The language spoken by the Walung people is the
Walungge language, similar to the dialect of the
Dinggyê County,
Tibet and has 71% lexical similarity with the
Lhasa Tibetan. Clark (2019) places it in a group which he calls "WDT Bhote", where the three varieties are Walungge, Thudam, and Dhokpya (Thokpya, Tokpegola). The speakers of these varieties reside in
Taplejung and
Sankhuwasabha in
Province No. 1,
Nepal, although some speakers reported areas outside of those districts, including in
Tibet, where the language is also spoken. These claims have not been investigated. There is a lack of connection between the various villages, especially regarding language names. Clark (2019) received a variety of names when asking the question "what are the names for your language and people group?", and states that many Walung use "
Sherpa" to identify both, along with "Bhote". When asking "Do any groups of villages speak the same way [as yours]?", Clark received varying answers from his four sites, where each indicated Walung, Walung indicated Yangma (which was not one of the study sites) and
Tibet, and Ghunsa indicated all four study sites.
Other Names Walungge has also been known as Walungge Keccya, Halungge, Walongchung Gola, and Walunggi. The suffix
-ge or -
ke is the
Tibetan word for language.
Classification The
Tibetic languages as a whole are an area of conflict for the linguistic community, largely due to the complexity of the
continuum of dialects that makes up the branch.
Nicolas Tournadre (2014) places Walungge and Dhokpya (he calls it Tokpe Gola) under his
South-Western Tibetic branch. The WDT Bhote languages are not usually the targets of study. ==References==