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Magar (मगर भाषा Dhut magar bhasa) is a language spoken mainly in West-Central Nepal, Southern Bhutan, Darjeeling, India, and Sikkim, India, by the Magar people. Magar belongs to the Bodic branch of the Tibeto-Burman language family, and contains two dialects: Tanahu, the western branch of Magar, and Syangja, an eastern branch of Magar. In 2001, it was estimated that there were approximately 770,116 speakers of the language. Even with this large number of speakers, the language is still considered endangered at level 6b (threatened) since the number of children using and learning the language is rapidly declining.

While the government of Nepal developed Magar language curricula, as provisioned by constitution, the teaching materials have never successfully reached Magar schools, where most school instruction is in Nepali language. It's not unusual for groups with their own language to feel that the "mother-tongue" is an essential part of identity. Dhut Magar language is sometimes lumped with Kham magar language spoken further west in Bheri, Dhaulagiri, Karnali and Rapti zones. Although the two languages have a large number of words in common, they have major structural differences and are not mutually intelligible.

Western Magar
Western Magar (dialects: Palpa and Syangja) is spoken in the following districts of Nepal (Ethnologue).


 * Lumbini Zone: Palpa District
 * Gandaki Zone: Syangja District, and Tanahu District
 * Small border area in Dhawalagiri Zone: Parbat District
 * Scattered throughout Bheri Zone: especially in Surkhet District, Jajarkot District, and Dailekh District
 * Magars are also live in the district named parbat which is located in the western part of Nepal.

Eastern Magar
Eastern Magar (dialects: Gorkha, Nawalparasi, and Tanahu) is spoken in the following districts of Nepal (Ethnologue).


 *  Zone 1: central mountains of Nepal east of the Bagmati River 
 * Gandaki Zone: Tanahu District and southern Gorkha District
 * Lumbini Zone: Palpa District and Nawalparasi District
 * Small border area in Bagmati Zone: Dhading District
 *  Zone 2: eastern Nepal 
 * Sindhuli District, Janakpur Zone
 * Okhaldhunga District, Sagarmatha Zone
 * Scattered communities in central Kosi Zone and southern Mechi Zone

Consonants
The Magar language contains 37 consonants. Around half of the consonants contain a murmured-voice counterpart, and several consonants include aspirated or dental counterparts. For places of articulation in the table below, voiced consonants appear in the right sub-column and their voiceless counterparts appear in the left sub-column. All 37 consonants are found in the Tanahu dialect of Magar, while the Syangja dialect of Magar does not contain the dental stops [t̪ ], [t̪ʰ], [d̪ʰ], [d̪]. Within Tanahu, the words containing [t̪ ], [t̪ʰ], [d̪ʰ], [d̪] are borrowed from the Nepali language.

Vowels
The Magar language contains 10 phonemic vowels. This includes 4 dipthongs [ei] [oi] [au] [eu], and 6 monopthongs detailed in the table below. Magar's six-vowel system /i e ʌ u o a/ is similar to that of Nepali, likely as a result of language contact with Nepali. Additionally, the dipthong [eu] is found primarily in words borrowed from the Nepali language.

Syllable Structure
Magar has the syllable template (O)(A)(G)V(G)(C), where O represents an obstruent, A represents an approximant, and G represents a glide. Within Magar the simplest allowable syllable structure is V, and the most common syllable structure is CV where C is either an obstruent or approximant.

Syllable structure in Magar is organized according to the sonority hierarchy, with more sonorant consonants such as glides located closer to the vowel nucleus of the syllable. In syllables with complex onsets, the first consonant is usually an obstruent. All consonants are allowed in simple onsets, with the exception of /r/ which appears in consonant clusters of (O)(R)(G). While native Magar codas typically consist of at most a single consonant, words borrowed from the Nepali language may include consonant clusters (e.g. sʌrk ' 'cobbler' ). Codas in Magar also exclude [h]. Furthermore, the consonants [b], [bɦ], [d], [dɦ], [g], [gɦ], [c],  [cʰ],  [j], and [jʰ] only appear in the codas of words borrowed from the Nepali language, and not in the codas of native Magar words.

Stress and Tone
Within Magar, stress is predictable and typically falls on the root morpheme of the word. If the root consists of multiple syllables, then the stress will fall on the last syllable, e.g. the stressed syllable is "dam" in the morpheme / lu.kuj.'dam/ ('owl'). Magar originally did not make use of tone, but there is ongoing development of two distinct registers: a clear register, and a murmured register resulting from borrowed elements of the Nepali language.

Morphology
Magar is classified as an agglutinative language and makes use of prefixes, circumfixes, and suffixes. Verbs in Magar also make use of circumfixes. Compared to other Himalayish languages, Magar contains more suffixes relative to prefixes.

Affixation in Magar
The table below lists several major uses of affixation and examples, including number, tense, classifier, aspect, and mood.

Nominalization
Nominalization is present within Magar verbs and has a derivational effect. There are 3 nominalizing suffixes: -cyo ~ cʌ, -ke, and -mʌ.

Reduplication
In Magar, reduplication most commonly has an intensifying effect, with examples given in the table below. In some instances, reduplication has a derivational effect. For example, /siŋgar/ is a verb meaning 'adorn', and the reduplicated form /siŋgar-paŋgar/ is the noun meaning 'adornment'.

Compounding
Nouns may be formed via compounding in Magar. Nouns can be combined with other nouns, quantifiers, or verbs, as shown in the table below.

Case
Magar makes use of an ergative/absolutive case system. There are four grammatical case clitics present in both dialects of Magar: absolutive, ergative, dative, and genitive.

Absolutive Case
In Magar, the absolutive case is zero-marked. The absolutive case is used to indicate the object of a transitive verb or the subject in an intransitive clause. mipruŋ-∅ mis-a

Mirpung-ABS sleep-PST

'Miprung slept' (Example marking the subject of an intransitive clause) mipruŋ-e cho-∅

Mirpung-ERG rice.meal-ABS

'Miprung ate a meal' (Example marking the object of a transitive verb)

Ergative Case
The ergative case, which is used to identify the subject of a transitive verb, is marked with the suffix -e. If the ergative case-marked directly follows the vowels /e/, /a/, or /ʌ/, it has the form allomorph -i. Note that the Tanahu dialect of Magar differs from the Syangja dialect in that Tanahu only marks agents as ergative in the past-perfective aspect. The following examples from the Syangja dialect of Magar shows the ergative case over all tense-aspect combinations: hari-e beskaŋ jya-a

Hari-ERG bread eat-PST

'Hari ate the bread.'hari-e beskaŋ jya-mʌ-le-a

Hari-ERG bread eat-NOM-IMPF-PST

'Hari was eating bread.'hari-e beskaŋ jya-le

Hari-ERG bread eat-IMPF

'Hari eats bread.'hari-e beskaŋ jya-mʌ-le

Hari-ERG bread eat-NOM-IMPF

'Hari is eating bread.'

Dative Case
The dative case, which is used to indicate the noun to which an object is given, is marked with the suffix -ke. The following examples show the dative case markers occuring in clauses with ditransitive verbs: ram-e ŋa-o wa-ke charo kas-aŋ

Ram-ERG IS_GEN chicken-DAT chicken.food feed

'Ram fed my chicken chicken feed.'ŋa-e chiniŋ naŋ-ko-ke hi ahan set-le-aŋ

IS-ERG today 2-P-DAT what story tell-IMPF-1PRO

'Today, what story will I tell you?'

Genitive Case
The genitive case indicates the relationship of possession. In the singular case, the genitive case is marked with the suffix -o as in the following example:cyu-o mi-talu sisi-aŋ hahɦ-a

dog-GEN POSS-head bottle-LOC lock-PST

'The dog's head got stuck in the bottle.' In the plural case, the genitive case is marked with the suffix -uŋ, as shown in the following example:rokotyak-ko-uŋ mi-ja-ko dɦari thuprai raɦ-a

frog-PL-GEN POSS-child-PL also many come-PST

'The frogs' many children also came'

Basic Word Order
Magar makes use of a subject-object-verb word order, as shown in the example below. S O V

ram-ke ŋɦet-ke kas-ak-a

Ram cow feed

“Ram feed the cow”

Possessee and Possessor Structures
When expressing possession in Magar, the possessor comes after the possessee.Possessee Possessor

ruma-o mi-ja

Ruma-GEN POSS-child

"Ruma's child"

Adposition and Noun Phrase Structures
As seen in the example below, in Magar the adposition comes after the noun phrase.Noun.Phrase Adposition

dɦodɦara 		dɦem-aŋ

log		up-locative

"atop the log"

Determiner and Noun Phrase Structures
In Magar, the determiner precedes the noun phrase.Determiner Noun.Phrase

i-se		bɦormi-ko

P.DEM-DEF		men-PL

"these men"

Yes/No Question Particle and Clause Structures
For yes/no questions in Magar, the question particle comes after the clause.Clause - - Question.Particle

cho tʌyar chanɦ-a ma-chanɦ-a

meal ready become-PST NEG-become-PST

"Is the meal ready, or not?’