Belhare is a Kiranti language

Kiranti languages

The Mahakiranti or Maha-Kiranti languages are a proposed intermediate level of classification of the Tibeto-Burman languages. They are the languages most closely related to the Kiranti languages proper, which are spoken by the ethnic Kirat...

 spoken by some 2,000 people living on the Belhara hill, at the southern foothills of the Himalayas situated in the Dhankuta district

Dhankuta District

Dhankuta District , a part of Kosi Zone, is one of the seventy-five districts of Nepal, a landlocked country of South Asia. The district covers an area of 891 km² and has a population of 166,479., Dhankuta is the district headquarters and a major administrative region in the Eastern...

 in Eastern Nepal

Nepal

Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...

.

All speakers of Belhare are bilingual in Nepali

Nepali language

Nepali or Nepalese is a language in the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family.It is the official language and de facto lingua franca of Nepal and is also spoken in Bhutan, parts of India and parts of Myanmar...

, this results in frequent code mixing

Code-switching

In linguistics, code-switching is the concurrent use of more than one language, or language variety, in conversation. Multilinguals—people who speak more than one language—sometimes use elements of multiple languages in conversing with each other...

 and a large amount of Nepali loan-words. Nevertheless, the grammar of Belhare has maintained its distinct Kiranti characteristics.

Like other Kiranti languages

Kiranti languages

The Mahakiranti or Maha-Kiranti languages are a proposed intermediate level of classification of the Tibeto-Burman languages. They are the languages most closely related to the Kiranti languages proper, which are spoken by the ethnic Kirat...

, Belhare is characterized by an elaborate morphology in both the nominal and verbal domain. Syntactically, Belhare has partly an accusative, partly an ergative pivot

Syntactic pivot

The syntactic pivot is the verb argument around which sentences "revolve", in a given language. This usually means the following:*If the verb has more than zero arguments, then one argument is the syntactic pivot....

, but accusative syntax is more prominent in terms of frequency.

Consonants

	Bilabial	Apical Apical consonant An apical consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the apex of the tongue . This contrasts with laminal consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the blade of the tongue .This is not a very common distinction, and typically applied only to fricatives...	Palatal	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....	Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
Plosives	p pʰ b (bʱ) p ph b (bh)	t tʰ d (dʱ) t th d (dh)		k kʰ ɡ (ɡʱ) k kh g (gh)	ʔ ʔ
Fricatives		s s			h h
Affricates			ts tsʰ (dz) (dzʱ) c ch (j) (jh)
Nasals Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...	m m	n n		ŋ ŋ
Laterals Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth....		l l
Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... s		r (rʱ) r (rh)
Approximants	w w		j y

Vowels

	front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...	central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel...	back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...	i ĩ i ĩ		u ũ u ũ
mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel...	e e	(ʌ) (ʌ)	o o
open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...		a a

The phonemes in parentheses only occur in loanwords from Nepali.

External links

• Ethnologue report on Belhare
• A short introduction to Belhare and its speakers