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Sikkimese language
| Sikkimese | |
|---|---|
| Drenjongke | |
| འབྲས་ལྗོངས་སྐད་ 'bras ljongs skad | |
 | |
| Region | Sikkim, Nepal (Mechi Zone), Bhutan |
| Ethnicity | Sikkimese |
Native speakers | 70,000 (2001)[1] |
| Tibetan script | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  India
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | sip |
| Glottolog | sikk1242 |
The Sikkimese language, also called Sikkimese Tibetan, Bhutia, or Drenjongké (Tibetan: འབྲས་ལྗོངས་སྐད་, Wylie: 'bras ljongs skad, "Rice Valley language"),[2] Dranjoke, Denjongka, Denzongpeke and Denzongke, belongs to the Southern Tibetic languages. It is spoken by the Bhutia in Sikkim, India and in parts of Mechi Zone, Nepal. The Sikkimese people refer to their own language as Drendzongké and their homeland as Drendzong (Tibetan: འབྲས་ལྗོངས་, Wylie: 'bras-ljongs, "Rice Valley").[3]
Script[edit]
Sikkimese is written using Tibetan script, which it inherited from Classical Tibetan. Sikkimese phonology and lexicon differ markedly from Classical Tibetan, however. SIL International thus describes the Sikkimese writing system as "Bodhi style". According to SIL, 68% of Sikkimese Bhutia were literate in the Tibetan script in 2001.[3][4][5]
Sikkim and its neighbours[edit]
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 neighbouring Yolmowa and Tamang languages.[3][4]
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.[3]
Phonology[edit]
Consonants[edit]
Below is a chart of Sikkimese consonants, largely following Yliniemi (2005) and van Driem (1992).[5]
| Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Retroflex | (Alveolo-) Palatal |
Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | voiceless | n̥ ⟨ན n⟩ | ŋ̥ ⟨ང ng⟩ | ||||
| voiced | m ⟨མ m⟩ | n ⟨ན n⟩ | n~ɲ ⟨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 |
pʰ ⟨ཕ ph⟩ | tʰ ⟨ཐ th⟩ | ʈʰ ⟨ཐྲ thr⟩ | kʰ ⟨ཁ kh⟩ | |||
| voiced | b ⟨བ b⟩ | d ⟨ད d⟩ | ɖ ⟨དྲ dr⟩ | ɡ ⟨ག g⟩ | |||
| devoiced | p̀ʱ~b̀ɦ ⟨བ p'⟩ | t̀ʱ~d̀ɦ ⟨ད t'⟩ | ʈ̀ʱ~ɖ̀ɦ ⟨དྲ tr'⟩ | k̀ʱ~g̀ɦ ⟨ག k'⟩ | |||
| Affricate | voiceless unaspirated |
ts ⟨ཙ ts⟩ | tɕ ⟨ཅ c⟩ | ||||
| voiceless aspirated |
tsʰ ⟨ཚ tsh⟩ | tɕʰ ⟨ཆ ch⟩ | |||||
| voiced | dz ⟨ཛ dz⟩ | dʑ ⟨ཇ j⟩ | |||||
| devoiced | tɕ̀ʱ~dʑ̀ɦ ⟨ཇ c'⟩ | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | s ⟨ས s⟩ | ɕ ⟨ཤ sh⟩ | h ⟨ཧ h⟩ | |||
| voiced | z ⟨ཟ z⟩ | ʑ ⟨ཞ zh⟩ | |||||
| Liquid | voiceless | l̥ ⟨ལ l⟩ | r̥ ⟨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, 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.[5]
Vowels[edit]
Below is a chart of Sikkimese vowels, also largely following Yliniemi (2005).[5]
| 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.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ↑ Sikkimese at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ↑ "Lost Syllables and Tone Contour in Dzongkha (Bhutan)" in David Bradley, Eguénie J.A. Henderson and Martine Mazaudon, eds, Prosodic analysis and Asian linguistics: to honour R. K. Sprigg, 115-136; Pacific Linguistics, C-104, 1988
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Lewis, M. Paul, ed. (2009). "Sikkimese". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (16 ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Retrieved 16 April 2011.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Norboo, S. (1995). "The Sikkimese Bhutia" (PDF). Bulletin of Tibetology. Gangtok: Namgyal Institute of Tibetology. pp. 114–115.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Yliniemi, Juha (2005). Preliminary Phonological Analysis of Denjongka of Sikkim (PDF) (Masters, General Linguistics thesis). University of Helsinki. Retrieved 17 April 2011.
Further reading[edit]
- van Driem, George (1992). The grammar of Dzongkha. Dzongkha Development Commission, Government of Bhutan. Dead link
- Yliniemi, Juha (2019). A descriptive grammar of Denjongke (Sikkimese Bhutia) (Ph.D. thesis). University of Helsinki. ISBN 978-951-51-5138-4.
- Lee, Seunghun J.; Hwang, H.K.; Monou, T.; Kawahara, S. (2018). "The phonetic realization of tonal contrast in Dränjongke". Proceedings of the International Symposium on Tonal Aspects of Languages: 217–221. doi:10.21437/TAL.2018-44. S2CID 52209330.
- Lee, Seunghun J.; S. Kawahara; C. Guillemot; T. Monou (2019). "Acoustics of the four-way laryngeal contrast in Drenjongke (Bhutia): Observations and implications". 音声研究. Journal of the Phonetic Society of Japan (23(1)): 65–75. doi:10.24467/onseikenkyu.23.0_65.
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