Dura language

Dura () is an extinct language of Nepal. It has been classified in the West Bodish branch of Tibetan languages, though more recent work separates it out as an independent branch of Sino-Tibetan. Many of the Dura have switched to speaking Nepali, and the Dura language has sometimes been thought to be extinct. Some of the people who have switched to Nepali for their daily speech still use Dura for prayer.

The Himalayan Languages Project is working on recording additional knowledge of Dura. Around 1,500 words and 250 sentences in Dura have been recorded. The last known speaker of the language was the 82-year-old Soma Devi Dura (Soma Maya Dura), although professor Madhav Pokharel claims she did not speak Dura, but rather a Nepali-based "argot".

Classification

Schorer (2016:293) classifies Dura as part of his newly proposed Greater Magaric branch.

Distribution

The ethnic Dura people mostly live in Lamjung District, with some in neighboring Tanahu District of Gandaki Province in central Nepal. They mostly live on farms in the hilly countryside. Different recent census counts have reported the number of Dura people anywhere from 3,397 to 5,676.

Dura villages include:

• बाँग्रे Bāṅgre
• बेसी बाँग्रे BesÄ« Bāṅgre
• बेसी फाँट BesÄ« Phā̃ṫ
• सिन्दुरे Sindure
• धुसेनी DhusenÄ«
• नस्के Naske (Dura majority)
• नेटा Neṭā
• चन्दि गाउँ Candigāũ
• भाँगु Bhāṅgu
• मालिङ Māliá¹Â
• आरीकोसे ĀrÄ«kose
• ठूलो स्वाँरा ṬhÅ«lo Svā̃rā (Dura majority)
• खजे गाउँ Khaje Gāũ
• तुर्लुङ Turluṅ (Dura majority)
• तान्द्राङ्कोट Tāndrāṅkoṫ
• Kunchha
• Bhorletar

Other ethnic groups in the Dura region include the Gurung, Brahmins, Chetrīs, Kāmī, and Damāi.

Tandrange

A closely related language variety called Tandrange (Nepali: Tāndrāṅe; IPA: tandraŋe) is spoken in a few Gurung villages. Tandrange is spoken in the villages of TāndrāṠतान्द्राङ, Pokharī Thok पोखरी थोक, and Jītā जीता. However, Tandrange speakers adamantly consider themselves as not related to the stigmatized Dura people.

Vocabulary

Schorer (2016:126-127) provides the following 125-word Swadesh list of Dura.

Numerals

Dura numerals are (Schorer 2016:146-147):

• 0. liŋa
• 1. nām, kyau, di-
• 2. jÊ°im
• 3. sām
• 4. pim
• 5. kum
• 6. cyām (Indo-Aryan loanword)
• 7. syām (Indo-Aryan loanword)
• 8. him
• 9. tum
• 10. tÊ°im
• 20. jÊ°im-tÊ°Ä«
• 30. sām-tÊ°Ä«
• 100. tÊ°iŋganā, kātÊ°erāgo
• 1,000. jena

Reconstruction of Proto-Dura

Schorer (2016:286-287) reconstructs the following Proto-Dura words.

• *hāyu ‘blood’
• *cÊ°iũŋ ‘cold’
• *kim ‘house’
• *ti ‘water’
• *krut ‘hand’
• *kyu ‘stomach’
• *yāku ‘night’
• *mamÄ« ‘sun’
• *lām- ‘path’
• *luŋ ‘stone’
• *daŋ- ‘to see’
• *rā- ‘to come’
• *khāC- ‘to go’
• *yʱā ‘to give’
• *cÊ°i- ‘to say’

See also

• (Wiktionary)
• Schorer, Nicolas. 2016. The Dura Language: Grammar and Phylogeny. Leiden: Brill. https://brill.com/view/title/33670
• Pons, Marie-Caroline. 2021. Review: The Dura language: Grammar and phylogeny. Himalayan Linguistics, 20(1). http://dx.doi.org/10.5070/H920155279

References

External links

• The last of Nepal's Dura speakers BBC news story