West Himalayish languages

West Himalayish
Kanauric, Almora
Geographic distribution	Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand (India), Nepal
Linguistic classification	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Tibeto-Kanauri (?) West Himalayish
Language codes
Glottolog	tibe1275

The West Himalayish languages, also known as Almora and Kanauric, are a family of Sino-Tibetan languages centered in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and across the border into Nepal. LaPolla (2003) proposes that the West Himalayish languages may be part of a larger "Rung" group.

Languages

Languages include Chitkuli Kinnauri, Kinnauri, Sunam, Jangshung, Shumcho, Pattani (Manchad), Tinan, Gahri (Bunan), Kanashi, Rongpo, Darmiya, Byangsi, Dhuleli, Chaudangsi, Rangas, and perhaps Zhangzhung.

Zhangzhung, the sacred language of the Bon religion, was spoken north of the Himalayas across western Tibet before being replaced by Tibetan. James Matisoff (2001) ^[1] provides lexical and phonological evidence for the classification of Zhangzhung within West Himalayish.

Classification

Widmer (2014:47) ^[2] classifies the West Himalayish languages as follows. The recently discovered Dhuleli language has been added from Regmi & Prasain (2017). ^[3]

• West Himalayish
  • Western
    • Lahaul: Manchad, Tinan
    • Kinnaur: Kanashi, Lower Kinnauri, Standard Kinnauri, Chitkhuli, Jangrami, Shumcho
  • Eastern
    • Central: Bunan, Sunnami, Rongpo ; possibly Zhangzhung
    • Almora: Rangas, Darmiya, Byangsi, Dhuleli, Chaudangsi

Widmer (2014:53–56) ^[2] classifies Zhangzhung within the Eastern branch of West Himalayish, and notes that it appears particularly close to languages of the Central subgroup (Bunan, Sunnami, and Rongpo).

Widmer (2017) ^[4] notes that many Tibetan varieties in the western Tibetan Plateau have been influenced by West Himalayish languages.

Vocabulary

Widmer (2017) ^[4] lists the following lexical items that differ in the Eastern and Western branches of West Himalayish.

Language	‘one’	‘hand’	‘cry’	‘black’
Proto-Eastern West Himalayish	*it	*gut	*krap-	*rok-
Manchad	itsa	gùṛa	krap-	roki
Kanashi	idh	guḍ	kərop-	roko
Kinnauri (Southern)	id	gŭd'	krap-	rŏkh
Proto-Western West Himalayish	*tik	*lak	*tjo-	*kʰaj/*wom
Bunan	tiki	lak	tjo-	kʰaj
Rongpo	tig	lag	tyõ-	kʰasyũ
Byangsi	tigɛ	là	tye-	wamdɛ

Widmer (2014:53-56) ^[2] classifies Zhangzhung within the eastern branch of West Himalayish, and lists the following cognates between Zhangzhung and Proto-West Himalayish.

Gloss	Zhangzhung	Proto-West Himalayish
barley	zad	*zat
blue	ting	*tiŋ-
diminutive suffix	-tse	*-tse ~ *-tsi
ear	ra tse	*re
fat	tsʰas	*tsʰos
girl	tsa med	*tsamet
god	sad	*sat
gold ?	zang	*zaŋ
heart	she	*ɕe
old (person)	shang ze	*ɕ(j)aŋ
red	mang	*maŋ
white	shi nom	*ɕi

Footnotes

1. Matisoff, James. 2001. "The interest of Zhangzhung for comparative Tibeto-Burman." In New Research on Zhangzhung and Related Himalayan Languages (Bon Studies 3). Senri Ethnological Studies no. 19, p.155-180. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology 国立民族学博物館. doi : 10.15021/00002145
2. Widmer, Manuel. 2014. "A tentative classification of West Himalayish." In A descriptive grammar of Bunan, 33-56. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Bern.
3. Regmi, Dan Raj; Prasain, Balaram. 2017. A sociolinguistic survey of Dhuleli. Linguistic Survey of Nepal (LinSuN), Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal.
4. Widmer, Manuel. 2017. The linguistic prehistory of the western Himalayas: endangered minority languages as a window to the past . Presented at Panel on Endangered Languages and Historical Linguistics, 23rd International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL 23), San Antonio, Texas.

References

• George van Driem (2001) Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region. Brill.
• LaPolla, Randy. 2001. The Tibeto-Burman Languages of Uttar Pradesh Archived 2016-04-16 at the Wayback Machine .
• Widmer, Manuel. 2017. The linguistic prehistory of the western Himalayas: endangered minority languages as a window to the past . Presented at Panel on Endangered Languages and Historical Linguistics, 23rd International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL 23), San Antonio, Texas.
• Widmer, Manuel. 2018. The linguistic prehistory of the western Himalayas. Proceedings of the 51st International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (2018). Kyoto: Kyoto University.