Magar Kham (मगर खाम), also known as Kham, Kham Magar, and Khamkura, is the Sino-Tibetan language variety of the Northern Magar people of Nepal. The language is situated in the upper elevations of Baglung, East Rukum, and Rolpa districts. Based on census data taken in 2021, the total population of Magar Kham is estimated to be about 91,753 speakers.
Language classification
Magar Kham is a Sino-Tibetan language, and it is classified by David Bradley as “Central Himalayan,” and as being related to Magar and Chepang and more distantly related to the Kiranti languages. George van Driem also classifies Magar Kham as “Para-Kiranti,” emphasizing that Magar Kham, Magar, and Chepang are united more by their differences from the Kiranti cluster than by their similarity to one another. Within this cluster, Magar Kham possesses a number of unique grammatical features, and shares only 44% lexical similarity with Magar and 38% with Chepang.
Dialects
Magar Kham speakers generally refer to their dialect using the name of an important village or river in conjunction with the Nepali instrumental suffix [-le] or the genitive suffix [-i]. Thus, it can be said that Magar Kham has as many dialects as there are villages and rivers in their native territory. The table below presents the major dialects of the Magar Kham language as they have been classified by David E. Watters. For this reason, each of these dialects have been given its own ISO 639-3 designation.
Speakers
Based on the census data taken in 2021, the total population of Magar Kham speakers is estimated to be about 91,753 persons. The national language of Nepali is spoken confidently by all individuals under 35 years old. In some communities (Sheshi and Eastern Parbate), parents have shifted to speaking Nepali with their children, and the speaker population is gradually decreasing. However, in all of East Rukum and in the Gam river valley of Rolpa, the language is being vigorously transmitted. Ethnologue has assigned the following EGIDS levels to each variety:
- Western Parbate Kham [kjl]: level 5 (Developing)
- Eastern Parbate Kham [kif]: level 6b (Threatened)
- Gamal Kham [kgj]: level 6a (Vigorous)
- Sheshi Kham [kip]: level 6b (Threatened)
The UNESCO Endangered Languages Project has classified Gamal Kham as "Vulnerable."
Phonology
Consonants
The Taka dialect of Western Parbate Kham has 22 consonant phonemes while Gamal Kham possesses around 29 to 30 consonant phonemes. dialect. All others appear in every Kham dialect.
- These phonemes do not occur in Parbate Kham.
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! bgcolor="#BECFEB" | IPA
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{|class="wikitable" align="center" width="250"
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!|क || ख || ग || घ || ङ
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!|च || छ || ज || झ || ञ
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!|ट || ठ || ड || ढ || ण
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!|त || थ || द || ध || न
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!|प || फ || ब || भ || म
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!| य || र || ल || व
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!| श || ष || स || ह
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! क्ष || त्र || ज्ञ
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Vowels
{| border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" style="text-align:center;border:1px solid #ccc;" summary="Parbate Kham transliteration system"
|+ style="font-weight:bold;" | Vowels for Parbate Kham
Reconstruction
Proto-Kham has been reconstructed by Watters (2002). Proto-Kham reconstructions from Watters (2002: 443–456) are given below.