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Bumthang language

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Bumthang
Native toBhutan
Native speakers
20,000 (2011)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3kjz
Glottologbumt1240
Linguistic map of Bhutan, showing the location where Bumthang is spoken

The Bumthang language (Dzongkha: བུམ་ཐང་ཁ་, Wylie: bum thang kha); also called "Bhumtam", "Bumtang(kha)", "Bumtanp", "Bumthapkha", and "Kebumtamp") is an East Bodish language spoken by about 20,000 people in Bumthang and surrounding districts of Bhutan.[2][3] Van Driem (1993) describes Bumthang as the dominant language of central Bhutan.[3]


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Historically, Bumthang and its speakers have had close contact with speakers of the Kurtöp, Nupbi and Kheng languages, nearby East Bodish languages of central and eastern Bhutan, to the extent that they may be considered part of a wider collection of "Bumthang languages."[4][5][6]

Bumthang language is largely lexically similar with Kheng (98%), Nyen (75%–77%), and Kurtöp (70%–73%); but less so with Dzongkha (47%–52%) and Tshangla (40%–50%, also called "Sharchop").[2] It is either closely related to or identical with the Tawang language of the Monpa people of Tawang in India and China.[2]

Orthography

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Bumthang is either written with the Tibetan or Romanized Dzongkha scripts.

Tibetan script Romanization Phonetic value
ཀ་ k [k]
ཁ་ kh [kʰ]
ག་ g [g]
ང་ ng [ŋ]
ཅ་ c [c]
ཆ་ ch [cʰ]
ཇ་ j [ɟ]
ཉ་ ny [ɲ]
པ་ p [p]
ཕ་ ph [pʰ]
བ་ b [b]
མ་ m [m]
ཏ་ t [t̪]
ཐ་ th [t̪ʰ]
ད་ d [d̪]
ན་ n [n̪]
ཏྲ་ tr [ʈ]
ཐྲ་ thr [ʈʰ]
དྲ་ dr [ɖ]
ཙ་ ts [t͡s]
ཚ་ tsh [t͡sʰ]
ཛ་ dz [d͡z]
ས་ s [s]
ཟ་ z [z]
ཤ་ sh [ʃ]
ཞ་ zh [ʒ]
ཤྲ་ shr [r̥]
ཧྲ་ hr [rʰ]
ཞྲ་ zhr [ɼ]
ཝ་ w [w]
ཡ་ y [j]
ལ་ l [l]
ལྷ་ lh [l̥]
ར་ r [r]
ཧ་ h [h]
ཧྱ་ hy [hʲ]
འ་ a à
ཨ་ 'a á
འ་ེ e è
ཨ་ེ 'e é

Phonology

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Bumthang consonants[7][page needed]
Bilabial Dental Alveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Glottal
Plosive Voiceless p t̪ <t> ʈ <tr> c k
Voiced b d̪ <d> ɖ <dr> ɟ <j> g
Aspirated ʈh <thr> ch <ch> kh <kh>
Affricate t͡s, t͡sh <tsh>, d͡z
Fricative Voiceless s ʃ <sh> h hj <hy>
Voiced z ʒ <zh>
Approximant w j <y>
Nasal m n̪ <n> ɲ <ny> ŋ <ng>
Lateral l, l̥ <lh>
Trill rh <hr>, r̥ <shr>, r ɼ <zhr>

There are also thirteen vowels:

Bumthang vowels
Front Back
Close i i: <î> y: <ü> u u: <û>
Close-mid e e: <ê>
Mid o o: <ô>
Open-mid œ: <ö>
Open æ <ä> ɑ <a> ɑ: <â>

There is a high register tone and a low register tone. Syllables with a high register tone are preceded by a ' mark.

Grammar

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Bumthang is an ergative–absolutive language. The ergative case is not used on every transitive subject, but, like in many other languages of the region shows some optionality, discussed in detail by Donohue & Donohue (2016).[8] Using the ergative denotes a high degree of agentivity of the subject.

Personal pronouns in Bumthang[9]
Absolutive Ergative Genitive Dative
singular plural singular plural singular plural singular plural
1st ngat nget ngai (ngaile) ngei (ngeile) ngae (ngale) nge (ngele, ngegi) ngado ngedo
2st wet yin wi (wile) yinle we (wele) yinde wedo yindu
3rd khit bot khi (khile) boi (boile) khi (khile) böegi (boeli) khidu bodo

The plural suffix in nouns is -tshai. Adjectives follow nouns. The ergative suffix in nouns is -le, while in personal pronouns it is -i. The ergative suffix may follow the collective suffix gampo. The genitive may take on the suffix -rae (e.g. we-rae 'your own'). The telic suffix -QO, where both Q (realized as [k], [g], [ng], [t], or [d]) and O take on a different value based on the final consonant and vowel of a word, denotes the goal of a situation which the word is directed to (e.g. Thimphuk-gu 'to Thimphu', yam-do 'on the way'). Distinct from the telic, the locative suffix -na (e.g. yak-na 'in the hand').

The numeral system of Bumthang is largely base-20. The numeral thek 'one' is also used to denote 'a/an, a certain one'.

Bumthang numerals
Numeral Bumthang Numeral Bumthang Numeral Bumthang
1 thek 11 chwaret 21 khaethek neng thek
2 zon 12 chwa'nyit 22 khaethek neng zon
3 sum 13 chusum 40 khaezon
4 ble 14 cheble 60 khaesum
5 yanga 15 chänga 400 nyishuthek
6 grok 16 chöegrok 420 nyishuthek neng tsathek
7 'nyit 17 cher'nyit 440 nyishuthek neng tsazon
8 jat 18 charjat 481 nyishuthek neng tsable doma thek
9 dogo 19 chöedogo 800 nyishuzon
10 che 20 khaethek 8000 khaechenthek

The finite verb is inflected for tense, aspect, and evidentiality. Mood is usually marked by an auxiliary. TAM categories include the present, the experienced past, the inferred past, the experienced imperfective, the periphrastic perfect, the infinitival future, the volitional future, the supine, the gerund, the adhortative, and the optative.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Bumthang at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ a b c "Bumthangkha". Ethnologue Online. Dallas: SIL International. 2006. Retrieved 2011-01-18.
  3. ^ a b van Driem, George L. (1993). "Language Policy in Bhutan". London: SOAS. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-11-01. Retrieved 2011-01-18.
  4. ^ Schicklgruber, Christian (1998). Françoise Pommaret-Imaeda (ed.). Bhutan: Mountain Fortress of the Gods. Shambhala. pp. 50, 53. ISBN 9780906026441.
  5. ^ van Driem, George (2007). "Endangered Languages of Bhutan and Sikkim: East Bodish Languages". In Moseley, Christopher (ed.). Encyclopedia of the World's Endangered Languages. Routledge. p. 295. ISBN 978-0-7007-1197-0.
  6. ^ van Driem, George (2007). Matthias Brenzinger (ed.). Language diversity endangered. Trends in linguistics: Studies and monographs, Mouton Reader. Vol. 181. Walter de Gruyter. p. 312. ISBN 978-3-11-017050-4.
  7. ^ van Driem 1995.
  8. ^ Donohue, Cathryn; Donohue, Mark (2016). "On ergativity in Bumthang". Language. 92 (1): 179–188. doi:10.1353/lan.2016.0004. hdl:10722/224966. ISSN 1535-0665. S2CID 147531925.
  9. ^ van Driem 1995, p. 13.

Bibliography

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  • van Driem, George (1995). Grammar of Bumthang - A Language of Central Bhutan. Dzongkha Development Commission.
  • van Driem, George. 2015. Synoptic grammar of the Bumthang language. Himalayan Linguistics. Open access
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Wikivoyage has a phrasebook for Bumthangkha.
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