Bantawa Bantawa Rai is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the western Himalayan hills by the Bantawa Rai ethnic group. Population estimates vary between 20 and 60 thousand, but the more reasonable fall around 35,000 speakers. With this number it is one of the more widely spoken Rai languages, but still falls into the below-100,000 category of endangered languages Bantawa has several dialects – at least two in my area of concern, Wana Bantawa (also called simply Bantawa) which is spoken by the Bantawa subcaste and Amcauke, which is spoken by the Amcauke subcaste. Bantawa is also reportedly in use as a lingua franca among Rai minorities Himalayan India and Bhutan (N.K. Rai 1985 and Bradley 1996 qtd. in Ethnologue 2003).
Posted on: Tue, 01 Apr 2014 05:10:30 +0000