Sherpa language

Tibetic language

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Sherpa 
शेर्वी तम्ङे, śērwī tamṅē,
ཤར་པའི་སྐད་ཡིག, shar pa'i skad yig
'Sherpa' in Devanagari and Tibetan scripts
Native toNepal, India
RegionNepal, Sikkim, Tibet
EthnicitySherpa
Native speakers
140,000 (2011 & 2021 census)[1]
Language family
Sino-Tibetan
  • Tibeto-Burman
    • Tibeto-Kanauri (?)
      • Bodish
        • Tibetic
          • Southern Tibetic
            • Sherpa 
Writing system
Tibetan, Devanagari
Official status
Official language in
 Nepal
 India
  • Sikkim (additional)[2]
Language codes
ISO 639-3xsr
Glottologsher1255
ELPSherpa
Sherpa is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Sherpa (also Sharpa, Sherwa, or Xiaerba) is a Tibetic language spoken in Nepal and the Indian state of Sikkim, mainly by the Sherpa. The majority speakers of the Sherpa language live in the Khumbu region of Nepal, spanning from the Chinese (Tibetan) border in the east to the Bhotekosi River in the west.[3] About 127,000 speakers live in Nepal (2021 census), some 16,000 in Sikkim, India (2011) and some 800 in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (1994). Sherpa is a subject-object-verb (SOV) language. Sherpa is predominantly a spoken language, although it is occasionally written using either the Devanagari or Tibetan script.[3]

Phonology

Sherpa is a tonal language.[4][5] Sherpa has the following consonants:[6]

Consonants

Labial Dental Alveolar Retroflex Palato-
alveolar 		Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m ⟨མ m⟩ n ⟨ན n⟩ ɲ ⟨ཉ ny⟩ ŋ ⟨ང ng⟩
Plosive/
Affricate 		voiceless p ⟨པ p⟩ t̪ ⟨ཏ t⟩ t͡s ⟨ཙ ts⟩ ʈ ⟨ཊ ṭ⟩ t͡ʃ ⟨ཅ c⟩ c ⟨ཀྱ ky⟩ k ⟨ཀ k⟩
aspirated pʰ ⟨ཕ ph⟩ t̪ʰ ⟨ཐ th⟩ t͡sʰ ⟨ཚ tsh⟩ ʈʰ ⟨ཋ ṭh⟩ t͡ʃʰ ⟨ཆ ch⟩ cʰ ⟨ཁྱ khy⟩ kʰ ⟨ཁ kh⟩
voiced b ⟨བ b⟩ d̪ ⟨ད d⟩ d͡z ⟨ཛ dz⟩ ɖ ⟨ཌ ḍ⟩ d͡ʒ ⟨ཇ j⟩ ɟ ⟨གྱ gy⟩ ɡ ⟨ག g⟩
Fricative s ⟨ས s⟩ ʃ ⟨ཤ sh⟩ h ⟨ཧ h⟩
Liquid voiceless l̪̥ ⟨ལྷ lh⟩ ɾ̥ ⟨ཧྲ hr⟩
voiced l̪ ⟨ལ l⟩ ɾ ⟨ར r⟩
Semivowel w ⟨ཝ w⟩ j ⟨ཡ y⟩
  • Stop sounds /p, t̪, ʈ, k/ can be unreleased [p̚, t̪̚, ʈ̚, k̚] in word-final position.
  • Palatal sounds /c cʰ ɟ/ can neutralize to velar sounds [k kʰ ɡ] when preceding /i, e, ɛ/.
  • /n/ can become a retroflex nasal [ɳ] when preceding a retroflex stop.
  • /p/ can have an allophone of [ɸ] when occurring in fast speech.

Vowels

Front Back
oral nasal oral nasal
High i ĩ u ũ
Mid-high e ẽ o õ
Mid-low ɛ ɛ̃ ɔ ɔ̃
Low a ã ʌ ʌ̃
  • Vowel sounds /i, u/ have the allophones [ɪ, ʊ] when between consonants and in closed syllables.[4]

Tones

There are four distinct tones; high /v́/, falling /v̂/, low /v̀/, rising /v̌/.

Grammar

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