Nepal Bhasa (नेपाल भाषा, also known as Newah Bhaye and Newari)
is one of the major languages of Nepal. It is one of the roughly five hundred Sino-Tibetan languages in the world, and belongs to the Tibeto-Burman branch of this family. It is the only Tibeto-Burman
language to be written in the Devanāgarī script. It is spoken mainly by the Newars (and may be referred to as Newari), who chiefly inhabit
the towns of the Kathmandu Valley.
Although Nepal Bhasa is classified as a Sino-Tibetan language, it shows
resemblances with Indo-Iranian languages as well.
The Newar
or Newah are the indigenous
group of Nepal's Kathmandu
valley. Newars are a linguistic community with
multiple ethnicity, race (Mongolian, Aryan, Austro-Dravidian) and faith, bound
together by a common language1. New genetic study of the Y
Chromosome haplotypes amongst native Nepalese by Dr Bing Su, Dr Peter Underhill
et al, has revealed that the Newar (and other native Kirat people /
Sino-Tibetans) originated from the Yellow River basin around 10,000 years ago..
The
term Newar applies roughly to the people who inhabited Kathmandu valley and its
peripheries before the unification of Nepal and speaking Nepal Bhasa or the languages progenitor of Nepal Bhasa. According to
Nepal’s 2001 census, the 1,245,232 Newar in the country are the nation's sixth
largest ethnic group, representing 5.48% of the population. The main
Newar language, Nepal Bhasa, is of
Tibeto-Burman origin and
825,458 Nepalis speak Newari languages as their mother language.
