Bodish languages

See also: Bodo language and Bodo languages

Bodish
Geographic distribution:	Himalayan Plateau
Linguistic classification:	Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman) Tibeto-Kanauri Bodish
Subdivisions:	Tibetan (W., C., & S. Bodish) East Bodish

The Bodish languages, named for the Tibetan ethnonym bod, are the Tibetan languages in a broad linguistic sense, regardless of whether the speakers are considered ethnically Tibetan. Different scholars divide Bodish differently, but the alternate term 'Tibetan' generally excludes East Bodish. Languages in this subgroup are spoken in Tibet, North India, Nepal and Bhutan.

Note that Bradley (1997) includes under the term 'Bodish' the West Himalayish, Tshangla, and Tamangic languages, making Bodish equivalent to the term 'Tibeto-Kanauri' in other classifications. Within this grouping, he makes a clean break between East Bodish and Tibetan, as two unitary branches of Bodish.

Apart from the Tibetan languages the Bodic subbranch of Tibeto-Burman is probably among the least researched branches of Tibeto-Burman. Languages regarded as members of this family include Bumthang (Michailovsky and Mazaudon 1994; van Driem 1995), Tshangla (Hoshi 1987; Andvik 1999), Dakpa (Lu 1986; Sun et al. 1991), and Zhangzhung (Nagano and LaPolla 2001).

As for grammars of 'Monpa' there is Das Gupta (1968) and Lu (2002). Some papers on Kurtoep include Hyslop (2008a, 2008b, 2009).

References

• van Driem, George (1995). Een eerste grammaticale verkenning van het Bumthang, een taal van midden-Bhutan. Leiden: Onderzoekschool CNWS.
• van Driem, George (2001) Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region. Brill.
• Hyslop, G., (2008a). Kurtöp phonology in the context of Northeast India. In: Morey, S., Post, M. (Eds.), North East Indian Linguistics 1: Papers from the First International Conference of the North East Indian Linguistic Society. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 3–25.
• Hyslop, G., (2008b). "Kurtöp and the classification of the languages of Bhutan." In: Proceedings from the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society 42, vol. 2, South Asian Linguistics, Case, Voice, and Language Coexistence. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
• Hyslop, G., (2009), "Kurtöp Tone: A tonogenetic case study." Lingua 119: 827–845
• Lu shao zun 陸紹尊(2002). 門巴語方言研究 Menbayu fangyan yanjiu [Studies in the dialects of the Monpa language.] Beijing: 民族出版社 Minzu chubanshe.
• Michailovsky, Boyd and Martine Mazaudon (1994). “Preliminary Notes on the Languages of the Bumthang Group (Bhutan).” Tibetan Studies: proceedings of the 6th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies. Ed. Per Kværne. Vol 2. Oslo: The Institute of Comparative Research in Human Culture. 545-557.