RajiâÂÂRaute is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family that includes the three closely related languages, namely Raji, Raute, and Rawat. They are spoken by small hunter-gatherer communities in the Terai region of Nepal and in neighboring Uttarakhand, India.
Like some other Tibeto-Burman languages, RajiâÂÂRaute languages have voiceless sonorants.
Raute and Rawat are closely related; Raji is more distantly related. Fortier classifies the RajiâÂÂRaute languages as follows. Note that language varieties that classify within the Rawat subgroup are known by various names; Raute of Dadeldhura/Darchula is taxonomically a Rawat language, and is not to be confused with Raute proper.
Schorer (2016:293) classifies RajiâÂÂRaute as part of his newly proposed Greater Magaric group.
A database of 700 words for items from households of Raute and Ban Rawat speakers (Fortier 2012) indicates a largely Sino-Tibetan language ancestry. Deep Root items include 58 words of Sino-Tibetan origin and 7 of Austroasiatic origin. Proto-family items include 281 morphemes of Proto-Tibeto-Burman origin. Meso-root, or subfamily items include 34 words of Proto-Kuki-Chin origin, 23 of Proto-Tani origin, 6 of Proto-Tangkulic origin, and 1 of Northern Chin origin. The database omits most loans of Indo-Aryan origin although 43 items were of Sanskrit origin. Work remains on identifying etymologies of the remaining 247 items in the RauteâÂÂRawat database.
Raji-Raute varieties are spoken in the following areas of Nepal and India.
The comparative vocabulary lists of Raji and Raute below are from Rastogi & Fortier (2005). Rastogi & Fortier (2005) also provide Purbia Raji and Janggali Raute forms.
The following is a 100-word Swadesh list from Rastogi & Fortier (2005).
Rastogi & Fortier (2005) list the following body part terms.