Do we really need to Say ‘Newari’? 

Daya R. Shakya 
Portland, Oregon USA

“His Mejesty’s government has decided to name ‘Nepal Bhasha’ instead of ‘Newari’ language which has been broadcasted in the government media. This decision was taken in the meeting of council of minsters held yesterday … The Newar community had been since long demanding that ‘Newari’ be called ‘Nepal Bhasha’.-The Rising Nepal 9/8/96

Even though the above statement was published about a decade ago, knowingly or unknowingly the Newah people have been adding an ‘i’ to the word “Newar” to indicate its adjective form. By virtue of being non Indo-Aryan language adding an “i” in Newar is grammatically incorrect (Malla 1999). 

In this short essay, an attempt has been made to present some linguistic arguments on why the word ‘Newari’ is ungrammatical. The name of language itself is wrongfully called NEWARI. Historically the name of the Newah language is NEPAL BHASHA or colloquially it is known as the NEWAH BHAAYE. No historical proof is available to indicate the language of Newah people by the term NEWARI. It is the word that is used by non-Newah people by influence of own language. It has been discovered that the first use of this term is found in the writings of Prof.Brain Hudson in essays on Nepal and Tibet with influence of his consultants appointed by the then Ranas. For further explanation in this topic please refer to the article ‘In naming the language’ by this writer in Newah Vijnaana-2, 1998. According to the feature of Tibeto-Burman language a word by itself is not enough to indicate the name of a language as listed below. 

Here the words /lhapsye/, /ke/, /paan/, /tam/, /dhut/ mean‘language’ in their native term. Therefore the language of Newah people also needs to be addressed by the phrase ‘Newah Bhaaye’, a colloquial form of ‘Nepal Bhasha’. That is a compound form of ethnic name and the native word for language. Hence the term NEWARI is uncommon and not acceptable to the native Newah people. By examining the phonological features of Newah Bhaaye it is noteworthy tht the structures of many Newah words are mono or bi-syllabic as shown in the following examples:

If the words are other than mono or bi-syllabic they must fit into phonological justification. Many of multi-syllabic words used in Newah language are borrowed from other languages and if the native words are multi-syllabic they must be written or pronounced with phonological change as shown in following words:

In addition to above native words there is a whole set of words in Nepal Bhasa that show a phonological difference between underlying and written forms. Some examples of these forms are given below:

From the above list it can be identified that Nepal Bhasha words end in vowel not as Nepali words that end in consonant such as Jhyaal, suruwaal, degal, mandir etc. It is considered that the Newah word undergoes phonological process of deleting the final syllable when they are used in a sentence. So any words which need to be pronounced with long vowel at the end of word can be assumed that it has extended form as given in column1 and current written form as in column 2. The column 3 illustrates deleted sounds ‘agam’such as, -sa. -la, -ta, -tha, -ma, -kha. This is a fact that Newah words undergo phonological change and maintain the grammatical requirements. In addition, a message of ‘ who is doing what to whom’ is marked in any language by using a linguistic device called case mark or kaarak in the form of bibhakti (in Nepali). The case marks are attached with noun words as suffixes or also called as post-positions where as in English all the case marks are called pre-positions fro instance ghar-maa or in a house. In Newah languge also, all the English pre-positions are known as post-positions because they are suffixed to the noun words. In order to deliver a message from a speaker to a listener, the case marks are very important in a language. Hence, the case marks are unavoidable device of Newah grammar. There is a set of Newah case marks in English, Nepali and Newah as listed below:

The newah case marks given in column (4) above are listed in regular form and they undergo the process of phonological change when they occur with a noun of different forms of final syllable including vowel and consonant endings as shown below:

It is obvious from the above table that many of Newah words consist of variousstructures either with vowel ending or consonant endings. When these words are attached with case marks they assimilate with the form of the final syllable as illustrated in table-7 showing a suffix of agent /-aN/ or instrumental/ -aN/ and ablative /-aN/ case marks equivalent to Nepali case marks /-le/,/dekhi/ and /-baata/. Here ‘N’ represents the preceding vowel is nasalized) for the meaning of these words please refer to appendix at the end.

I ddition, the following table(8) illustrates the structure of noun words with case marks of receipient (yaata) or location (-e) similar to Nepali forms /-laai/ and /-maa/. This suffix is derived from the classical or the old form /-Sa/. Ex.’Raja kula –sa’’ in the palace’. The genitive case mark /-yaa-/or /-ko/ in nepali, requires to note whether the noun is animate (living) or inanimate (non-living) either with/-mha/ or /-gu/ siffiexed to the base morpheme /-yaa-/.

From the table (8) above, it is noticeable that to fulfill the message of ‘who is doing what to whom and where’ it is obligatory to add the suffixes to noun and maintain the rule of Newah language grammar. The suffix ‘yaata’ does not change the form of the noun, whereas adding the locational case mark /-e/ is not consistent in most of the words which contain different vowel quality as shown above (8) Thus, according to the structure of the final syllable of a word the locational case marking suffix /-e/ undergoes changes as stated below.

(9)
/-e/ changes to
1. /-i/ in I and u ending words as in column 1 and 5 
2. /-ae/ in consonant ending words as in column 7 /-e/ stays same in /-e/, /-a /,/- aa/ and /-o/ ending words as in column 2, 3, 4 and 6 

This comes to the point that due to inconsistent occurrence of the locational suffix any Newa noun word with this suffix mislead to native speakers and confusion arises with lack of proper analysis and understanding. Now a question arises how the consonants appear when the locational suffix is added as in /swaapu-ti/,’ ‘In relationship’, /so-lae/ ‘in a nest , /no-lae/’ ‘balancing rod’, /suruwaa-lae/ ‘in a trouser’ etc. In order to identify such a hidden consonant the speakers are being advised to understand that any noun generally listed in a dictionary is simply a surface form of current use. To identify the actual form of noun word first of all it has to be sue in a sentence and add case marks. If the form of noun changes an automatic consonant appear with case marking suffixed. As for example, when the locational case mark /-e/ is added with the word Nepaah or Newaah, dabuu, puchah, they become Nepaa(l)-ae, Newaa-(l)-ae, Dabu-(l)-i, and puch-(l)-ae. The appearance of (l) with these words is due to the phonological justification within morphological boundary and it is called ‘Agam’ in Nepal Bhasha grammar ( Joshi 1990). When these words are written in Devnagari a colon(:) is used however in Roman alphabet an (h) is used as conventionalized way to indicate a log vowel. In linguistic terms, it is called ‘conmmpensatory lengthening of vowel’. For this reason an ‘h’ has been acvised to add with the word ‘Newaa’ to represent exact pronounciation discriminating against the pronounciation of the sounds in /mewaa/’ papaya’ and /sevaa/’ service’. This is important feature of Newah language and it is very rare in other languges spoken in Nepa. Due to this hidden feature, many Newah speakers are not aware of correct and adjective form of Newah words. Therefore, they simply and randomly use “NEWARI” with influence of rules of the dominating Nepali language.

Now going back to adding ‘i’ in Newar. I claimed in the very beginning of this article that adding ‘i’ in Newar is grammatically incorrect. From the table (8) the word ‘Newar’ can be categorized under the consonant ending words and it is a proper noun that indicates to people. It is used as an agent who does something or to some body. According to the rule of Newah grammar the adjective form of ‘Newar’ can not be ‘Newari’. It is simply indicates by the word Newar by itself such as Newah chalan, Newah Bhoe, Newah sanskriti, Newah Bhaaye, Newah sanstha etc not as Newari chalan, Newari Bhoe, Newari sanskriti, Newari Bhaaye, Newari sanstha. These are all unacceptable phrases in Newah language.

If we add locative suffix to consonants ending word simply we can add ‘ae’ as shown in the rules mentioned in (9). Therefore the Nepali phrase of NEWAR MAA is simply written “Newar-ae”. But the word Newar is not native or underlying old form. Therefore the actual word used in Newah language is “Newaal-ae”. This word has very close link with the country Nepal and the language spoken in Nepal is known as Nepal Bhasha.. Newar people are very much concerned when their language is called by ‘Newari’. Due to lack of awareness even the native Newars use the word ‘Newari’. The writer of this paper believes that after reading this paper the Newah people would understand the rule of Newah grammar and give up using the word NEWARI.

Appendix -2 
Usage of Locative case /-e/ with place and country name.

Germany -i
New Jersey-i
Tamilnadu-i

India -e
Mexico-e
North Carolina -e
Florida-e
America –e

Japan-ae
Bhutan-ae
France ae
Bharat-ae
Ohio -ae
Portland-ae