Christopher Jay Manders
The goal of this Nepali grammar is to provide a reference to the fundamental Nepali parts of speech, its word types, and its rules of word formation from the Nepali perspective. The book begins with a brief description of the Devanagari script and of common pronunciation rules. Then a brief history of the Nepali language is presented. The subsequent chapter on word types and origins is followed by a chapter on the parts of speech. The remainder of the text concerns Nepali word formation and its paradigms. Taken all together, the foundation in Nepali grammar is intended to be useful in conjunction with other learning materials, or literary works, in Nepali itself.
Christopher Jay Manders, B.A., M.B.A., currently works for the University of California, San Francisco. In his spare time he enjoys travelling, reading, writing, pursuing various projects, and especially spending time with his family. His interest with Nepal and Nepali started in 1986, while attending World College West, and led to several years spent studying in Nepal itself, mainly in Kathmandu.
Nepali is the official language of Nepal, though it is also widely spoken along the Himalayan mountain areas as a common medium of communication, or lingua franca. Nepali is also considered one of the national languages of India and is found in many places, including Darjeeling, the Indian state of Assam, as well as internationally in Hong Kong, England, America and elsewhere. Nepali, in its use as a lingua franca in these and other locations, can cross ethnic, linguistic and political boundaries, where-ever Nepali sub-cultures exist.
Nepali has been known by many names throughout its history and development, including Gorkhali (the language of the people of Gorkha), Khas, Khas Kura, Parvati or Parbatiya. Only within the last two hundred years of political control of Nepal has the language come to be known as Nepali (meaning literally ‘of Nepal’). Also for approximately two centuries (at least since the unification of Nepal under Prithvi Narayan Shah in 1768) the name Gorkhali (meaning literally ‘of Gorkha’) has been used to refer to the Nepali Language, since it is the language from the Gorkha area that Prithvi Narayan Shah used for his policies of unification for Nepal. The first noted printed, literary use of the name Nepali as the name for the language was made by Ayton in a book entitled A Grammar of the Nepali Language, published in 1820.
