Language
Their Kumaoni language forms the Central subgroup of the Pahari languages.
Kumaoni is one of the 325 recognized Indian languages, and is spoken by over 2,360,000 (1998) people of Indian states of Uttarakhand - Almora, Nainital, Pithoragarh, Bageshwar, Champawat, Rudrapur (Udhamsingh Nagar) districts; Uttar pradesh; Assam; Bihar; Delhi; Madhya Pradesh; Maharashtra and Punjab, besides being spoken in some regions of Himachal Pradesh and Nepal.
Amongst its dialects, the Central Kumauni is spoken in Almora and northern Nainital, North-eastern Kumauni is in Pithoragarh, South-eastern Kumauni is in South-eastern Nainital, Western Kumauni is west of Almora and Nainital.
UNESCO’s Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger designates Kumaoni as language in the unsafe category and which requires consistent conservation efforts.
Read more about this topic: Kumaon Division
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“An art whose medium is language will always show a high degree of critical creativeness, for speech is itself a critique of life: it names, it characterizes, it passes judgment, in that it creates.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“Different persons growing up in the same language are like different bushes trimmed and trained to take the shape of identical elephants. The anatomical details of twigs and branches will fulfill the elephantine form differently from bush to bush, but the overall outward results are alike.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)