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The national language of Nepal is known as
"Nepali". According to the most recent official
census, conducted by
His
Majesty's
Government of Nepal (HMG) in 2001, Nepal is
home to around 20 million speakers of Nepali. Nepali is the mother
tongue for 11 million people.
Outside of Nepal, Nepali is also spoken in
northeast India and in much of Bhutan. Nepali as a major language
of India. In Bhutan, while Dzongkha is the national language, Nepali is
widely spoken by people from diverse ethnic backgrounds.
Nepali is an Indo-Aryan language, and thus part of a linguistic
grouping which includes other South Asian languages such as Hindi,
Bengali, Marathi and Gujarati. Nepali is written in the Devanagari
(or 'Nagari') script, which is also used for Hindi, Marathi and
Sanskrit. Nepali Devanagari has 11 vowels and 33 consonants.
| spoken in |
Nepal, India, Bhutan and
other countries with Gujarati migrants. |
| Total speakers: |
35 million |
| Classification: |
Indo- European
Indo-Iranian
Indo-Aryan
Pahari
(Northern zone)
|
|
Ranking: |
57 |
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