Gongduk language

Gongduk or Gongdu () is an endangered Sino-Tibetan language spoken by about 1,000 people in a few inaccessible villages located near the Kuri Chhu river in the Gongdue Gewog of Mongar District in eastern Bhutan. The names of the villages are Bala, Dagsa, Damkhar, Pam, Pangthang, and Yangbari (Ethnologue).

History The language was only formally described by linguists in 1991."Why do languages die?", by Christopher Moseley, in The 5-Minute Linguist, , George van Driem is working towards the completion of a description of Gongduk based on his work with native speakers in the Gongduk area.

Classification Gongduk has complex verbal morphology, which Ethnologue considers a retention from Proto-Tibeto-Burman, and is lexically highly divergent.Blench, R. & Post, M. W. (2013). Rethinking Sino-Tibetan phylogeny from the perspective of Northeast Indian languages On this basis, it is apparently not part of any major subgroup and will probably have to be assigned to its own branch.

George van Driem (2001:870)van Driem, George. 2001. Languages of the Himalayas. Leiden: Brill proposes that the Greater Bumthang (East Bodish) languages, including Bumthang, Khengkha, and Kurtöp, may have a Gongduk substratum. Gongduk itself may also have a non-Tibeto-Burman substrate.

Gerber (2018)Gerber, Pascal. 2018. Areal features in Gongduk, Bjokapakha and Black Mountain Mönpa phonology . Unpublished draft. notes that Gongduk has had extensive contact with Black Mountain Mönpa before the arrival of East Bodish languages in Bhutan. Gongduk also has many Tshangla loanwords. The following comparative vocabulary table from Gerber (2020) compares Gongduk, Black Mountain Mönpa, and Bjokapakha, which is a divergent Tshangla variety.

Gloss Gongduk Black Mountain Mönpa Bjokapakha hair (on head) tongue eye ear tooth bone blood hand/arm leg/foot faeces water rain dog pig fish louse bear son daughter name house fire to hear to see to look to sit to die to kill

+ Comparison of numerals: Gloss Gongduk Black Mountain Mönpa Bjokapakha one two three four five six seven eight nine ten

+ Comparison of pronouns: Pronoun Gongduk Black Mountain Mönpa Bjokapakha

Phonology +ConsonantsLabialDentalRetroflexPalatalVelarGlottalPlosiveoral () () aspirated()Affricateoral () aspirated()Fricative NasalApproximant, Consonants in parentheses are only found in loanwords. The velar stops /kʰ k g/ are in free variation with their uvular counterparts [qʰ q ɢ]. The stops /p t k/ are glottalised and unreleased [ʔp̚ ʔt̚ ʔk̚] at the end of syllables. /ŋ/ can often be heard as a glottal stop [ʔ] in fast speech or following another nasal. /n/ and /ŋ/ are palatalized to [ɲ] before /i/ or /j/.

+VowelsFrontCentralBackUnroundedRoundedHigh()Mid()Low()() /y/ and /ø/ most often appear after palatal consonants and in loanwords. /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ may be in free variation with /e o/. /ə/ can often be heard as [ɐ~ɑ]. /ɤ/ varies broadly between [ɨ~ɯ~ɤ~ɘ~ə].

Grammar Morphology Gongduk has productive suffixal morphology (van Driem 2014). ‘plural suffix in human nouns’ Examples: ‘children’ < ‘child’ + ‘people’ < ‘person’ + ‘friends’ < ‘friend’ +

However, non-human plural nouns do not take on any suffixes, and remain the same: ‘horse, horses’ ‘bird, birds’ ‘house, houses’

‘ergative and possessive suffix’ Examples: ‘the people of Bɤʔlɤ [ergative]’ ‘the seed of the maize’ ‘meat of the cow [beef]’ ‘head bone [skull]’ ‘the friend [ergative]’ ‘Ap Drakpa [ergative]’ ‘egg of offering (sacrificial egg)’ ‘after one month’

‘ablative suffix’ Examples: ‘We are from Gongduk’ ‘by way of the stairs’ ‘from Daksa’ ‘as a kidu [government gift]’ ‘from Bɤʔlɤ’ ‘from Dengkalé Dale’ ‘from "Black Roof" village’ ‘from Phajong Pam’

‘dative / locative suffix’ Examples: ‘to whom’ ‘in that village’ ‘to [his] head’ ‘to me’ ‘to India’ ‘whereto, where precisely’ ‘at times, sometimes’ ‘to Thimphu’

Demonstratives Gongduk demonstratives precede head nouns. ‘that (demonstrative)’ Examples: ‘that person’ ‘that tree’ ‘in that village’

Personal pronouns + Personal pronoun paradigm absolutive ergative & genitive singular plural singular plural 1st person exclusive , inclusive , , 2nd person , 3rd person ,

Van Driem (2014) compares the Gongduk first person singular personal pronoun 'I, me' to Kathmandu Newar ~ - 'I, me' and Tshangla ~ - ~ - 'I, me'. He also compares the Gongduk first person plural personal pronoun 'we, us' to Kathmandu Newar ~ - 'we, us'.

Vocabulary The Gongduk words and phrases below are from van Driem (2014).van Driem, George. 2014. Gongduk Nominal Morphology and the phylogenetic position of Gongduk. Paper presented at the 20th Himalayan Languages Symposium, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 16 July 2014.

Basic vocabulary

‘head’ ‘bone’ ‘language, mouth’ ‘water’ ‘rain’ ‘cliff’ ‘salt’ ‘tooth’ ‘tree’ ‘wood’ ‘seed’ ‘cooked Setaria or rice’ ‘maize’ ‘banana’ ‘meat’ ‘highland paddy, ghaiyā’ ‘cooked Panicum or maize’ ‘pig’ ‘cow’ ‘horse’ ‘bird’ ‘egg’ ‘day (24-hour period)’ ‘month’ ‘child’ ‘person’ ‘friend’ ‘village’ ‘house’ ‘stairs’ ‘offering’ ‘Gongduk’

Numerals

‘1’ ‘2’ ‘3’ , ‘4’ ‘5’ ‘6’ ‘7’ , ‘8’ ‘9’ ‘10’ ‘11’ ‘12’ ‘13’ ‘score (20)’ ‘five score, i.e. one hundred’

Interrogative pronouns

‘who’ ‘whose’ ‘what’ ‘when’ ‘where, whither’ ‘how much, how many’ ‘which, whence’ ‘at what time’ , ‘why, how come’ , ‘how, in which way’ ‘that (demonstrative)’

Gongduk language

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