Sherpa language

For other uses, see Sherpa (disambiguation).

Sherpa
शेर्वी तम्ङे, śērwī tamṅē, ཤར་པའི་སྐད་ཡིག, shar pa'i skad yig
'Sherpa' in Devanagari and Tibetan scripts
Native to	Nepal, India
Region	Nepal, Sikkim
Ethnicity	Sherpa
Native speakers	140,000 (2011 & 2021 census) [1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Tibeto-Kanauri (?) Bodish Tibetic Southern Tibetic Sherpa
Writing system	Tibetan, Devanagari
Official status
Official language in	Nepal   India Sikkim (additional) [2]
Language codes
ISO 639-3	xsr
Glottolog	sher1255
ELP	Sherpa

Sherpa 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 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]

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. 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 ⟨མ m⟩		n ⟨ན n⟩			ɲ ⟨ཉ ny⟩	ŋ ⟨ང ng⟩
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p ⟨པ p⟩	t̪ ⟨ཏ t⟩	t͡s ⟨ཙ ts⟩	ʈ ⟨ཊ ṭ⟩	t͡ʃ ⟨ཅ c⟩	c ⟨ཀྱ ky⟩	k ⟨ཀ k⟩
	aspirated	pʰ⟨ཕ ph⟩	t̪ʰ⟨ཐ th⟩	t͡sʰ⟨ཚ tsh⟩	ʈʰ⟨ཋ ṭh⟩	t͡ʃʰ⟨ཆ ch⟩	cʰ ⟨ཁྱ khy⟩	kʰ⟨ཁ kh⟩
	voiced	b  ⟨བ b⟩	d̪ ⟨ད d⟩	d͡z ⟨ཛ dz⟩	ɖ ⟨ཌ ḍ⟩	d͡ʒ ⟨ཇ j⟩	ɟ ⟨གྱ gy⟩	ɡ ⟨ག g⟩
Fricative				s ⟨ས s⟩		ʃ ⟨ཤ sh⟩			h ⟨ཧ h⟩
Liquid	voiceless		l̪̥ ⟨ལྷ lh⟩	ɾ̥ ⟨ཧྲ hr⟩
	voiced		l̪ ⟨ལ l⟩	ɾ ⟨ར r⟩
Semivowel		w ⟨ཝ w⟩					j ⟨ཡ y⟩

• Stop sounds /p,t̪,ʈ,k/ can be unreleased [ p̚, t̪̚, ʈ̚, k̚ ] in word-final position.
• Palatal sounds /ccʰɟ/ can neutralize to velar sounds [kkʰɡ] when preceding /i,e,ɛ/.
• /n/ can become a retroflex nasal [ ɳ ] when preceding a retroflex stop.
• /p/ can have an allophone of [ ɸ ] when occurring in fast speech.
• /l/ and /r/ are devoiced at the end of a word or before a consonant.

Vowels

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

• Vowel sounds /i,u/ have the allophones [ɪ,ʊ] when between consonants and in closed syllables. ^[5]

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

Form	Suffix
Infinitive	-u/-p
Disjunct/Hortative	-(k)i
Past Observational	-suŋ
Mirative	-nɔk
Volitional	-ĩ
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 má 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-accusative 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.

Person	Singular			Plural
	Nominative	Genitive	Locative	Nominative	Genitive	Locative
1 (incl.)	--	--	--	d̪ʌkpu	d̪ʌkpi	d̪ʌkpula
1 (excl.)	ŋʌ	ɲɛ	ŋʌla	ɲirʌŋ	ɲire	ɲirʌŋla
2	cʰuruŋ	cʰore	cʰuruŋla	cʰírʌŋ	cʰíre	cʰírʌŋla
3	t̪í	t̪íki	t̪íla	t̪iwɔ́	t̪íwi	t̪iwɔ́la

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
one	čìk	eleven	čučik
two	ɲì	twelve	čìŋɲi
three	sùm	thirteen	čùpsum
four	ǰi	twenty	kʰʌlǰik
five	ŋà	twenty-one	kʰʌlǰik
six	t̪úk	thirty	kʰʌlsum
seven	d̪in	fifty	kʰʌlŋa
eight	jɛ́	seventy	kʰʌld̪in
nine	gu	ninety	kʰʌlgu
ten	čìt̪ʰʌmba	one hundred	kʰʌl 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

English	Sherpa
Sunday	ŋi`ma
Monday	Dawa
Tuesday	Miŋma
Wednesday	Lakpa
Thursday	Phurba
Friday	Pasaŋ
Saturday	Pemba

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.

References

1. Sherpa  at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
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. "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. 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.

External links

• Himali Sherpa:Sherpa Culture dictionary
• Sherpa-English and English-Sherpa Dictionary
• Sherpa dictionary Archived 2 March 2013 at the Wayback Machine Print edition
• Sherpa language Omniglot