The language is commonly known as Koic, for many ethnic Sunuwar speakers also refer to the language as “Sunuwar, Koinch[4] , Koinch or Koincha (कोइँच); Kõits Lo (कोइँच लो), Kiranti-Kõits (किराँती-कोइँच) or Mukhiya (मुखिया).” Moreover, most Sunwar speakers have the surname (सुनुवार), Sunuvār in Latin script.

These villages are scattered alongside the river banks of Likhu Khola, in two bordering central-eastern districts of Nepal, distant from the main Nepalese road system:[5] in the Okhaldhū۠ngā District (part of Koshi Province), around the village of Vacul; and in the Rāmechāp District (part of Bagmati Province), around the villages of Pahare and of Kũbhu Kãsthālī for a smaller group of Sunwar speakers.

The majority of the Sunwar speakers live on the southern border area of this region, between the villages of Pahare and Vacul.

Located 1,800 meters above sea level, their fields aren’t all fallow from year round cultivation[5] (Borchers, 2008).

But a second version of the script modified the orthographic rules to imply its presence, where the inherent vowel would be altered when appending any independent vowel letters, or suppressed by using a virama (or halant) sign in some consonant clusters or for consonants in final position of syllables.

[2][6] Although Sunwar has no traditional written language in Nepal, most literate speakers use the Devanagari abugida,[5][4] also used for writing Nepali.

The Sunwar language has a mid-sized arrangement of thirty-two consonantal phonemes: According to Borchers,[5] there are eleven vowel phonemes in Sunwar: ⟨a⟩ [a~ɑ], /ā / [aː], /e/ [e~ɛ], /i/ [i], /o/ [o], /u/ [u], / ū/ [uː~y], /ã/ [ã~ɑ̃], /ã̄/ [ãː], /ẽ/ [ẽ~ɛ̃], /ĩ/ [ĩ] There are a total of eight diphthongs in Sunuwar: /ai/ [aɪ], /aĩ/ [aɪ̃], /au/ [au], /eu/ [eu], /oi/ [oi], /oĩ/ [oĩ], /ui/ [ui], /uĩ/ [uĩ] According to Borchers,[5] a principled way to distinguish diphthongs from a sequence of two monophthongs does not exist in the Sunwar language.

[5] Examples of the plural marker used to point at items in a group by Borchers:[5] pujāworshipdumhappenpachiafterrãgabuffalopo.pakipig.PLsai.ni.mīkill.NPT-23D/-P.3P/SVIpujā dum pachi rãga po.paki sai.ni.mīworship happen after buffalo pig.PL kill.NPT-23D/-P.3P/SVIAfter worship, they kill the buffalo, pig and so on.sāg.pakisāg.PLacā.pakipickle.PLho.ʃa.ṅāminkeep.PF.thenʃambeercaiSNGthupromuchdum.bahappen.NPT+3Sthupromuchtu.ni.miิdrink.NPT-23D/-P.3P/SVIsāg.paki acā.paki ho.ʃa.ṅāmin ʃam cai thupro dum.ba thupro tu.ni.miิsāg.PL pickle.PL keep.PF.then beer SNG much happen.NPT+3S much drink.NPT-23D/-P.3P/SVIHaving stored away sāg (green leafy vegetable) and so on and pickle and so on and, there has to be much beer, they drink a lot.According to Borchers,[5] the Sunuwar language does not have a zero morpheme, but it can still indicate the number amount of something through verbal agreement markers or numerals.

(Jasi is the tree Bauhinia variegata)Quantifiers in the Sunwar language are loaned from Nepali.

[5] According to Borchers, the Sunwar language borrows particles from Nepali that indicate the relationship between clauses.

[citation needed][3] [10] REIN: reinforcement marker NPT: non-preterite SNG: postposition of singularity PF: perfective gerund marker P: patient (of transitive verb) SVI: singular intransitive verb 23D: second and third person, dual