Purgi language

Purki
Purki
Purigi, Purki
Native to	India, Pakistan
Ethnicity	Purigpa
Native speakers	94,000 (2011 census)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Tibeto-Kanauri (?) Bodish Tibetic Ladakhi–Balti Purki; ; ; ; ; ;
Writing system	Perso-Arabic script; Tibetan script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	prx
Glottolog	puri1258
ELP	Purik

Purgi, Burig, Purki, Purik, Purigi or Puriki (Tibetan script: བོད་རིགས་སྐད།, Nastaʿlīq script: پُرگِی) is a Tibetic language closely related to the Ladakhi-Balti language. Purgi is natively spoken by the Purigpa people in Ladakh region of India and Baltistan region of Pakistan.

Most of the Purigpas are Shia Muslims, although a significant number of them follow Noorbakhshi and Sunni Islam, and a small minority of Buddhists and Bön followers reside in areas like Fokar valley, Mulbekh, Wakha. Like the Baltis, they speak an archaic Tibetan dialect closely related to Balti and Ladakhi. Purki is more closely related to Balti than Ladakhi, so there are different opinions among linguists in considering Purki and Balti as different languages or simply different varieties of the same language.^[2]^[3]^[4]

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Retroflex	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m	n			ɲ	ŋ
Stop	voiceless	p	t	ʈ			k	q
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	ʈʰ			kʰ
	voiced	b	d	ɖ			ɡ
Affricate	voiceless		t͡s		t͡ʃ
	aspirated		t͡sʰ		t͡ʃʰ
	voiced		d͡z		d͡ʒ
Fricative	voiceless	(f)	s	ʂ	ʃ			χ	h
	voiced		z		ʒ			ʁ
	lateral		ɬ
Trill/Tap			r	ɽ
Approximant	lateral		l
Approximant	central	w				j

/pʰ/ may also be realized as a fricative [f].
/r/ is often fricativized, being heard as [r̝].

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e	(ə)	o
Open		a

/a/ may often be heard as back [ʌ] or centralized [ʌ̈], and in certain environments as [ɛ].
Sounds /e, o/ may often be heard as [ɛ, ɔ].
/e/ can be heard as [ə] when in unstressed syllables.^[3]

References

^ Purki at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ * N. Tournadre (2005) "L'aire linguistique tibétaine et ses divers dialectes." Lalies, 2005, n°25, p. 7–56 [1]
^ ^a ^b Zemp, Marius (2018). A Grammar of Purik Tibetan. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-36631-2.
^ Rangan, K. (1979). Purki Grammar. Central Institute of Indian Languages.

External links

Ethnic profile by Asia Harvest

[e18-1] Purki at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)

[2] * N. Tournadre (2005) "L'aire linguistique tibétaine et ses divers dialectes." Lalies, 2005, n°25, p. 7–56 [1]

[:0-3] Zemp, Marius (2018). A Grammar of Purik Tibetan. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-36631-2.

[4] Rangan, K. (1979). Purki Grammar. Central Institute of Indian Languages.

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