Dance-drama
Ghatu
Two girls in trance play a king and queen across months of performance, from courtship to death and mourning.
Language profile
Gurung
तमु क्यी / Tamu Kyi
Tamu Kyi is spoken on the southern slopes of Annapurna and Lamjung Himal. Its pye-ta lhu-ta ritual texts, memorised by pachyu and khlepri priests, are among the longest oral compositions recorded in Nepal.
- Language family
- Sino-Tibetan › Tamangic
- Script
- Devanagari, Khema (Tamu)
- Speakers
- ≈ 330,000
- Status
- Vulnerable
- Also called
- Tamu Kyi
- Greeting
- Kaila / Tashi delek
Where it is spoken
Geographic distribution
KaskiLamjungGorkhaManangSyangjaTanahun
Script
Devanagari, Khema (Tamu)
Writing sample
तमु क्यी
Scripts carry more than sound: letterforms, numerals and orthographic conventions record centuries of contact, patronage and revival.
Note
Numeral documentation for Gurung is in progress with community contributors.
Words & expressions
Everyday speech
तान्नोम्
Tannom
Hello / well met
क्यु मुइ?
Kyu mui?
How are you?
ध्यबा
Dhyaba
Thank you
Alphabet
Letters and numerals
Devanagari
Official script of Nepal, used for Nepali and most Indo-Aryan and many Tibeto-Burman languages of the country.
Vowels
अआइईउऊऋएऐओऔअंअः
Consonants
कखगघङचछजझञटठडढणतथदधनपफबभमयरलवशषसहक्षत्रज्ञ
Numerals
०१२३४५६७८९
Tibetan (Uchen)
Script of Himalayan Buddhist literacy, used for Sherpa, Dolpo, Lowa and monastic teaching across the high valleys.
Vowels
ཨིེོུ
Consonants
ཀཁགངཅཆཇཉཏཐདནཔཕབམཙཚཛཝཞཟའཡརལཤསཧཨ
Numerals
༠༡༢༣༤༥༦༧༨༩
Words
Core vocabulary
आमा
ama
mother
क्यु
kyu
water
ढिं
dhin
house
तम्
tam
speech
घाटु
ghatu
trance dance
रोदी
rodhi
youth gathering house
पछ्यु
pachyu
shaman
तमु
Tamu
Gurung (self-name)
Idioms & sayings
How the language thinks
रोदीमा सिकेको बात
Rodhi ma sikeko baat
What was learned in the rodhi — knowledge gained among peers, not from books.
History
How Gurung came to be written and spoken
Early era
Tamu settlement of the Annapurna and Lamjung slopes; pachyu and khlepri ritual lines established.
1815 onwards
Large-scale recruitment into Gurkha regiments transforms village economies and spreads remittance networks.
Today
Tamu Lhosar as national holiday; Tamu Dhee bodies record Ghatu, Krishna Charitra and clan genealogies.
Tales
Told and retold
Indigenous knowledge
Knowledge carried in the language, not in books
Rodhi as school
The evening house where song, courtship, work-sharing and dispute talk were taught to every adolescent.
Transhumant sheep herding
Migration between high kharka and valley stubble, with wool-blanket weaving in the off season.
AI preparedness index
How ready is Gurung for language technology?
Overall readiness
0.15%
readiness score from the global index of 6,000+ world languages
AI resource readiness0.00%
Infrastructural readiness45.97%
Socioeconomic readiness0.93%
ISO 639-3
gvr
Speakers (index)
360,000
Endangerment
Definitely endangered
Open datasets
3
Published models
1
Wikipedia articles
0
Dictionary exists
Yes
Full text corpus
Yes
These figures place Gurung on the readiness index: how much machine-readable text, speech and model work already exists, and how far the digital and socioeconomic conditions around its speakers support building them. A low AI resource score is exactly where corpus collection changes the outcome.
Source: global language readiness index (Gurung, gvr). Scores are readiness percentages across the full index of 6,000+ languages.
Stories
Oral tradition
Ritual epic
Pye-ta lhu-ta
The priest guides the dead through eighteen stations of the journey, naming ancestral villages in a geography older than the present settlements.
Songs & music
Sung heritage
♪
Ghatu
Trance dance-drama
Young girls dance the story of a king and queen over months of rehearsal.
Recording being catalogued
♪
Rodhi songs
Youth-house song
Improvised exchange songs between young men and women.
Recording being catalogued
Culture & traditions
Festivals, dress, food, craft
Festivals
Tamu LhosarGhatu PurnimaChandi Purnima
Dress
Ghalek and honju for women, bhangra and kachhad for men.
Food
Dhindo with sisnu, sukuti, kodo ko raksi.
Crafts
Bamboo mat weaving, sheep-wool blankets, brass ritual ware.
People & community
The people who keep Gurung alive
The Tamu (Gurung) people, transhumant shepherds and, for a century, soldiers abroad — with rodhi youth houses at the centre of village learning.
Language → People → Place → Culture → Heritage
Gurung → The Tamu (Gurung) people → Kaski, Lamjung, Gorkha → Tamu Lhosar → audio, video, text and images held with community consent.
Related languages
Thakali
थकाली / Tamang Kyi
Sino-Tibetan › Tamangic
Tamang
तामाङ / ཏའ་མང་
Sino-Tibetan › Tamangic
Magar Dhut
मगर ढुट
Sino-Tibetan › Magaric
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