Sherpa language

Last updated

Sherpa 
शेर्वी तम्ङे, śērwī tamṅē,
ཤར་པའི་སྐད་ཡིག, shar pa'i skad yig
Sherpa language.png
'Sherpa' in Devanagari and Tibetan scripts
Native to Nepal, India
Region Nepal, Sikkim
Ethnicity Sherpa
Native speakers
140,000 (2011 & 2021 census) [1]
Tibetan, Devanagari
Official status
Official language in
Flag of Nepal.svg  Nepal
Flag of India.svg  India
Language codes
ISO 639-3 xsr
Glottolog sher1255
ELP Sherpa

Sherpa (also Sharpa, Sherwa, or Xiaerba) is a Tibetic language spoken in Nepal and the Indian state of Sikkim, mainly by the Sherpa. The majority speakers of the Sherpa language live in the Khumbu region of Nepal, spanning from the Chinese (Tibetan) border in the east to the Bhotekosi River in the west. [3] About 127,000 speakers live in Nepal (2021 census), some 16,000 in Sikkim, India (2011), and some 800 in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (1994). Sherpa is a subject-object-verb (SOV) language. Sherpa is predominantly a spoken language, although it is occasionally written using either the Devanagari or Tibetan script. [3]

Contents

Classification

Sherpa belongs to the Tibetic branch of the Tibeto-Burman family. It is closely related to Central Tibetan, Jirel, Humla, Mugom, Dolpo, Lo-ke, Nubri, Tsum, Langtang, Kyirong, Yolmo, Gyalsumdo, Kagate, Lhomi, Walung, and Tokpe Gola. Literary Tibetan LT- becomes /lh/ and SR- becomes /ʈ/. There are five closely related dialects, these being Solu, Khumbu, Pharak, Dram, and Sikkimese Sherpa. [4]

Phonology

Sherpa is a tonal language. [5] [6] Sherpa has the following consonants: [7]

Consonants

Labial Dental Alveolar Retroflex Palato-
alveolar
Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m m n n ɲ ny ŋ ng
Plosive/
Affricate
voiceless p p t t͡s ts ʈ t͡ʃ c c ཀྱ ky k k
aspirated pht̪ʰ tht͡sʰ tshʈʰ ṭht͡ʃʰ ch ཁྱ khy kh
voiced b   b d d͡z dz ɖ d͡ʒ j ɟ གྱ gy ɡ g
Fricative s s ʃ sh h h
Liquid voiceless l̪̥ ལྷ lh ɾ̥ ཧྲ hr
voiced l ɾ r
Semivowel w w j y

Vowels

Front Back
oral nasal oral nasal
High i ĩ u ũ
Mid-high e o õ
Mid-low ɛ ɛ̃ ɔ ɔ̃
Low a ã ʌ ʌ̃

Tones

There are four distinct tones; high /v́/, high falling /v̂/, low /v̀/, and low rising /v̌/. Regardless of the regular tone of the word, the last syllable of a question is to be pronounced with a rising tone.

Grammar

Verbs

Verb stems are modified for aspect and mood. The imperfective and perfective aspects and the volitional (whether an action was intentional), infinitive, disjunct, and imperative (commands) moods are differentiated. In verb suffixes, the infinitive, disjunct (action not intended or not known to be intended), past observational, mirative (speaker's surprise), volitional, augmentative (greater intensity), participle, durative (action lasts through an extended time), hortative (plural imperative), dictative (narrating a story), descentive, ablative, and locative are distinguished. A verb stem may take on up to three suffixes. The perfective and imperfective aspects are often treated as past and non-past tenses, respectively. The labels "locative" and "ablative" do not refer to the function of the aspect but rather the homomorphous case-like clitic of the same name. Sherpa is strictly verb-final.

Aspect-mood suffixes
FormSuffix
Infinitive-u/-p
Disjunct/Hortative-(k)i
Past Observational-suŋ
Mirative-nɔk
Volitional
Augmentative-(s)a
Participle-CṼ(C),-n
Durative-i
Dictative-si
Ablative-ne
Locative-la

The infinitive also marks the verb of a relative clause and a general action with no specific subject.

ɲɛ

1SG.GEN

pèt̪-u

spill.PRF-INF

čʰū

water

t̪í

DEF

t̪èŋa

cold

nɔ́k

MIR

ɲɛ pèt̪-u čʰū t̪í t̪èŋa nɔ́k

1SG.GEN spill.PRF-INF water DEF cold MIR

The water that I spilled is cold

The ablative marking denotes successive actions with some causal relationship.

t̪í-ci

3SG-GEN

dzím-ne

catch.PRF-ABL

gal

go.PRF.DSJT

t̪í-ci dzím-ne gal

3SG-GEN catch.PRF-ABL go.PRF.DSJT

He caught (it) and went

The locative marking denotes when the action in the main clause is done for the purpose of achieving the action in the locative clause.

d̪am-i

PROPER.FEM-GEN

sa-p-la

eat.IMPF-INF-LOC

sʌma

food

tsò-suŋ

cook.PRF.DSJT-POBS

d̪am-i sa-p-la sʌma tsò-suŋ

PROPER.FEM-GEN eat.IMPF-INF-LOC food cook.PRF.DSJT-POBS

Damu cooked food in order to eat

The copula(Imperfective hín, perfective hot̪u)is used for existence, location, identity, and adjectival predicates. The evidential particle wɛ́ occurs at the end of phrases to denote an action which the speaker witnessed. The negative particle is used with perfective verbs.

Nouns

There are four case-like clitics in Sherpa: nominative, genitive, locative, and ablative. These can also be used to mark arguments of a verb. There is a split-ergative system based on aspect; nominative-accusitive in the imperfective and ergative-absolutive in the perfective. [8]

Pronouns

Personal pronouns in Sherpa inflect for number and case. Third-person pronouns may be used as demonstratives, and the third person singular nominative also serves as the postnominal definite marker.

PersonSingularPlural
NominativeGenitiveLocativeNominativeGenitiveLocative
1 (incl.)------d̪ʌkpud̪ʌkpid̪ʌkpula
1 (excl.)ŋʌɲɛŋʌlaɲirʌŋɲireɲirʌŋla
2cʰuruŋcʰorecʰuruŋlacʰírʌŋcʰírecʰírʌŋla
3t̪ít̪íkit̪ílat̪iwɔ́t̪íwit̪iwɔ́la

There are two articles, which occur phrase-finally. The indefinite form is signaled with the enclitic -i at the end of a noun phrase.

Adjectives

The general word order within noun-phrases is Noun-Adjective. Quantifiers and numerals also follow the noun they modify. Numerals may take on the suffix -pa to denote ordinality or -kʌr to denote collectivity.

Sherpa numerals
Gloss
onečìkelevenčučik
twoɲìtwelvečìŋɲi
threesùmthirteenčùpsum
fourǰitwentykʰʌlǰik
fiveŋàtwenty-onekʰʌlǰik
sixt̪úkthirtykʰʌlsum
sevend̪infiftykʰʌlŋa
eightjɛ́seventykʰʌld̪in
nineguninetykʰʌlgu
tenčìt̪ʰʌmbaone hundredkʰʌl čìt̪ʰʌmba

Vocabulary

The following table lists the days of the week, which are derived from the Tibetan language ("Pur-gae").

Days of the week in Sherpa
EnglishSherpa
Sundayŋi`ma
MondayDawa
TuesdayMiŋma
WednesdayLakpa
ThursdayPhurba
FridayPasaŋ
SaturdayPemba

Sample Text

The following is a sample text in Sherpa of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Sherpa in Devanagari script

मि रिग ते रि रङ्वाङ् दङ् चिथोङ गि थोप्थङ डडइ थोग् क्येउ यिन्। गङ् ग नम्ज्योद दङ् शेस्रब् ल्हन्क्ये सु ओद्दुब् यिन् चङ् । फर्छुर च्यिग्गि-च्यिग्ल पुन्ग्यि दुशेस् ज्योग्गोग्यि।

Sherpa in Tibetan script

མི་རིགས་ཏེ་རི་རང་དབང་དང་རྩི་མཐོང་གི་ཐོབ་ཐང་འདྲ་འདྲའི་ཐོག་སྐྱེའུ་ཡིན། གང་ག་རྣམ་དཔྱོད་དང་ཤེས་རབ་ལྷན་སྐྱེས་སུ་འོད་དུབ་ཡིན་ཙང་། ཕར་ཚུར་གཅིག་གིས་གཅིག་ལ་སྤུན་གྱི་འདུ་ཤེས་འཇོག་དགོས་ཀྱི།

Sherpa in IAST transliteration

Mi rig te ri raṅvāṅ daṅ cithoṅ gi thopthaṅ ḍaḍaï thog kyeu yin. Gaṅ ga namjyod daṅ śesrab lhankye su oddub yin caṅ, pharchur cyiggi-cyigla pungyi duśes jyoggogyi.

Sherpa in the Wylie transliteration

Mi rigs te ri rang dbang dang rtsi thong gi thob thang 'dra 'dra'i thog skyeu yin. Gang ga rnam dpyod dang shes rab lhan skyes su 'od dub yin tsang, phar tshur gcig gis gcig la spun gyi 'du shes 'jog dgos kyi.

Translation

Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Related Research Articles

Infinitive is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all languages. The name is derived from Late Latin [modus] infinitivus, a derivative of infinitus meaning "unlimited".

The Finnish language is spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns elsewhere. Unlike the Indo-European languages spoken in neighbouring countries, such as Swedish and Norwegian, which are North Germanic languages, or Russian, which is a Slavic language, Finnish is a Uralic language of the Finnic languages group. Typologically, Finnish is agglutinative. As in some other Uralic languages, Finnish has vowel harmony, and like other Finnic languages, it has consonant gradation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Latin grammar</span> Grammar of the Latin language

Latin is a heavily inflected language with largely free word order. Nouns are inflected for number and case; pronouns and adjectives are inflected for number, case, and gender; and verbs are inflected for person, number, tense, aspect, voice, and mood. The inflections are often changes in the ending of a word, but can be more complicated, especially with verbs.

Lithuanian grammar retains many archaic features from Proto-Balto-Slavic that have been lost in other Balto-Slavic languages.

This article describes the conjugation and use of verbs in Slovene. Further information about the grammar of the Slovene language can be found in the article Slovene grammar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hindustani grammar</span> Grammatical features of the Hindustani lingua franca

Hindustani, the lingua franca of Northern India and Pakistan, has two standardised registers: Hindi and Urdu. Grammatical differences between the two standards are minor but each uses its own script: Hindi uses Devanagari while Urdu uses an extended form of the Perso-Arabic script, typically in the Nastaʿlīq style.

Tibetan grammar describes the morphology, syntax and other grammatical features of Lhasa Tibetan, a Sino-Tibetan language. Lhasa Tibetan is typologically an ergative–absolutive language. Nouns are generally unmarked for grammatical number, but are marked for case. Adjectives are never marked and appear after the noun. Demonstratives also come after the noun but these are marked for number. Verbs are possibly the most complicated part of Tibetan grammar in terms of morphology. The dialect described here is the colloquial language of Central Tibet, especially Lhasa and the surrounding area, but the spelling used reflects classical Tibetan, not the colloquial pronunciation.

Vedic Sanskrit is the name given by modern scholarship to the oldest attested descendant of the Proto-Indo-Aryan language. Sanskrit is the language that is found in the four Vedas, in particular, the Rigveda, the oldest of them, dated to have been composed roughly over the period from 1500 to 1000 BCE. Before its standardization as Sanskrit, the Vedic language was a purely spoken language during that period used before the introduction of writing in the language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Estonian grammar</span> Grammar of the Estonian language

Estonian grammar is the grammar of the Estonian language.

Dirasha is a member of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. It is spoken in the Omo region of Ethiopia, in the hills west of Lake Chamo, around the town of Gidole.

Standard Kannada grammar is primarily based on Keshiraja's Shabdamanidarpana which provides the fullest systematic exposition of Kannada language. The earlier grammatical works include portions of Kavirajamarga of 9th century, Kavyavalokana and Karnatakabhashabhushana both authored by Nagavarma II in first half of the 12th century.

Old Church Slavonic is an inflectional language with moderately complex verbal and nominal systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pashto grammar</span> Grammar of the Pashto language

Pashto is an S-O-V language with split ergativity. Adjectives come before nouns. Nouns and adjectives are inflected for gender (masc./fem.), number (sing./plur.), and case. The verb system is very intricate with the following tenses: Present; simple past; past progressive; present perfect; and past perfect. In any of the past tenses, Pashto is an ergative language; i.e., transitive verbs in any of the past tenses agree with the object of the sentence. The dialects show some non-standard grammatical features, some of which are archaisms or descendants of old forms.

This article deals with the grammar of the Udmurt language.

Uyghur is a Turkic language spoken mostly in the west of China.

Serbo-Croatian is a South Slavic language that, like most other Slavic languages, has an extensive system of inflection. This article describes exclusively the grammar of the Shtokavian dialect, which is a part of the South Slavic dialect continuum and the basis for the Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian standard variants of Serbo-Croatian. "An examination of all the major 'levels' of language shows that BCS is clearly a single language with a single grammatical system."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yolmo language</span> Sino-Tibetan language of Nepal

Yolmo (Hyolmo) or Helambu Sherpa, is a Tibeto-Burman language of the Hyolmo people of Nepal. Yolmo is spoken predominantly in the Helambu and Melamchi valleys in northern Nuwakot District and northwestern Sindhupalchowk District. Dialects are also spoken by smaller populations in Lamjung District and Ilam District and also in Ramecchap District. It is very similar to Kyirong Tibetan and less similar to Standard Tibetan and Sherpa. There are approximately 10,000 Yolmo speakers, although some dialects have larger populations than others.

The grammar of the Hittite language has a highly conservative verbal system and rich nominal declension. The language is attested in cuneiform, and is the earliest attested Indo-European language.

Konda-Dora, also known simply as Konda or Kubi, is a Dravidian language spoken in India. It is spoken by the scheduled tribe of the Konda-Dora, who mostly live in the districts of Vizianagaram, Srikakulam, and East Godavari in Andhra Pradesh, and the Koraput district in Odisha.

The Ancient Greek infinitive is a non-finite verb form, sometimes called a verb mood, with no endings for person or number, but it is inflected for tense and voice.

References

  1. Sherpa  at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  2. "50th Report of the Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities in India" (PDF). 16 July 2014. p. 109. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 January 2018. Retrieved 6 November 2016.
  3. 1 2 "Sherpa | History & Culture". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
  4. Tournadre, N. (2014). The Tibetic languages and their classification. Trans-Himalayan linguistics: Historical and descriptive linguistics of the Himalayan area, 266(1), 105-29.
  5. 1 2 Graves, Thomas E. (2007). The Phonetics and Phonology of the Sherpa Language.
  6. "Sherpa". Ethnologue. Retrieved 30 August 2019.
  7. "Nepalese Linguistics" (PDF). Journal of the Linguistic Society of Nepal. 23: 371–380. November 2008. Retrieved 8 October 2021.
  8. Graves, Thomas E. (April 2007). A grammar of Hile Sherpa (PDF) (PhD thesis). University of New York at Buffalo. Retrieved 16 October 2024.