Mangale Khani

Mangale Khani lies in the eastern part of Myagdi district, within Raghuganga Rural Municipality, and is often described as the farthest-east of the Chhantyal villages — one of the community’s larger traditional settlements.

Trace-back

The name ends in “-khani”, Nepali for “mine” — like so many of our settlements, it grew up around the copper that our ancestors mined across these hills. It sits among the cluster of Chhantyal-speaking villages of eastern Myagdi, and in the linguistic record it is Mangale Khani’s speech that stands for the Chhantyal language — the variety Michael Noonan documented.

The language that bears its name

Mangale Khani holds a quiet importance for the whole community. When the linguist Michael Noonan set down the Chhantyal language — a Tibeto-Burman tongue, close kin to Thakali — it was the speech of this cluster of eastern villages, and Mangale Khani’s own, that he recorded village stories in. Those recordings are now among the fullest documentation the language has. Today Chhantyal is reported to be on the verge of disappearance, spoken by an ever-smaller share of the community — the very loss this site exists to help slow.

What people do

Exact figures for the village are not yet recorded here, but life follows the pattern of the region: farming the hill terraces, keeping livestock, and income from family working abroad.

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