Wambule (Nepali: वाम्बुले Vāmbule) is the language of the Wambule Rai, one of the Kiranti (Nep. किरान्ती) tribes of eastern Nepal. Wambule is spoken by more than 5,000 people living around the confluence of the Sunkosi (Nep. सुनकोसी) and Dudhkosi (Nep. दूधकोसी) rivers near Kui-Bhir Hill. The Wambule-speaking area comprises the southernmost part of Okhaldhunga district, the westernmost part of Khotang district, the northernmost part of Udaypur district, and the northeasternmost part of Sindhuli district. Current distribution of Human Language Families A language family is a group of related languages said to have descended from a common proto-language. ... The Sino-Tibetan languages form a putative language family composed of Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia. ... The Tibeto-Burman family of languages (often considered a sub-group of the Sino-Tibetan language family) is spoken in various central and south Asian countries, including Myanmar (Burma), northern Thailand, and parts of Western China (Tibet Autonomous Region, Qinghai (Amdo), Gansu, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Hunan), Nepal, Bhutan, India (Himachal... The Kiranti languages form a sub-group of the Tibeto-Burman language family, which is itself a branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is an international standard for language codes. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the “International Phonetic Alphabet”. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Unicode is an industry standard allowing computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in any of the worlds writing systems. ... Nepali (Khaskura) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Nepal, Bhutan, and some parts of India and Myanmar (Burma). ... Kirant or Kirat refers to the Kiranti group or Kirat confederation that includes the Rai, Limbu and Sunuwar ethnic groups of Nepal. ... Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth above mean sea level. ...

Some others names by which the Wambule language is also known from the literature are 'Chouras'ya' , 'Chourase' and 'Umbule'. The Wambule use several native and Nepali names to designate their language, such as 'Vāmbucaurās Rāḍuyor', 'Caurāsiā', 'Ombule', 'Umbule' and 'Vāmbule'. The language most closely related to Wambule is the western neighbour Jero.

The mythological past

According to the Wambule legend, there was no earth at the beginning of time. There was only a single aqueous orb. The gods called in the help of seven suns to dry up the aqueous orb. After stones had become visible, termites made a mound of mud. Then insects, seedlings and birds were created. After the creation of the earth, the gods thought of creating the primordial living being. They created a human made of gold. When they tried to make it say things, the human could not utter a single sentence. The gods made many attempts and used different kinds of golden metals, but all these creatures failed to speak. In the end, the gods created a human made of a mixture of bird’s dung and ashes. This human was able to speak, but it spoke so badly that the gods became angry and cursed it by inflicting mortality upon it and its kind. The Wambule say that the proof that a human is made of dung and ashes is given by the bad odour emitted by rubbing one’s body.

The historical past

According to Gaṇeś Rāī, the Wambule tribe is named after one of their kings called Vāṅbu, who is also commonly known as Vāṅbāhāṅg ‘king Vāṅbā’. His subjects were known as Vāmbule and his domain was called Vāmdyāl or Vām Dyāl (Vām Village). Candra Bahādur Rāī also claims that the tribe is named after Waŋbu, one of the tribe’s most important hwaŋpo ‘king’. This king, or rather chief, is said to rule over an area comprising the southern part of the present-day district of Okhalḍhuṅgā some time prior to the unification of Nepal under Pṛthvī Nārāyaṇ Śāh, King of Gorkhā, and his successors.

External links

• Home site of the वाम्बुले राई समाज, नेपाल Wambule Society of Nepal
• Jean Robert Opgenort's site with much information on Wambule
• Ethnologue report on Wambule

References

• Opgenort, Jean Robert Matheus Leonard. 2002. The Wāmbule Language (xxix + 615 = 644 pp., 39 illus.). Amsterdam: Jean Robert Opgenort. ISBN 90 807158 1 6 – 2002. [The author’s doctoral dissertation, Leiden University, 6 June 2002].
• Opgenort, Jean Robert Matheus Leonard. 2004. A Grammar of Wambule. Grammar, Lexicon, Texts and Cultural Survey of a Kiranti Tribe of Eastern Nepal. Brill's Tibetan Studies Library. Languages of the Greater Himalayan Region, 2. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill. ISBN 90 04 13831 5 - 2004.
• Opgenort, Jean Robert Matheus Leonard. In press. ‘About Chaurasia’, in Linguistics of the Himalayas and Beyond. Roland Bielmeier, Felix Haller, eds. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.