First-fruits ritual
Chasok Tangnam
The season's first grain is offered to the ancestors and the earth before any household eats it.
Language profile
Yakkha
याक्खा
Yakkha is a Kiranti language of the Arun valley with very few child speakers left. Documentation projects have recorded its ritual language and complex verb agreement before the last fluent generation.
- Language family
- Sino-Tibetan › Kiranti
- Script
- Devanagari, Kirat
- Speakers
- ≈ 14,000
- Status
- Severely endangered
- Also called
- Dewan, Yakkhaba
- Greeting
- Sewa
Where Yakkha is spoken
Where it is spoken
Geographic distribution
SankhuwasabhaDhankutaPanchtharIlam
Script
Devanagari, Kirat
Writing sample
याक्खा
Scripts carry more than sound: letterforms, numerals and orthographic conventions record centuries of contact, patronage and revival.
Note
Numeral documentation for Yakkha is in progress with community contributors.
Words & expressions
Everyday speech
सेवा
Sewa
Greetings
खेनि निङ्वा?
Kheni ningwa?
Do you understand?
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
Sirijanga (Limbu)
Script attributed to Sirijanga Thebe and revived in the 18th century; taught today in Limbuwan schools.
Vowels
ᤀᤁᤂᤠᤡᤢᤣᤤᤥᤦ
Consonants
ᤁᤂᤃᤄᤅᤆᤇᤈᤉᤊᤋᤌᤍᤎᤏᤐᤑᤒᤓᤔᤕᤖᤗᤘᤙᤚᤛᤜ
Numerals
᥆᥇᥈᥉᥊᥋᥌᥍᥎᥏
Words
Core vocabulary
मा
ma
mother
चुवा
chuwa
water
खिम
khim
house
सेवा
sewa
greetings
याक्खा
Yakkha
Yakkha (self-name)
मुन्धुम
mundhum
oral scripture
चासोक
Chasok
first-fruits festival
सिली
sili
dance step
Idioms & sayings
How the language thinks
चासोक बिना अन्न
Chasok bina anna
Grain without Chasok — taking without thanks.
History
How Yakkha came to be written and spoken
Kirat era
Yakkha settlement in Sankhuwasabha and Dhankuta within the Limbuwan–Kirat sphere.
20th century
Shift to Nepali in schooling and work; speaker numbers fall sharply.
Today
Grammar and dictionary work with community researchers; Chasok Tangnam revived publicly.
Tales
Told and retold
Indigenous knowledge
Knowledge carried in the language, not in books
Household ancestor hearth
Ritual duties tied to the fireplace, with named ancestral seats that guide seating and offerings.
Cardamom and citrus agroforestry
Shade cardamom under alder, an eastern-hill system that holds slopes and yields cash.
AI preparedness index
How ready is Yakkha 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 readiness0.88%
ISO 639-3
ybh
Speakers (index)
9,999
Endangerment
Definitely endangered
Open datasets
7
Published models
1
Wikipedia articles
0
Dictionary exists
Yes
Full text corpus
Yes
These figures place Yakkha 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 (Yakkha, ybh). Scores are readiness percentages across the full index of 6,000+ languages.
Stories
Oral tradition
Ritual
Ancestral hearth naming
At every household ritual the officiant names each ancestor back through the clan line, a genealogy kept only in speech.
Songs & music
Sung heritage
♪
Chyabrung songs
Drum dance
Shared with Limbu neighbours, with Yakkha lyrics.
Recording being catalogued
Culture & traditions
Festivals, dress, food, craft
Festivals
Chasok TangnamSakela
Dress
Handwoven cotton with beaded ornaments.
Food
Kinema, wachipa, millet beer.
Crafts
Bamboo work, drum making.
People & community
The people who keep Yakkha alive
Yakkha villages along the Arun, culturally close to Limbu and Rai neighbours.
Language → People → Place → Culture → Heritage
Yakkha → Yakkha villages along the Arun → Sankhuwasabha, Dhankuta, Panchthar → Chasok Tangnam → audio, video, text and images held with community consent.
Related languages
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