Seth Cable Structure of a Non-Indo-European Language Spring 2012 Ling748 Some Basic Facts About the Tshangla Language
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Seth Cable Structure of a Non-Indo-European Language Spring 2012 Ling748 Some Basic Facts about the Tshangla Language 1. Genetic Grouping Tshangla (/tsʰaŋla/) is a member of the Tibeto-Burman language family. It’s genetic classification, along with related languages, is illustrated in the tree below. The Place of Tshangla in the Tibeto-Burman Family Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Tibeto-Burman Chinese (Mandarin) Lolo-Burmese Himalayish Burmese Mahakiranti Tibetic Newari Tibetan Bodish Lhasa Tibetan Tshangla As can be seen above, Tshangla is closely related to the Tibetan languages, including Classical Tibetan, (Modern) Lhasa Tibetan, Kham, Sherpa, and Dzongkha. However, it is not itself a Tibetan language, and is not historically derived from Classical Tibetan. 2. Areas Spoken and Alternate Names Tshangla is primarly spoken in East and Southeast Bhutan, especially in the Trashigang district. The language is referred to as “Sharchopka” in Dzongkha, the national language Bhutan. 1 Seth Cable Structure of a Non-Indo-European Language Spring 2012 Ling748 It is also spoken in the Arunachal Pradesh of India, where it is sometimes referred to as “Central Monpa”, and in Southeast Tibet, where it is referred to as “Cangluo” (Andvik 2010: 4-6). 3. Prior Literature Almost nothing has been written on Tshangla, aside from the superb grammar by Andvik (2010), which was based upon eight years of immersive fieldwork with expatriate speakers living in India and Nepal. Andvik (2010: 2) reviews the scant prior literature, which consists almost entirely of word lists and glossaries. Aside from his grammar, Andvik has published two papers on the language (Andvik 1993, Andvik 2003). The lack of linguistic documentation seems to be largely due to the inaccessibility of speakers. The language is spoken primarily in Bhutan, which is quite inaccessible to outsiders. The kingdom only became open to foreigners in the 1960’s, and governmental policy still strongly discourages tourism from countries other than India and Bangladesh. Foreigners from other countries must register with an official tourism group and pay a base rate of $200 a day to stay in the country, a policy that will clearly hamper fieldwork on Bhutan’s many indigenous languages. 4. Number of Speakers and Status of the Language There are approximately 170,000 speakers of Tshangla, living in Bhutan (157,000), India (11,000) and Tibet (7000). It is not reported to be endangered in any way, as there are still many children learning it as their first language. Indeed, it is often described as being the majority language of eastern Bhutan, where it functions as something of a lingua franca. Andvic (2010: 4) reports that “most Bhutanese have at least some rudimentary knowledge of Tshangla”. In addition, it’s common for Western Bhutanese to learn some Tshangla through classmates in the school system (Yang Gyeltshen, p.c.). Despite its predominance in eastern Bhutan, Tshangla is described by Andvik (2010: 4) as “an unwritten language”, meaning that it “is not in any country standardized by governing fiat, taught in the schools, recognized as an official language, or even given status as a minority language.” However, Ethnologue reports that 47% of L1 speakers are literate, mainly using Uchen Tibtean script. Though there are no official publications in Tshangla, the language is used in radio and television broadcasts. (It remains undetermined what kind of orthography is used for writing copy for those broadcasts; Yang Gyeltshen, p.c.) The official national language of Bhutan is Dzongkha, which is derived from the Tibetan spoken by Lama Shabdrung and his followers, who left Tibet to found the nation of Bhutan in the 1600s. Tshangla, however, is one of Bhutan’s many indigenous languages, and is the most widely spoken of the indigenous Tibeto-Burman languages. 5. Phonological Inventory and Practical Othorgraphy In the sections below, I review the phonological inventory reported by Andvik (2010). I pair each of the segments with their representations in IPA and the practical orthography developed by Andvik, which hews closely to the IPA. 2 Seth Cable Structure of a Non-Indo-European Language Spring 2012 Ling748 5.1 Consonants IPA Practical Orthography Illustrative Words Labials voiceless, unaspirated stop /p/ p pakco ‘aim!’ voiceless aspirated stop / pʰ / ph phakco ‘sweep!’ voiced stop / b / b bakco ‘dig!’ nasal stop / m / m makpa ‘groom’ labio-velar glide / w / w waktsa ‘child’ Alveolars voiceless unaspriated stop / t / t tak ‘cross, symbol’ voiceless aspirated stop / tʰ / th tha ‘here’ voiced stop / d / d don ‘demon’ nasal stop / n / n na ‘ear’ voiceless unaspirated affricate / ts / ts tsokpa ‘it’s dirty’ voiceless aspirated affricate / tsʰ / tsh tshok ‘meal’ voiceless fricative / s / s sa ‘ground’ voiced fricative / z / z za ‘son’ flap / ɾ / r ri ‘water’ lateral liquid / l / l li ‘seed’ Note: Sometimes the non-native phonemes /dz/ (voiced alveolar affricate) and /ɬ/ (voiceless lateral fricative) appear in loanwords from Dzongkha. This is not the case for all speakers, though. Andvik’s (2010) representations for these sounds are [dz] and [lh], respectively. 3 Seth Cable Structure of a Non-Indo-European Language Spring 2012 Ling748 IPA Practical Orthography Illustrative Words Retroflex voiceless unaspriated stop / ʈ / tr tramco ‘distribute!’ voiceless aspirated stop / ʈʰ / thr thram ‘document’ voiced stop / ɖ / dr drukpa ‘Bhutan’ Palatals nasal stop / ɳ / ny nyugu ‘quill’ voiceless unaspirated affricate / tʃ / c cen ‘eye’ voiceless aspirated affricate / tʃʰ / ch cha ‘pair’ voiced affricate / dʒ / j jang ‘I’ voiceless fricative / ʃ / sh sha ‘meat’ glide / j / y yi ‘blood’ Note: Sometimes the non-native phoneme /ʒ/ (voiced palatal fricative) appears in loanwords from Dzongkha. This is not the case for all speakers, though. Andvik’s (2010) representation for this sound is [zh]. Velars voiceless unaspriated stop / k / k katang ‘large’ voiceless aspirated stop / kʰ / kh khachi ‘knife’ voiced stop / g / g gotham‘egg’ nasal stop / ŋ / ng ngen ‘marriage’ Glottal voiceless fricative / h / h hani ‘why’ 4 Seth Cable Structure of a Non-Indo-European Language Spring 2012 Ling748 5.1.1 Intervocalic Lenition As reported by Andvik (2010: 10), aspirated labials and velars are lenited intervocalically. sophu ‘wound (insect bite, sore)’ [ soɸu ] zakhan ‘eater’ [ zaxan ] / [ zahan ] Note: For Yang, the lenition of “ph” seems to also sometimes occur word-initially. In addition, the ‘retroflex consonants’ seem (to me) to be consonant clusters. 5.2 Vowels Tshangla has a typical five vowel system, illustrated below. Note that for the (native) vowels, there is no difference between their representation in IPA and the practical orthography. Front Mid Back High i u Mid e o Low a Each of the (native) vowel contrasts is illustrated in the following contrastive quintuplet: li ‘seed’ le ‘intenstines’ la ‘mountain pass’ lu ‘underworld being’ lo ‘language, speech’ Note: Sometimes the non-native phonemes /y/ (high front rounded) and /ø/ (mid front rounded) appear in loanwords from Dzongkha. This is not the case for all speakers, though. Andvik’s (2010) representations for these sounds are [ü] and [ö], respectively. 6. Incipient Tonogenesis As described by Andvik (2010), Bhutanese Tshangla is not a tonal language. However, Andvik (2010: 20) cites reports that the dialects spoken in Tibet are undergoing tonogenesis. According to these reports, the voicing distinction in onsets is being replaced with a tonal distinction on the following vowel, in just the way expected (e.g. voiceless high tone; voiced low tone). 5 Seth Cable Structure of a Non-Indo-European Language Spring 2012 Ling748 References Andvik, Erik E. 1993 “Tshangla Verb Inflections: A Preliminary Sketch.” Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area 16: 75-136. Andvik, Erik E. 2003 “Tshangla.” In Thurgood, G. and R. LaPolla (eds) The Sino-Tibetan Languages. Routledge. London. Andvik, Erik E. 2010. A Grammar of Tshangla. Brill. London. 6 .