Nepali is an
Indo-Aryan language spoken in
Nepal,
Bhutan, and some parts of
India and
Myanmar (Burma).
It is the lingua-franca of Nepal and also one of 23 Official languages of India incorporated in 8th annex of the Indian Constitution. It is a lingua-franca of the state of Sikkim and has official language status in West Bengal's Darjeeling district. Similarly it is spoken in State of Uttaranchal as well as in the state of Assam. Roughly half of the population of Nepal speaks Nepali as a mother tongue. Beside this some casr and religions use their own language as their first language. However, the official language of Nepal is Nepali.
Nepali goes by various names. It was also called Gorkhali or Gurkhali, "the language of the Gurkhas," and Parbatiya, "the language of the mountains." Khaskura is the oldest term, literally speech of the Khas, who were peasants in the Karnali-Bheri basin of far western Nepal since prehistoric or early historic times. Khaskura exists in opposition to Khamkura, a group of Tibeto-Burman dialects spoken by Kham peoples in the highlands separating the Karnali-Bheri basin from the Gandaki basin in central Nepal.
Perhaps 500 years ago, the Khas migrated eastward, bypassing the inhospitable Kham highlands to settle in the lower valleys of the Gandaki basin, which were well suited to rice cultivation. One notable extended family settled in Gorkha, a small principality about halfway between Pokhara and Kathmandu. In the late 1700s a scion named Prithvi Narayan Shah raised an army of Gurungs, Magars and possibly other hill tribesmen and set out to conquer and consolidate dozens of small principalities in the Himalayan foothills. Since Gorkha had replaced the original Khas homeland as the center of political and military initiative, Khaskura was redubbed Gorkhali, i.e. language of the Gorkhas.
