Sikkimese language

The Sikkimese language, also called Sikkimese, Bhutia, or Drenjongké (Tibetan: འབྲས་ལྗོངས་སྐད་, Wylie: 'bras ljongs skad, "Rice Valley language"),[2] Dranjoke, Denjongka, Denzongpeke and Denzongke, belongs to the Tibeto-Burman languages. It is spoken by the Bhutia in Sikkim, India and in parts of Province No. 1, Nepal. The Sikkimese people refer to their own language as Drendzongké and their homeland as Drendzong (Tibetan: འབྲས་ལྗོངས་, Wylie: 'bras-ljongs, "Rice Valley").[3]

Sikkimese
Drenjongke
འབྲས་ལྗོངས་སྐད་
bras ljongs skad
RegionSikkim, Nepal (Province No. 1), Bhutan, Sagasu
EthnicitySikkimese
Native speakers
70,000 (2022)[1]
Sino-Tibetan
  • Tibeto-Kanauri ?
    • Bodish
Tibetan script
Official status
Official language in
 India
Language codes
ISO 639-3sip
Glottologsikk1242

Script
Main article: Tibetan script

Sikkimese is written using Sambhota script and Zhang Yeshe De Script, which it inherited from Classical Tibetan. Sikkimese phonology and lexicon differ markedly from Classical Tibetan, however. SIL International thus describes the Sikkimese writing system as "Bodhi style". According to SIL, 68% of Sikkimese Bhutia were literate in the Tibetan script in 2001.[3][4][5]

Sikkim and its neighbours

Speakers of Sikkimese can understand some Dzongkha, with a lexical similarity of 65% between the two languages. By comparison, Standard Tibetan, however, is only 42% lexically similar. Sikkimese has also been influenced to some degree by the neighbouring Yolmowa and Tamang languages.[3][4]

Due to more than a century of close contact with speakers of Nepali and Tibetan proper, many Sikkimese speakers also use these languages in daily life.[3]

Phonology

Consonants

Below is a chart of Sikkimese consonants, largely following Yliniemi (2005) and van Driem (1992).[5]

Labial Dental/
Alveolar		 Retroflex (Alveolo-)
Palatal		 Velar Glottal
Nasal voiceless n̥ ⟨ན n⟩ŋ̥ ⟨ང ng⟩
voiced m ⟨མ m⟩n ⟨ན n⟩n~ɲ ⟨ཉ ny⟩ŋ ⟨ང ng⟩
Plosive voiceless
unaspirated		 p ⟨པ p⟩t ⟨ཏ t⟩ʈ ⟨ཏྲ tr⟩k ⟨ཀ k⟩ʔ ⟨འ ʔ⟩
voiceless
aspirated		 pʰ ⟨ཕ ph⟩tʰ ⟨ཐ th⟩ʈʰ ⟨ཐྲ thr⟩kʰ ⟨ཁ kh⟩
voiced b ⟨བ b⟩d ⟨ད d⟩ɖ ⟨དྲ dr⟩ɡ ⟨ག g⟩
devoiced p̀ʱ~b̀ɦ ⟨བ p'⟩t̀ʱ~d̀ɦ ⟨ད t'⟩ʈ̀ʱ~ɖ̀ɦ ⟨དྲ tr'⟩k̀ʱ~g̀ɦ ⟨ག k'⟩
Affricate voiceless
unaspirated		 ts ⟨ཙ ts⟩tɕ ⟨ཅ c⟩
voiceless
aspirated		 tsʰ ⟨ཚ tsh⟩tɕʰ ⟨ཆ ch⟩
voiced dz ⟨ཛ dz⟩dʑ ⟨ཇ j⟩
devoiced tɕ̀ʱ~dʑ̀ɦ ⟨ཇ c'⟩
Fricative voiceless s ⟨ས s⟩ɕ ⟨ཤ sh⟩h ⟨ཧ h⟩
voiced z ⟨ཟ z⟩ʑ ⟨ཞ zh⟩
Liquid voiceless l̥ ⟨ལ l⟩r̥ ⟨ར r⟩
voiced l ⟨ལ l⟩r~ɹ~ɾ ⟨ར r⟩
Approximant w ⟨ཝ w⟩j ⟨ཡ y⟩w ⟨ཝ w⟩

Devoiced consonants are pronounced with a slight breathy voice, aspiration, and low pitch. They are remnants of voiced consonants in Classical Tibetan that became devoiced. Likewise, the historical Tibetan phoneme /ny/ is realised as an allophone of /n/ and /ng/, which themselves have mostly lost contrast among speakers.[5]

Vowels

Below is a chart of Sikkimese vowels, also largely following Yliniemi (2005).[5]

FrontMiddleBack
unroundedrounded unroundedrounded
Close /i/ ⟨ི i⟩/y/ ⟨ུ u⟩/u/ ⟨ུ u⟩
Mid /e/ ⟨ེ e⟩/ø/ ⟨ོ o⟩/o/ ⟨ོ o⟩
Open [ɛ] ⟨ེ e⟩/ɐ/ ⟨a⟩
  • [ɛ] is an allophone of [e], confined to appearing after [dʑ] /j/ in closed syllables

    In the Tibetan script, an abugida, the inherent vowel /a/ is unmarked.

    Differences in Spoken and Written Language

    While the spoken and written language are similar, there are some minor differences. Notable types of change are phonological reduction/modification, as well as morphosyntactic reduction. Some morphosyntactic changes include the dropping of case-markers in certain contexts.  Examples that have been observed include noun modifiers losing the genitive marker, and the dropping of case marking in directionals.[6] Both literary and spoken variants borrow from related or influential languages. The written language most often borrows Tibetan loan words, especially for words or concepts that may otherwise not yet be standardized in Sikkimese. Because of this, non-literate speakers may have difficulty with these loan words. Conversely, the spoken language borrows more from neighboring Nepali as well as English. Spoken language is more likely to be code switched with these than in written language.[6]

    See also
    • Bhutia people
    • Lepcha people
    • Lepcha language
    • Indigenous peoples of Sikkim
    • History of Sikkim

    References
    1. Sikkimese at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
    2. "Lost Syllables and Tone Contour in Dzongkha (Bhutan)" in David Bradley, Eguénie J.A. Henderson and Martine Mazaudon, eds, Prosodic analysis and Asian linguistics: to honour R. K. Sprigg, 115-136; Pacific Linguistics, C-104, 1988
    3. Lewis, M. Paul, ed. (2009). "Sikkimese". Ethnologue: Languages of the World (16 ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International. Retrieved 16 April 2011.
    4. Norboo, S. (1995). "The Sikkimese Bhutia" (PDF). Bulletin of Tibetology. Gangtok: Namgyal Institute of Tibetology. pp. 114–115.
    5. Yliniemi, Juha (2005). Preliminary Phonological Analysis of Denjongka of Sikkim (PDF) (Masters, General Linguistics thesis). University of Helsinki. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 August 2014. Retrieved 17 April 2011.
    6. Yliniemi, Juha Sakari (18 November 2021). "A descriptive grammar of Denjongke". Himalayan Linguistics. 20 (1). doi:10.5070/H920146466. ISSN 1544-7502.

    Further reading
    For a list of words relating to Sikkimese language, see the Sikkimese language category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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