The Kulung Community is an established indigenous peoples of Nepal belongs to the descent of ancient greater Kirati. It has a separate language. The structure of their language has been categorized by linguists and language experts, in their study, under the Tibeto-Burmese language, like the languages of many other indigenous nationalities, as its main root. As the kulung language exists only in spoken form, it is phonetically and semantically represented by Devanagari scripts. With the help of phonologist Dr. Madhav Pokhrel and linguist Mr. Amrit Yongen Tamang, the Kulung language experts had a thorough discussion and, 21 consonants and 12 vowels were identified. While transcribing in kulung language, the system is to use only a long vowel symbol and a colon (:) with the long vowel symbol for a long sound. The kulung kirats call themselves as 'Kulu Rodu' in their language. 'Kulung' is in fact is a word in a changed form of 'Kulu' and is used/called by kulung non speakers. |