Tamang | |
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तामाङ, རྟ་དམག་ / རྟ་མང་/ | |
Native to | Nepal India Bhutan |
Ethnicity | Tamang/Moormi |
Native speakers | 1.4 million in Nepal (2021 census)[1] 20,154 in India (2011 census)[2] |
Tamyig script, Devanagari, Tibetan | |
Official status | |
Official language in | Nepal |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | Variously:taj – Eastern Tamangtdg – Western Tamangtge – Eastern Gorkha Tamang |
Glottolog | nucl1729 |
Tamang (Devanagari: तामाङ; tāmāng) is a term used to collectively refer to a dialect cluster spoken mainly in Nepal, Sikkim, West Bengal (Darjeeling) and North-Eastern India. It comprises Eastern Tamang, Northwestern Tamang, Southwestern Tamang, Eastern Gorkha Tamang, and Western Tamang. Lexical similarity between Eastern Tamang (which is regarded as the most prominent) and other Tamang languages varies between 81% and 63%. For comparison, the lexical similarity between Spanish and Portuguese is estimated at 89%.[4]