Kaike is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken mainly in four villages in Dolpa district, Mid-western Nepal. This is a remote region not accessible by road and the closest airport (Juphal) is a two-day walk. Kaike is often classified as a Tamangic language, but its exact genetic classification remains unclear (cf. Honda 2008). According to the CBS report of 2001, Kaike was spoken by less than 40% of the disadvantaged indigenous Kaike population (i.e. less than 800 of a total population of 2000 people). The National Population and Housing Census in Nepal reports there were only 50 speakers remaining in 2011, however, Ambika Regmi notes in her short grammar of Magar Kaike based on a field study in 2011 that there must be at least 1000 speakers (Regmi 2013a:1n1). The language is labelled as "severely endangered" (Yadava 2004) and "definitely endangered" (UNESCO, Moseley 2010), because Kaike is not written, not used in education and speakers are leaving the rural area to make a living in towns like Nepalgunj or Kathmandu. A standardised orthography, primers and teaching materials in the Kaike language are called for (Regmi 2013b:168).
