Kumaon · Western Himalaya & Trans-Himalaya
Kumaoni is a Central Pahari language, sister to Garhwali across the watershed and continuous with the Doteli of the far-western Nepali hills across the Kali. It has no official status, no medium of instruction and no settled orthography, and most of its speakers are bilingual in Hindi from primary school onwards. Its internal divisions are named after old parganas rather than districts, because a pargana was a basin and a basin is what people married and traded within. Alongside it, and unrelated to it, the region holds a set of Tibeto-Burman languages in the high valleys and Tharu and Buksa in the terai.
Speech varieties
The Almora and Nainital register, and the one broadcasting, publishing and the stage settled on as standard Kumaoni.
Speakers: Roughly 2.1 million returned Kumaoni overall in the 2011 Census, certainly an undercount
The Champawat and Kali valley speech, from the Chand dynasty's original seat — often described as the oldest-sounding Kumaoni and the closest to Doteli across the river.
The Soar valley around Pithoragarh and the Askot country above it, in contact with both the Rung languages upstream and Nepali speech across the Kali.
The Danpur country behind Bageshwar, up towards the Pindari glacier — the variety carried by the chanchari songs, and the one closest to the Garhwali frontier.
Spoken in Darma, Byans and Chaudans behind Dharchula by communities who ran the Tibet trade. Rangkas, the related language of the Johar valley, is no longer spoken — the Johar Shaukas shifted to Kumaoni within a few generations of taking up trade and education on the Indian side.
Speakers: A few thousand speakers each, concentrated in three valleys
The languages of the terai communities who lived in the malarial belt before it was cleared, and who were displaced within it by post-1950s settlement.
Indigenous terminology
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Aipan ऐपण | Ritual floor and wall drawing in white rice paste on a red ochre ground, made freehand with the fingers for a named occasion and a named place in the house. |
| Biswar बिस्वार | The soaked, ground rice paste used to draw aipan. It has to be made fresh, it dries chalk-white, and it washes off — the impermanence is part of the practice. |
| Talaun and upraun तलाऊँ / उपराऊँ | Irrigated valley-bottom land and rain-fed upland terrace. The distinction sets the crop, the value and, historically, the standing of the household that holds it. |
| Dhar and gaad धार / गाड़ | Ridge and stream — the two axes of the entire settlement pattern. Villages sit on the dhar or on the slope between the two, and hundreds of place names end in one or the other. |
| Bhaddu भड्डू | The lidded, narrow-mouthed bronze pot used to cook pulses and rajma slowly in embers. Passed down, and still asked for by name at Almora's metal shops. |
| Pisyun loon पिस्यूँ लूण | Literally ground salt — salt pounded on a stone with garlic, chilli, turmeric and herbs into a paste that keeps for weeks. |
| Hurka and hurkiya हुड़का / हुड़किया | The waisted hand drum whose pitch is bent by squeezing the lacing, and the hereditary singer-drummer who plays it at jagars, transplanting and fairs. |
| Jagariya and dangariya जगरिया / डंगरिया | The singer who calls the deity, and the person into whose body it comes. Neither role is chosen; the dangariya in particular is identified by the deity. |
| Kham खाम | The four clan divisions at Devidhura between whom the Bagwal is fought. Membership is inherited and determines which side of the ritual battle a man stands on. |
| Kafal काफल | The box myrtle, which fruits red-purple for a few weeks from April, cannot be transported far and is therefore the definition of a seasonal, local pleasure. |
| Ghughuti घुघुती | The hill dove, and by extension the fried dough figures strung for children at Uttarayani and offered to the crows. |
| Thulma and dan थुलमा / दान | The thick napped wool blanket and the Bhotiya floor rug — the two things every high-valley loom made. |
Sayings
| Saying | Literally | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Pailag | I touch your feet | The standard Kumaoni greeting to anyone older, answered with "jeeti raye, jaag raya" — live long, stay awake. The reply is a blessing rather than a greeting, and it is not optional. |
| Bedu pako baro masa, kafal pako chaita | The wild fig ripens all twelve months, the kafal ripens in Chaitra | What is always available is not what is wanted. Sung as a love song and quoted as a proverb, and the first line of Kumaoni most outsiders can produce. |
| Kafal pako, main na chakho | The kafal has ripened, and I did not taste it | From the folktale of the girl beaten over fruit she had not eaten. Said of an injustice discovered too late to correct, and heard as an actual bird call each spring. |
| Pahad ka paani aur pahad ki jawani, pahad ke kaam nahin aati | The mountain's water and the mountain's youth are of no use to the mountain | The line that frames every conversation about migration in the region. Both run downhill and neither returns. |
| Golu ke darbar mein | In Golu's court | Said of a matter that has gone beyond human arbitration. Golu Devta's shrines take written petitions, and the phrase is used exactly as one would use a reference to a court of last resort. |
Speech varieties, indigenous terminology and sayings of Kumaon. (17)