Native to India Writing system Takri (formerly) | Region Himachal Pradesh ISO 639-3 kfx | |
Native speakers 110,000 (1997)
Census results conflate some speakers with Hindi. Language family Indo-European
Indo-Iranian
Indo-Aryan
North-Western
Western Pahari (Himachali)
Kulluvi | ||
Kullu (Kullū, also known as Kuluī and Kulvi) is a Western Pahari language spoken in Himachal Pradesh.
Consonants
For the stops and affricates there is a four-way distinction in phonation between tenuis /p/, voiced /b/, aspirated /pʰ/ and breathy voiced /bʱ/ series. Thakur (1975, pp. 175–8) lists as separate phonemes aspirated correlates of /ŋ/, /n/, /m/, /j/, /r/, /ɽ/, /l/ and /ɭ/, but describes the aspiration as a voiceless pharyngeal friction. /n̪/ is dental, but becomes alveolar if the next syllable contains a retroflex consonant. /ŋ/ and /ɲ/ are rare, but contrast with the other nasals word-medially between vowels. /ɳ/, /ɭ/ and /ɽ/, together with their aspirated correlates, don't occur in the beginning of words. The glottal stop occurs only between a vowel and /ɳ/, /n/, /r/ or /l/, e.g. [kɑːʔɭ] "a trumpet", which contrasts with [kɑːɭ] "famine". The pharyngeal fricative /ħ/ historically derives from /s/ and occurs word-finally, e.g. [ɡʱɑːħ] "grass", [biːħ] "twenty".