Sikkimese language

Sikkimese language
Sikkimese
Dranjongke
Spoken in Sikkim, Bhutan
Ethnicity Bhutia
Native speakers 70,300  (2001)
Language family
Sino-Tibetan
  • (Tibeto-Burman)
    • Tibeto-Kanauri
      • Bodish
        • Tibetan
          • Central Tibetan
            • Southern
              • Sikkimese
Writing system Tibetan script
Language codes
ISO 639-3 sip

The Sikkimese language, also called Sikkimese Tibetan, Bhutia, Dranjongke (Tibetan: འབྲས་ལྗོངས་སྐད་Wylie: 'bras-ljongs-skad), Dranjoke, Denjongka, Denzongpeke, and Denzongke, belongs to the Southern Tibetan language family. It is spoken by the Bhutia (Denzongpa) nationality in Sikkim. Sikkimese people refer to their own language as Dranjongke and their homeland as Denzong (Tibetan: འབྲས་ལྗོངས་Wylie: 'bras-ljongs; "Valley of Rice").[1]

Contents

Script

Sikkimese is written using Tibetan script, which it inherited from Classical Tibetan. Sikkimese phonology and lexicon differ markedly from Classical Tibetan, however. SIL thus describes the Sikkimese writing system as "Bodhi style." According to SIL, 68% of Sikkimese Bhutia were literate in the Tibetan script in 2001.[1][2][3]

Sikkimese and its neighbors

Speakers of Sikkimese can understand some Dzongkha, with a lexical similarity of 65% between the two languages. By comparison, Standard Tibetan, however, is only 42% lexically similar. Sikkimese has also been influenced to some degree by the neighboring Yolmowa and Tamang languages.[1][2]

Due to more than a century of close contact with speakers of Nepali and Tibetan proper, many Sikkimese speakers also use these languages in daily life.[1]

Phonology

Consonants

Below is a chart of Sikkimese consonants, largely following Yliniemi (2005) and van Driem (1992).[3]

Labial Dental/
Alveolar
Retroflex Alveolo-palatal/
Palatal
Velar Glottal
Nasal voiceless ན /n/ ŋ̥ ང /ng/
voiced m མ /m/ n ན /n/ n~ŋ ཉ /ny/ ŋ ང /ng/
Plosive voiceless
unaspirated
p པ /p/ t ཏ /t/ ʈ ཏྲ /tr/ k ཀ /k/ ʔ འ /ʔ/
voiceless
aspirated
ཕ /ph/ ཐ /th/ ʈʰ ཐྲ /thr/ ཁ /kh/
voiced b བ /b/ d ད /d/ ɖ དྲ /dr/ ɡ ག /g/
devoiced p̀ʱ བ /p'/ t̀ʱ ད /t'/ ʈ̀ʱ དྲ /tr'/ k̀ʱ ག /k'/
Affricate voiceless
unaspirated
ts ཙ /ts/ ཅ /c/
voiceless
aspirated
tsʰ ཚ /tsh/ tɕʰ ཆ /ch/
voiced dz ཛ /dz/ ཇ /j/
devoiced tɕ' ཇ /c'/
Fricative voiceless s ས /s/ ɕ ཤ /sh/ h ཧ /h/
voiced z ཟ /z/ ʑ ཞ /zh/
Liquid voiceless ལ /l/ ར /r/
voiced l ལ /l/ r~ɹ~ɾ ར /r/
Approximant w ཝ /w/ j ཡ /y/ w ཝ /w/

Devoiced consonants are pronounced with a slight breathy voice, aspiration (phonetics), and low pitch. They are remnants of voiced consonants in Classical Tibetan that became devoiced. Likewise, the historical Tibetan phoneme /ny/ is realized as an allophone of /n/ and /ng/, which themselves have mostly lost contrast among speakers.[3]

Vowels

Below is a chart of Sikkimese vowels, also largely following Yliniemi (2005).[3]

Front Middle Back
unrounded rounded unrounded rounded
Close i  ི /i/ y  ུ /u/ u  ུ /u/
Mid e  ེ /e/ ø  ོ /o/ o  ོ /o/
Open ɛ  ེ /e/ ɐ /a/

In the Tibetan script, an abugida, the inherent vowel /a/ is unmarked. In the above table, italicized [ɛ] /e/ is an allophone of [e] /e/, confined to appearing after [dʑ] /j/ in closed syllables.[3]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Lewis, M. Paul, ed (2009). "Sikkimese". Ethnologue: Languages of the World. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=sip. Retrieved 2011-04-16. 
  2. ^ a b Norboo, S. (1995). "The Sikkimese Bhutia" (PDF). Bulletin of Tibetology. Gangtok: Namgyal Institute of Tibetology. pp. 114–115. http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/bot/pdf/bot_1995_01_25.pdf. 
  3. ^ a b c d e Yliniemi, Juha (2005). Preliminary Phonological Analysis of Denjongka of Sikkim (Masters, General Linguistics thesis). University of Helsinki. https://oa.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/4310/prelimin.pdf. Retrieved 2011-04-17. 

Further reading



Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужен реферат?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Sikkimese — may refer to: * Of or related to Sikkim * Sikkimese language * Sikkimese people …   Wikipedia

  • Sikkimese people — inhabit the Indian province of Sikkim. The native Sikkimese consist of the Lepcha, migrating from Tibet, Bhutias, descendants of Buddhists who arrived from Nepal in 15th century, who migrated from the Kham district of Tibet in the 14th century,… …   Wikipedia

  • Sikkimese — ISO 639 3 Code : sip ISO 639 2/B Code : ISO 639 2/T Code : ISO 639 1 Code : Scope : Individual Language Type : Living …   Names of Languages ISO 639-3

  • Dzongkha language — language name=Dzongkha nativename= familycolor=Sino Tibetan region=Bhutan speakers=First language: 130,000 Second language 470,000 fam2=Tibeto Burman fam3=Himalayish fam4=Tibeto Kanauri fam5=Tibetic fam6=Tibetan fam7=Southern nation=Bhutan… …   Wikipedia

  • Punjabi language — ਪੰਜਾਬੀ, پنجابی, Panjābī The word Punjabi in Gurmukhi, Shahmukhi and Devanagari Spoken …   Wikipedia

  • Tibetan language — Infobox Language name=Tibetan nativename=བོད་སྐད་ bod skad familycolor=Sino Tibetan states=China, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan region=Tibet, Kashmir, Baltistan speakers=6,150,000Fact|date=September 2008 fam1=Sino Tibetan fam2=Tibeto Burman fam3 …   Wikipedia

  • Nepali language — Not to be confused with Nepal Bhasa. Nepali नेपाली The word Nepali written in Devanagari scri …   Wikipedia

  • Camling language — Camling Spoken in Nepal. India, Bhutan Native speakers 10,000  (date missing) Language family Sino Tibetan (Tibeto Burman) …   Wikipedia

  • Nyen language — Nyenkha Spoken in Bhutan Native speakers 8,700  (2010)[1] Language family Sino Tibetan (Tib …   Wikipedia

  • Chocangaca language — Chocangacakha Spoken in Bhutan Native speakers 20,000  (1993)[1] Language family Sino Tibetan …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”