Nepali is the national language of Nepal. Besides being spoken as a mother tongue by more than 48% of the population of Nepal, it is also spoken in Bhutan and India. The language is recognized in the Nepali constitution as an official language of Nepal.
The variety presented here is standard Nepali as spoken in Nepal. There are three major dialects: eastern, central, and western. Though many dialects can be distinguished in Nepal and other South Asian countries, there is reported to be little variation in phonology from one to another.
Vowels[]
Nepali has 11 phonologically distinctive vowels, including 6 oral vowels and 5 nasal vowels (indicated in the IPA with tildes ~). In addition, due to a process of h-deletion, there are words in which some speakers produce long vowels, such as [paaɽ] ('mountain'), analyzed phonemically as /pʌɦaɖ/.[1]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i ĩ | u ũ | |
| Close-mid | e ẽ | o | |
| Open-mid | ʌ ʌ̃ | ||
| Open | a ã |
Consonants[]
Spoken Nepali has 33 consonants in its native system though some have tried to limit the number to 27.
| Bilabial | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||||||||||
| Stop | p pʰ |
b bʱ |
t tʰ |
d dʱ |
ts tsʰ |
dz dzʱ |
ʈ ʈʰ |
ɖ ɖʱ |
k kʰ |
ɡ ɡʱ |
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| Fricative | s | ɦ | ||||||||||||
| Rhotic | r | |||||||||||||
| Approximant | (w) | l | (j) | |||||||||||