Sherpa language

Sherpa
ཤར་པའི་སྐད་ཡིག shar pa'i skad yig
Native to	Nepal, China, Sikkim, Tibet
Ethnicity	Sherpa
Native speakers	170,000 (2001 & 2011 census)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Bodic Tibetic Southern Tibetic Sherpa
Writing system	Tibetan, Devanagari
Official status
Official language in	Nepal India (Sikkim)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	xsr
Glottolog	sher1255
ELP	Sherpa

Sherpa (also Sharpa, Xiaerba, Sherwa) is a language spoken in Nepal and the Indian state of Sikkim, mainly by the Sherpa community. About 200,000 speakers live in Nepal (2001 census), some 20,000 in Sikkim (1997), and some 800 in China (1994).

Days of the week in Sherpa

English	Sherpa
Sunday	ŋi`ma ( / ŋ / is the sound Ng')
Monday	Dawa
Tuesday	Miŋma
Wednesday	Lakpa
Thursday	Phurba
Friday	Pasaŋ
Saturday	Pemba

The above days of the week are derived from the Tibetan language ("Pur-gae").

Sherpa is a SOV language, written using either the Devanagari or Sambotas script.

Phonology

Sherpa has the following consonants:[1]

Consonants

		Bilabial		Dental		Alveolar		Postalveolar		Palatal	Velar		Glottal
		plain	aspirated	plain	aspirated	plain	aspirated	plain	aspirated		plain	aspirated
Stop	voiceless	p	pʰ	t̪	t̪ʰ	ʈ	ʈʰ				k	kʰ
	voiced	b		d̪		ɖ					g
Fricative						s		ʃ					h
Affricate	voiceless					t͡s	t͡sʰ	t͡ʃ	t͡ʃʰ
	voiced					d͡z		d͡ʒ
Nasal		m		n							ŋ
Approximant		w				l	lʰ			j
Trill						r	rʰ

Some grammatical aspects of Sherpa are as follows:

• Nouns are defined by morphology when a bare noun occurs in the genitive and this extends to the noun phrase. Defined by syntactic co-occurrence with the locative clitic, comes first in the noun phrase after demonstratives.
• Demonstratives are defined syntactically by first position in the NP directly before the noun.
• Quantifiers: Number words occur last in the noun phrase with the exception of the definite article.
• Adjectives occur after the noun in the NP and morphologically only take genitive marking when in construct with a noun.
• Verbs may morphologically be distinguished by differing or suppletive roots for the perfective, imperfective, and imperative. They occur last in a clause before the verbal auxiliaries.
• Verbal Auxiliaries occur last in a clause.
• Postpositions occur last in a postpositional NP.
• Sherpa is a tone language

Other typological features: 1. Split Ergativity based on Aspect 2. SO & OV (SOV) 3. N-A 4. N-Num 5. V-Aux 6. N-Pos

External links

• Himali Sherpa:sherpa Culture dictionary
• Sherpa-English and English-Sherpa Dictionary available online
• Sherpa dictionary Print edition