Ajay Kumar at 17:11, 29 August 2023

2023-08-29T17:11:11Z

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{{Short description|Sino-Tibetan of India}}
{{Infobox language
|name=Kanashi
|nativename=
|region=[[Himachal Pradesh]]
|speakers=1,700
|date=2015
|ref=e17
|familycolor=Sino-Tibetan
|fam2=[[Tibeto-Kanauri languages|Tibeto-Kanauri]] ?
|fam3=[[West Himalayish languages|West Himalayish]]
|iso3=xns
|glotto=kana1283
|glottorefname=Kanashi
}}

'''Kanashi''' is a [[Sino-Tibetan languages|Sino-Tibetan]] language spoken in the isolated [[Malana, Himachal Pradesh|Malana]] (Malani) village area in [[Kullu District]], [[Himachal Pradesh]], India. It is, to some extent mutually intelligible with other Sino-Tibetan language like kinnauri.

== Sociolinguistic situation ==
Currently there are roughly 1700 active speakers of Kanashi in the Malana Nala which is up from the previous estimate of 1400 in the early 2000s. Its current status to date is threatened.<ref>Chauhan, [http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/3235], ''Endangered Languages'', 2002</ref> The village that uses this language is located roughly 10,000 feet above sea level isolated from civilization.

== Simple sentences ==
It seems apparent that speakers of Kanashi favor [[Simple sentence|simple sentences]] over [[complex sentence|complex]] and [[compound sentences]] due to the sporadic usage of the later two. Kanashi speakers use both [[subject–verb–object]] order and [[subject–object–verb]] order. The interesting fact about Kanashi is that being a pro normalized language it doesn't require the subject and verb to be mentioned separately, particularity in 1st and 2nd person when these are incorporated in the verb form itself.<ref name=TribalHimachal>[http://www.mittalbooks.com/products/Tribal-Languages-Of-Himachal-Pradesh-%28Part-1%29.html D. D. Sharma, Tribal Languages of Himachal Pradesh Part-Two], ''Mittal Publications'', 1992</ref>

== Gender ==
In Kanashi there seems to be a lack of [[grammatical gender]]. The natural gender that has no bearing on the other constituents within an utterance is distinguished in one of two ways. The first is to use distinct terms for groups of males and females and second is by prefixing terms with the meaning father or mother to the substantive in question. In addition, gender distinction occurs only among humans – all [[animacy|inanimate and animate]] non-human objects tend to be genderless.<ref name=TribalHimachal/>

== Numbers ==
Kanashi tends to use mostly [[noun]]s, [[pronoun]]s and [[verb]]s. Pronominal and nominal stems are inflected for two numbers, viz. singular and plural only. If desired the dual number can be indicated as "nis" for two as in two men. The absence of a plural marker indicates singularity in Kanashi however, in non formal speech the plural marker is left out too because it is inferred from the context of the sentence. Plural marker suffixes are also left out if numerals other than the numeral for one or by terms such as many, several, all, some, a few, etc.<ref name=TribalHimachal/> The numeral system also uses a unique form to represent a base ten system. Twenty is stated as twice ten and forty is twice twice ten.<ref>T. C. Hodson, Note on the Numeral Systems of the Tibeto-Burman Dialects, ''Jstor'', 1913</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* [https://www.jstor.org/stable/25189119 Kanashi on Word for Water] at ''Jstor''
* [http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Language-to-trace-Malana- Language to Trace Kanashi History] at ''The Times of India''
* [doi:10.5750/bjll.v6i0.799 Reduplication in Kanashi] ''The Buckingham Journal of Language and Linguistics''

{{Bodic languages}}

[[Category:Languages of Himachal Pradesh]]
[[Category:West Himalayish languages]]
[[Category:Endangered languages of India]]

Kanashi language - Revision history

Ajay Kumar at 17:11, 29 August 2023