Nubri is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the high mountainous areas of Gorkha district, western Nepal, where the Government of Nepal classifies its speakers as ‘Larke’. This tonal language exhibits features common to Sinospheric languages, including distinct sets of plain and honorific vocabularies for nouns and verbs. Nouns inflect for classifier, emphasis, number, and case, while definiteness is indicated by clitics. Although Nubri appears to be an ergative-absolutive language, ergativity is optional. Most pronouns are similar to those in Tibetan varieties, and while there are few monosyllabic adjectives, most are polysyllabic, with comparative and superlative forms morphologically derived. The past conjunct suffix is -hin, and the past disjunct suffix is -soŋ. Nubri features finite verb forms, particularly in the past tense, traditionally described as ‘conjunct/disjunct’ in other languages, and often employs serial verb constructions. The language follows SOV word order, with some modifiers preceding and others following the head noun. The negative suffix is -m, and complement clauses are marked by -ken and -tsi, along with the verb lap 'say'. Different suffixes in relative clauses depend on the semantic role of the modified noun. Adverbial clauses typically precede main clauses, and there are three non-finite verb forms used in converbal constructions, sharing several morphological features with Kyirong Tibetan.
