I am extremely delighted to welcome all of you to Central Department of Linguistics (CDL), Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur, Nepal. This department, which was set up as a teaching cum research department under the Faculty of Humanities and Social Science in May 1996, is mainly dedicated to producing high- level and high-quality manpower for teaching linguistics and conducting research in the languages of Nepal.

According to Census of Nepal, 2011, more than 123 languages are spoken as mother tongues by more than 125 caste/ethnic groups in a small country, Nepal. Only 44% languages of Nepal are safe. Unless effective efforts are made immediately on behalf of both speech communities and the government (both at local and central levels), endangered and seriously endangered languages of the nation will die up in a few years. Language death, though common phenomenon, is not only the death of a particular form of speech. Indeed, it is an irreparable loss of the cultural values and life-crucial knowledge embodied in the form of the speech. To create effective awareness about the importance of mother tongue-based multilingual education for the proper cognitive development in the children and to conduct ethnolinguistic documentation of the endangered languages, the nation requires hundreds of high-quality manpower, well-experienced with geo-socio-linguistic situation of Nepal. However, at present, the nation lacks enough trained manpower even for compiling dictionaries, writing grammars and textbooks and developing/adapting orthographies in the unstudied endangered languages of Nepal.

Realizing the situation of the languages of Nepal, this department has focused on teaching both theoretical and practical aspects of different disciplines of modern linguistics required for conducting research in different aspects of the languages of Nepal. This department has already produced more than 130 graduates (Master degree) and 15 PhDs ( in collaboration with the Dean)