Nepalbhasha: On the Way to Standardization

Presented by the 2025 Toronto Newar Summer School

Nepalbhasha has gone through a journey of ups and downs, from the Rana regime to the Panchyat and onward too. Despite the hard-ship users of Nepal-bhasa have been trying to standardize it, a pro-cess towards which they contributed in dif-ferent ways, namely, through the use of script, print, literary creativity, the study of language, lexicography, and the  development of educational tools and institutions. This lecture will take us through the history of these various attempts at standardi-zing Nepalbhasa, which not only faced a highly diverse and non-norma-tive linguistic situation, but serious resistance from governments hos-tile to the language. 

Omkareshwor Shrestha is professor emeritus at Tribhuvan University. He holds a PhD in linguistics for his thesis “A Grammar of Pahari” (2012), multiple prestigious awards (Nepal Vidyabhushan ‘Ka,’ VS 2070, Vishista Sewar Puraskar, VS 2028). A former Head of the Central Department of Nepalbhasha, he is one of the leading linguists of Nepal and of the Newar language. He has played a leading role in the ongoing linguistic survey of Nepal. Besides his groundbreaking work on Newar linguistics, Omkareshwor Shrestha has contributed like few others to the description, preservation, and revitalization of a multitude of Nepalese minority languages.

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For all enquiries, please write to Christoph Emmrich at christoph.emmrich@utoronto.ca