Sikkimese language

Sikkimese
Sikkimese
Drenjongke
འབྲས་ལྗོངས་སྐད་; bras ljongs skad
Region	Sikkim, Nepal (Province No. 1), Bhutan
Ethnicity	Sikkimese
Native speakers	70,000 (2001)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Kanauri ? Bodish Tibetic Dzongkha–Lhokä Sikkimese; ; ; ; ;
Writing system	Tibetan script
Official status
Official language in	India Sikkim;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sip
Glottolog	sikk1242
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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 Province No. 1, 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[]

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[]

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[]

Consonants[]

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⟩
Nasal	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⟩
Fricative	voiced		z ⟨ཟ z⟩		ʑ ⟨ཞ zh⟩
Liquid	voiceless		l̥ ⟨ལ l⟩	r̥ ⟨ར r⟩
Liquid	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[]

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⟩

[ɛ] is an allophone of [e], confined to appearing after [dʑ] /j/ in closed syllables

In the Tibetan script, an abugida, the inherent vowel /a/ is unmarked.

References[]

^ 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
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Lewis, M. Paul, ed. (2009). "Sikkimese". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (16 ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Retrieved 16 April 2011.
^ ^a ^b Norboo, S. (1995). "The Sikkimese Bhutia" (PDF). Bulletin of Tibetology. Gangtok: Namgyal Institute of Tibetology. pp. 114–115.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Yliniemi, Juha (2005). Preliminary Phonological Analysis of Denjongka of Sikkim (PDF) (Masters, General Linguistics thesis). University of Helsinki. Retrieved 17 April 2011.