of Nepali and Tibetan proper, many Sikkimese speakers also use these languages in daily life. Dialects Dialects are for the most part quite mutually intelligible in Sikkimese as most differences that exist are minor. One big difference, however, is the lack of honorifics in some Northern villages, discussed in more detail in a separate section below. Also occurring in these villages are the largest dialectal differences in pronunciation and vocabulary. In the area of Bhutan closest to Sikkim, non-Sikkimese speakers can understand Northern varieties of Sikkimese much more easily than they can varieties from West Sikkim. It is a local belief that the people in these Northern villages originated from this same area in Bhutan. Phonology Phonology introduction Sikkimese has a total of eight vowels and 43 consonants in its inventory. Words in Sikkimese are split into high or low registers all based on voice quality and pitch. The register of Sikkimese words can be predicted most of the time based on their starting phoneme but nasals and liquids are unpredictable. Due to the unpredictability of some of Sikkimese's registers and the lack of difference between modal and breathy voicing, Sikkimese is considered a toned language even though tone itself is not provide too much of a functional load like other languages that are also considered to be toned. Consonants All consonants happen word-initially with the exception of the glottal /ʔ/. Voiceless nasals and liquids actually don't occur at all. Aspiration is reduced when it comes to the word-medial position and the breathy series of consonants. Below is a chart of Sikkimese consonants, largely following Yliniemi (2005) and van Driem (1992). Devoiced consonants are pronounced with a slight breathy voice, aspiration, and low pitch. They are remnants of voiced consonants in Classical Tibetan that became devoiced. Likewise, the historical Tibetan phoneme /ny/ is realised as an allophone of /n/ and /ng/, which themselves have mostly lost contrast among speakers. Plosives and affricates Plosives and affricates contrast in four distinct ways and it only occurs in the word-initial position. The four contrast ways are voiceless unaspirated, voiced, voiceless heavily aspirated, and voiceless lightly with a breathy voice and aspirated inconsistently. Anything that falls in the word-medial position has a three-way contrast, which are voiced, voiceless aspirated, and voiceless unaspirated. However, aspiration when it comes to the word-medial position is dwindled down as well as dialectal variation. Just the voiceless unaspirated contrast