Nepali, also known as Gorkhali or Gurkhali is an Indo-Aryan language. It is the official language and lingua franca of Nepal, and also spoken by the Indian Gorkha, a large number of Bhutanese and some Burmese people. In India, Nepali is listed in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India having an official status in the Indian state of Sikkim and in West Bengal'sDarjeeling district.
Nepali developed in proximity to a number of Indo-Aryan languages, most notably the Pahari languages and Magahi, and shows Sanskrit influences. However, owing to Nepal's geographical area, it has also been influenced by Tibeto-Burman languages.
Nepali is mainly differentiated from Central Pahari, both in grammar and vocabulary, by Tibeto-Burman idioms owing to close contact with the respective language group.
Nepali language shares 40% lexical similarity with the Bengali language. British resident at KathmanduBrian Houghton Hodgson has observed that it is, in eight-tenths of its vocables, substantially Hindi.
Historically, the language was first called the Khas language (Khas kurā), then Gorkhali orGurkhali (language of the Gorkha Kingdom) before the term Nepali was coined. Other names include Parbatiya and Pahari ("mountain language")
Literature
Nepali developed a significant literature within a short period of a hundred years in the 19th century. This literary explosion was fueled by Adhyatma Ramayana; Sundarananda Bara (1833); Birsikka, an anonymous collection of folk tales; and a version of the South Asian epic Ramayana by Bhanubhakta Acharya (d. 1868). The contribution of trio-laureates Lekhnath Poudyal, Laxmi Prasad Devkota, and Balkrishna Sama took Nepali to the level of other world languages.
The contribution of writers outside Nepal, especially in Darjeeling and Varansi in India, is also notable. In the past decade, there have been many contributions to Nepali literature from the Nepali diaspora in Asia, Europe, and America. (Source: Wikipedia)
