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Sherpa | |
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शेर्वी तम्ङे, śērwī tamṅē, ཤར་པའི་སྐད་ཡིག, shar pa'i skad yig | |
Native to | Nepal, India |
Region | Nepal, Sikkim, Tibet |
Ethnicity | Sherpa |
Native speakers | 140,000 (2011 & 2021 census) [1] |
Tibetan, Devanagari | |
Official status | |
Official language in |
Nepal India |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 |
xsr |
Glottolog |
sher1255 |
ELP | Sherpa |
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]
Sherpa is a tonal language. [4] [5] Sherpa has the following consonants: [6]
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⟩ |
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 |
There are four distinct tones; high /v́/, falling /v̂/, low /v̀/, rising /v̌/.
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Some grammatical aspects of Sherpa are as follows:
Other typological features of Sherpa include split ergativity based on aspect, SO & OV (SOV), N-A, N-Num, V-Aux, and N-Pos.
The following table lists the days of the week, which are derived from the Tibetan language ("Pur-gae").
English | Sherpa |
---|---|
Sunday | ŋi`ma ( / ŋ / is the sound Ng') |
Monday | Dawa |
Tuesday | Miŋma |
Wednesday | Lakpa |
Thursday | Phurba |
Friday | Pasaŋ |
Saturday | Pemba |
The following is a sample text in Sherpa of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Sherpa in Devanagari script
Sherpa in Tibetan script
Sherpa in IAST transliteration
Sherpa in the Wylie transliteration
Translation