mentions that there are 250 'septs among Khasiya Brahmins' and 280 'septs among Khasiya Rajputs' who represent the Khasa tribe. He states that the 90% of the Brahmins of Kumaon belong to the Khas tribe. The Khasiya Brahmins are mentioned to have been chiefly cultivators and agriculturalists and most of them worship chiefly Bhairava, Shiva, Vishnu, the more common forms of the Shakti and village deities. Most of them derive their surnames from their village of origin. The Khasiyas of Uttarakhand never attempted to connect themselves with plain regions until recently they found that such connections increases personal dignity. Khas people of the Western Himalayas are considered similar to the Khas people of the Garhwal, Kumaon and Nepal. They are generally referred as Rajputs or Kanets in the Himachal Pradesh. The Khasas of Jaunsar-Bawar who are represented by the Jaunsari Rajputs and Brahmins) practiced polyandrous marriages. Languages Irish Linguist George Abraham Grierson in his Linguistic Survey of India stated that the Khas tribe were the earliest recorded speakers of the Western Pahari languages. He further asserted that the Khas people made the bulk population of the Indo-Aryan speakers throughout the lower Himalaya from Kashmir to Darjeeling. The Khas people of Nepal originally referred to their language as Khas kurā (Khas speech), which was also known as Parbatiya (the language of the hill country). The Newar people used the term Khayan Bhaya, Parbatiya and Gorkhali as a name for this language, Gorkhalis themselves started using this term to refer to their language at a later stage. In an attempt to disassociate himself with his Khas past, the Rana prime minister Jung Bahadur decreed that the term Gorkhali be used instead of Khas kurā to describe the language. Meanwhile, the British Indian administrators had started using the term Nepal (after Newar) to refer to the Gorkha kingdom. In the 1930s, the Gorkha government also adopted this term to describe their country. Subsequently, the Khas language also came to be known as Nepali language. It has become a national language of Nepal and lingua franca among the majority of population of Northern region of West Bengal, Sikkim and Bhutan. Historian Balkrishna Pokhrel contends that the Khas language of Nepal belonged to neither the Iranian language family, nor the Indian languages, but to the mid Indo-Iranian languages. Notable people Medieval Khas families and dynasties Katyuri kings Lohara dynasty Khas Malla rulers Modern Khas Bir