sagarmāthā Zone is Rajbiraj which is also the headquarters. Other towns of the Sagarmāthā hill area are Katari, Okhaldhunga, Diktel, Salleri and Namche Bazaar, while Kathauna, Lahan, Fatepur, Rajbiraj, triyuga is an emerging city in the zone. Sagarmāthā takes its name from the Nepalese name for Mount Everest, Sagarmāthā means the Head in the Great Blue Sky. Development Regions of Nepal List of zones of Nepal List of districts of Nepal
Sagarmatha Zone
–
Lower Pangboche village in Khumbu, Nepal
13.
Kathmandu
–
Kathmandu is the capital city of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, the largest Himalayan state in Asia. Kathmandu is also the largest metropolis in the Himalayan hill region, the city stands at an elevation of approximately 1,400 metres above sea level in the bowl-shaped Kathmandu Valley of central Nepal. The valley is termed as Nepal Proper and has been the home of Newar culture. The city was the capital of the Kingdom of Nepal and hosts palaces. It has been home to the headquarters of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation since 1985, today, it is the seat of government of the Nepalese republic established in 2008, and is part of the Bagmati Zone in Nepalese administrative geography. Kathmandu has been the center of Nepals history, art, culture and it has a multiethnic population within a Hindu and Buddhist majority. Religious and cultural festivities form a part of the lives of people residing in Kathmandu. Tourism is an important part of the economy as the city is the gateway to the Nepalese Himalayas, there are also seven casinos in the city. In 2013, Kathmandu was ranked third among the top ten upcoming travel destinations in the world by TripAdvisor, historic areas of Kathmandu were devastated by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake on 25 April 2015. Nepali is the most spoken language in the city, while English is understood by the citys educated residents, the city of Kathmandu is named after Kasthamandap temple, that stood in Durbar Square. In Sanskrit, Kāṣṭha means wood and Maṇḍap means covered shelter and this temple, also known as Maru Satal in the Newar language, was built in 1596 by Biseth in the period of King Laxmi Narsingh Malla. The two-story structure was entirely of wood, and used no iron nails nor supports. According to legend, all the used to build the pagoda was obtained from a single tree. The structure collapsed during the earthquake on 25 April 2015. The colophons of ancient manuscripts, dated as late as the 20th century, the city is called Kāṣṭhamaṇḍap in a vow that Buddhist priests still recite to this day. Thus, Kathmandu is also known as Kāṣṭhamaṇḍap, during medieval times, the city was sometimes called Kāntipur. This name is derived from two Sanskrit words – Kānti and pur, Kānti is a word that stands for beauty and is mostly associated with light and pur means place. Thus, giving it a meaning as City of light, among the indigenous Newar people, Kathmandu is known as Yeṃ Deśa, and Patan and Bhaktapur are known as Yala Deśa and Khwopa Deśa
Kathmandu
–
Clockwise from top: Torans seen in portals around Kathmandu, Degutaleju with Taleju in background at
Kathmandu Durbar Square,
Boudhanath Stupa,
Bagmati river,
Budhanilkantha,
Singha Durbar,
Swayambhunath temple at night,
Pashupatinath temple
Kathmandu
Kathmandu
–
Kasthamandap before earthquake
Kathmandu
–
Manjushree, with Chandrahrasa, the Buddhist deity said to have created the valley
14.
Devanagari
–
Devanagari, also called Nagari, is an abugida alphabet of India and Nepal. It is written left to right, has a strong preference for symmetrical rounded shapes within squared outlines. The Nagari script has roots in the ancient Brāhmī script family, the Nagari script was in regular use by the 7th century CE and it was fully developed by about the end of first millennium. Nagari has been the primus inter pares of the Indic scripts, the Devanagari script is also used for classical Sanskrit texts. The Devanagari script is closely related to the Nandinagari script commonly found in ancient manuscripts of South India. Devanagari script has forty-seven primary characters, of which fourteen are vowels, the ancient Nagari script for Sanskrit had two additional consonantal characters. The script has no distinction similar to the capital and small letters of the Latin alphabet, generally the orthography of the script reflects the pronunciation of the language. Devanagari is part of the Brahmic family of scripts of India, Nepal, Tibet and it is a descendant of the Gupta script, along with Siddham and Sharada. Medieval inscriptions suggest widespread diffusion of the Nagari-related scripts, with biscripts presenting local script along with the adoption of Nagari scripts, the 7th-century Tibetan king Srong-tsan-gambo ordered that all foreign books be transcribed into the Tibetan language. Other closely related scripts such as Siddham Matrka was in use in Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, Sharada remained in parallel use in Kashmir. Nāgarī is the Sanskrit feminine of Nāgara relating or belonging to a town or city and it is a phrasing with lipi as nāgarī lipi script relating to a city, or spoken in city. The use of the name devanāgarī is relatively recent, and the older term nāgarī is still common, the rapid spread of the term devanāgarī may be related to the almost exclusive use of this script to publish Sanskrit texts in print since the 1870s. As a Brahmic abugida, the principle of Devanagari is that each letter represents a consonant. This is usually written in Latin as a, though it is represented as in the International Phonetic Alphabet, the letter क is read ka, the two letters कन are kana, the three कनय are kanaya, etc. This cancels the inherent vowel, so that from क्नय knaya is derived क्नय् knay, the halant is often used for consonant clusters when typesetting conjunct ligatures is not feasible. Consonant clusters are written with ligatures, for example, the three consonants क्, न्, and य्, when written consecutively without virāma form कनय, as shown above. Alternatively, they may be joined as clusters to form क्नय knaya, कन्य kanya and this system was originally created for use with the Middle Indo-Aryan languages, which have a very limited number of clusters. When applied to Sanskrit, however, it added a deal of complexity to the script
Devanagari
–
A 19th century
Rigveda manuscript in Devanagari.
Devanagari
–
Devanagiri script (vowels top, consonants bottom) in Chandas font
Devanagari
–
Devanagari text from Vayu Purana.
Devanagari
–
Devanagari देवनागरी
15.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
International Standard Book Number
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A 13-digit ISBN, 978-3-16-148410-0, as represented by an
EAN-13 bar code
16.
Limbu language
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Limbu is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Nepal, India, Bhutan, Burma, Thailand, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Canada, and the USA. It is falsely believed that the Limbu/Yakthung are multi-lingual, but there are hundred and/or thousand of Yakthung who speak only in Yakthungpan, the Limbu refer to themselves as Yakthung and their language as Yakthungpan. Yakthungpan has four dialects, Phedape, Chhathare, Tambarkhole. Among four dialects and/or many dialects, Phedape dialect is widely spoken, as Panthare Yakthungs are much more engaged in central political position and administrative positions, they are trying to introduce Panthare dialect as a Standard Yakthungpan. Yakthungpan is one of the languages spoken and written in Nepal, Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Sikkim, Bhutan, Burma. Today, linguists have reached the conclusion that Yakthungpan resembles Tibetan, before the introduction of the Sirijanga script among Limbu Kirats, the Rong script was popular in East Nepal, especially in the early Maurong state. The Sirijanga script had almost disappeared for 800 years and it was back into use by Te-ongsi Sirijunga Xin Thebe of Tellok Sinam Limbuwan present day Nepal. Limbu is spoken east of the Arun River in the districts of Nepal. Dialect cluster 1 Panthare Chaubise Yanggrokke Dialect cluster 2 Phedappe Tamorkhole Dialect cluster 3 Chhatthare Yanggrokke, Chaubise, chattare is less well understood by other dialect speakers. The Limbu dialect spoken in Sikkim, India is the same as Panthare, Limbu, Lepcha and Newari are the only Sino-Tibetan languages of the central Himalayas with their own scripts. The Limbu script or Sirijanga script was devised during the period of Buddhist expansion in Sikkim in the early 18th century when Limbuwan still constituted part of Sikkimese territory, the Limbu script was probably designed roughly at the same time as the Lepcha script. However, it is believed that the Limbu script had been designed by the King Sirijanga in the 9th century. The Sirijanga script was later redesigned and re-introduced by Tye-Angsi Singthebe, as Tye-Angsi Singthebe spent most of his time in the development of Yakthungpan, Yatkhung culture, and Limbu script, he is considered as the reincarnation of the 9th century King Hang Sirijunga. As Tye-Angsi Singthebe was astoundingly influential person to spread Limbu script, culture, Tasong monks feared that Tye-Angsi Singthebe might transform the social, cultural, and linguistic structure of Sikkim. Therefore, Tasong monks caputured Tye-Angsi, bound on a tree, both Limbu and Lepcha were ostensibly devised with the intent of furthering the spread Buddhism. However, Sirijanga was a Limbu Buddhist who had studied under Sikkimese high Lamas, Sirijanga was given the title the Dorje Lama of Yangrup. The language and scripts influential structure are mixture of Tibetan and Devanagari, unlike most other Brahmic scripts, it does not have separate independent vowel characters, instead using a vowel carrier letter with the appropriate dependent vowel attached. The Limbu language and literature has been practiced in Nepal since the last eighteenth century
Limbu language
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The
Limbu script. Gray letters are obsolete.
17.
Northeast India
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Northeast India is the eastern-most region of India. It comprises of the contiguous Seven Sister States, and the Himalayan state of Sikkim, the Siliguri Corridor in West Bengal, with a width of 21 to 40 kilometres, connects the North Eastern region with East India. The region shares more than 4,500 kilometres of border with China in the north, Myanmar in the east, Bangladesh in the southwest. The northeast India states are officially recognised under the North Eastern Council, the North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Ltd was incorporated on 9 August 1995 and the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region was set up in September 2001. The earliest settlers were Austro-Asiatic speakers, followed by Tibeto-Burmese and lastly by Indo-Aryans, due to the bio- and crop diversity of the region, archaeological researchers believe that early settlers of Northeast India had domesticated several important plants. Writers believe that the 100 BC writings of Chinese explorer, Zhang Qian indicate a trade route via Northeast India. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea mention a people called Sêsatai in the region, in the early historical period, Kamarupa straddled most of present-day Northeast India, besides Bhutan and Sylhet in Bangladesh. Xuanzang, a travelling Chinese Buddhist monk, visited Kamarupa in the 7th century and he described the people as short in stature and black-looking, whose speech differed a little from mid-India and who were of simple but violent disposition. He wrote that the people in Kamarupa knew of Sichuan, which lay to the kingdoms east beyond a treacherous mountain, for many of the tribal peoples, their primary identification is with subtribes and villages, which have distinct dialects and cultures. Many of the peoples in present-day Mizoram, Manipur and Nagaland converted to Christianity under the influence of British missionaries, in the early 19th century, both the Ahom and the Manipur kingdoms fell to a Burmese invasion. The ensuing First Anglo-Burmese War resulted in the region coming under British control. In the colonial period, North East India was made a part of Bengal Province from 1839 to 1873, after Indian Independence from British Rule in 1947, the Northeastern region of British India consisted of Assam and the princely states of Manipur and Tripura. Subsequently, Nagaland in 1963, Meghalaya in 1972, Arunachal Pradesh in 1975, Manipur and Tripura remained as Union Territories of India between 1956 until 1972, when they attained fully-fledged statehood. Sikkim was integrated as the eighth North Eastern Council state in 2002, the city of Shillong served as the capital of the Assam province created during the British Rule. It remained as the capital of undivided Assam until formation of the state of Meghalaya in 1972, the capital of Assam was shifted to Dispur, a part of Guwahati, and Shillong was designated as the capital of Meghalaya. In 1944, the Japanese planned an attack on India. Traveling through Burma, its forces were stopped at Kohima and Imphal by British and this marked the furthest western expansion of the Japanese Empire, its defeat in this area presaged Allied victory. Arunachal Pradesh, a state in the Northeastern tip of India, is claimed by China as South Tibet, Sino-Indian relations degraded, resulting in the Sino-Indian War of 1962
Northeast India
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Madan Kamdev
Northeast India
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Red-orange area shows location of Northeast India within India
Northeast India
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Eastern Bengal and Assam in 1907
Northeast India
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Snowy peak at Sikkim
18.
Singpho dialect
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Singpho is a dialect of the Jingpho language spoken by the Singpho people of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam. It is spoken by at least 3,000 people, Singpho is the local pronunciation of Jingpho. The Jingpho/Singpho, or Kachin, language is a Tibeto-Burman language mainly spoken in Kachin State, Burma and Yunnan Province and these languages are from distinct branches of the highest level of the Tibeto-Burman family. Total estimated native speakers are 950,000, Singpho is spoken the eastern extreme of northeastern India, such as Bordumsa Circle, Tirap District, Arunachal Pradesh, and also in nearby parts of Lohit District
Singpho dialect
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Traditional Singpho attire
19.
Assamese language
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It is one of the easternmost of the Indo-Aryan languages it is spoken by over 13 million native speakers, and serves as a lingua franca in the region. It is also spoken in parts of Arunachal Pradesh and other northeast Indian states, Nagamese, an Assamese-based Creole language is widely used in Nagaland and parts of Assam. Nefamese is an Assamese-based pidgin used in Arunachal Pradesh, small pockets of Assamese speakers can be found in Bangladesh. In the past, it was the language of the Ahom kingdom from the 17th century. The origin of Assamese language is not clear, some believe that it originated from Kamarupi Prakrit used in ancient Kamarupa Kingdom. Its sister languages include Maithali, Odia, Chittagonian, Sylheti and it is written in the Assamese script, an abugida system, from left to right, with a large number of typographic ligatures. Assamese language was in use much before Bengali language was developed as Kamrupa was mentioned in Mahabharata, kampura has its northern boundary at Koshi River and Orissa. Assamese influence can be easily felt in Oriya and Maithali languages. Assamese originated in Old Indo-Aryan dialects, though the nature of its origin. It is generally believed that Assamese and the Kamatapuri lects derive from the Kamarupa dialect of Eastern Magadhi Prakrit. </ref>By keeping to the north of the Ganges, the Indo-Aryan language in Kamarupa had differentiated by the 7th-century, before it did in Bengal or Orissa. These changes were due to non-Indo-Aryan speakers adopting the language. The evidence of language is found in the Prakritisms of the Kamarupa inscriptions. In these works, Assamese features coexist with features from other Modern Indian Languages, from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, songs – Borgeets, dramas – Ankiya Naat and the first prose writings were composed. The literary language, based on the dialects of Assam moved to the court of the Ahom kingdom in the seventeenth century. This period saw the development of prose infused with colloquial forms. The literary language, having become infused with the idiom, became the standard literary form in the nineteenth century. As the political and commercial center shifted to Guwahati after the mid-twentieth century, Assamese is native to Assam Valley which includes Upper-Assam and Lower-Assam regions of the state of Assam. It is also spoken in states of Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland, presence of Assamese script can be found in Rakhine state of present Myanmar
Assamese language
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Silver rupee of Rudra Sinha in Assamese
Assamese language
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Genealogically, Assamese belongs to the group of Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, here marked in yellow.
20.
Indo-Aryan languages
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The Indo-Aryan or Indic languages are the dominant language family of the Indian subcontinent. They constitute a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, itself a branch of the Indo-European language family, Indo-Aryan speakers form about one half of all Indo-European speakers, and more than half of all Indo-European languages recognized by Ethnologue. While the languages are spoken in South Asia, pockets of Indo-Aryan languages are found to be spoken in Europe. The largest in terms of speakers are Hindustani, Bengali, Punjabi. Proto-Indo-Aryan, or sometimes Proto-Indic, is the reconstructed proto-language of the Indo-Aryan languages and it is intended to reconstruct the language of the Proto-Indo-Aryans. Proto-Indo-Aryan is meant to be the predecessor of Old Indo-Aryan which is attested as Vedic. Despite the great archaicity of Vedic, however, the other Indo-Aryan languages preserve a number of archaic features lost in Vedic. Vedic has been used in the ancient preserved religious hymns, the canon of Hinduism known as the Vedas. Mitanni-Aryan is of age to the language of the Rigveda. The language of the Vedas – commonly referred to as Vedic Sanskrit by modern scholars – is only marginally different from Proto-Indo-Aryan the proto-language of the Indo-Aryan languages. From the Vedic, Sanskrit developed as the language of culture, science and religion, as well as the court, theatre. Sanskrit is, by convention, referred to by scholars as Classical Sanskrit in contra-distinction to the so-called Vedic Sanskrit. Outside the learned sphere of Sanskrit, vernacular dialects continued to evolve, the oldest attested Prakrits are the Buddhist and Jain canonical languages Pali and Ardha Magadhi, respectively. By medieval times, the Prakrits had diversified into various Middle Indo-Aryan dialects, Apabhramsa is the conventional cover term for transitional dialects connecting late Middle Indo-Aryan with early Modern Indo-Aryan, spanning roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. Some of these dialects showed considerable literary production, the Sravakachar of Devasena is now considered to be the first Hindi book, the next major milestone occurred with the Muslim conquests on the Indian subcontinent in the 13th–16th centuries. Under the flourishing Turco-Mongol Mughal empire, Persian became very influential as the language of prestige of the Islamic courts due to adoptation of the language by the Mughal emperors. However, Persian was soon displaced by Hindustani and this Indo-Aryan language is a combination with Persian, Arabic, and Turkic elements in its vocabulary, with the grammar of the local dialects. The two largest languages that formed from Apabhramsa were Bengali and Hindustani, others include Sindhi, Gujarati, Odia, Marathi, the Indo-Aryan languages of Northern India and Pakistan form a dialect continuum
Indo-Aryan languages
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Dogri–Kangri region
Indo-Aryan languages
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1978 map showing Geographical distribution of the major Indo-Aryan languages. (
Urdu is included under Hindi.
Romani,
Domari, and
Lomavren are outside the scope of the map.)
21.
Bengali language
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Bengali, also known by its endonym Bangla, is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in South Asia. With over 210 million speakers, Bengali is the seventh most spoken language in the world. Dominant in the last group was Persian, which was also the source of some grammatical forms, more recent studies suggest that the use of native and foreign words has been increasing, mainly because of the preference of Bengali speakers for the colloquial style. Today, Bengali is the language spoken in Bangladesh and the second most spoken language in India. Both the national anthems of Bangladesh and India were composed in Bengali, in 1952, the Bengali Language Movement successfully pushed for the languages official status in the Dominion of Pakistan. In 1999, UNESCO recognized 21 February as International Mother Language Day in recognition of the movement in East Pakistan. Language is an important element of Bengali identity and binds together a diverse region. Sanskrit was spoken in Bengal since the first millennium BCE, during the Gupta Empire, Bengal was a hub of Sanskrit literature. The Middle Indo-Aryan dialects were spoken in Bengal in the first millennium when the region was a part of the Magadha Realm and these dialects were called Magadhi Prakrit. They eventually evolved into Ardha Magadhi, Ardha Magadhi began to give way to what are called Apabhraṃśa languages at the end of the first millennium. Along with other Eastern Indo-Aryan languages, Bengali evolved circa 1000–1200 AD from Sanskrit, for example, Ardhamagadhi is believed to have evolved into Abahatta around the 6th century, which competed with the ancestor of Bengali for some time. Proto-Bengali was the language of the Pala Empire and the Sena dynasty, during the medieval period, Middle Bengali was characterized by the elision of word-final অ ô, the spread of compound verbs and Arabic and Persian influences. Bengali was a court language of the Sultanate of Bengal. Muslim rulers promoted the development of Bengali as part of efforts to Islamize. Bengali became the most spoken language in the Sultanate. This period saw borrowing of Perso-Arabic terms into Bengali vocabulary, major texts of Middle Bengali include Chandidas Shreekrishna Kirtana. The modern literary form of Bengali was developed during the 19th and early 20th centuries based on the dialect spoken in the Nadia region, a west-central Bengali dialect. Bengali presents a case of diglossia, with the literary
Bengali language
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Shohid Minar, or the Martyr's monument, in
Dhaka, commemorates the struggle for the Bengali language.
Bengali language
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The word "Bangla" in the
Bengali alphabet
Bengali language
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Pages from the
Charyapada.
Bengali language
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An example of handwritten Bengali. Part of a poem written in Bengali (and with its English translation below each Bengali paragraph) by Nobel Laureate
Rabindranath Tagore in 1926 in Hungary.
22.
Bishnupriya Manipuri language
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Bishnupriya Manipuri language uses the Bengali alphabet as its writing system. Bishnupriya Manipuri is spoken in parts of Assam and Tripura in India, in the Sylhet region of Bangladesh, Burma and it is different from many Indian languages like Bengali, Assamese, Oriya, etc. The language originated and developed in Manipur and was confined to the surroundings of the Loktak Lake. Dr. Grierson refers to the language as Bishnupuriya Manipuri, while some other writers call it simply Bishnupriya. Consequently, it was difficult for the number of Bishnupriyas who remained in Manipur to retain their language in the face of the impact of Meitei. Grierson found the existence of a number of speakers in two or three villages near Bishnupur, locally known as Lamangdong. The language slowly started losing its ground in Manipur against a vast majority of Meiteis and is facing its decay in Cachar. This language is still being spoken in Jiribam, Cachar and in pockets in Bangladesh. The language is known to its speakers as Imar Thar, meaning Language of my Mother and they call themselves and their language Manipuri, and use the term Bishnupriya to distinguish them from other ethnic groups of Manipur. The term Bishnupriya is most probably derived from Bishnupur the exit town of the Manupuri Valley, along with the suffix -iya, the name of the language is a point of contention between the Indian states of Assam and Manipur. Orthodox Bishnupuriya or Bishnupriyas hold that the language was carried over to Manipur by some immigrants from Bishnupur, Mallabhum and it is further said that these immigrants were led by Babhruvahana, the son of Chitrangada and Arjuna, the third Pandava. They hold that BPM is highly influenced by Sanskrit and Maharastri as well as Sauraseni Prakrits, Dr. K. P. Sinha, who has done considerable research on Bishnupriya Manipuri, disagrees with the theory and is of the opinion that the language was originated through Magadhi Prakrita. It is found from his observations that the language has retained dominant characteristics of Magadhi, according to Dr Sinha, pronouns and declensional and conjugational endings seem to be same as or closely related to those of Maithili, Oriya, Bengali and Assamese. These forms of Oriya, Bengali and Assamese are, on their parts, at a different stage of development of the language the Sauraseni, Maharashtri and Magadhi languages and the Tibeto-Burman languages exerted influence on it as well. So it was developed from Sanskrit, Sauraseni-Maharashtri Prakrit and Magadhi Prakrita. The Sauraseni-Maharastri relation can be traced by observing some characteristics of pronouns. The Magadhi element is remarkable, as the language retains many characteristics of Magadhi. It can further be noted that Bishnupriya Manipuri retains much of the old Meitei sound vocabulary, Bishnupuriya or Bishnupriya Manipuri have two dialects, namely Rajar Gang and Madai Gang. Unlike the dialects of other tribes, these dialects of Bishnupriya are not confined to geographical areas
Bishnupriya Manipuri language
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Bishnupriya Manipuri
