Lepcha language

Lepcha, also called Róng (Lepcha: ; Róng ríng), is a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by the Lepcha people in Sikkim, India and parts of West Bengal, Nepal, and Bhutan.

Population Lepcha is spoken by minorities in the Indian states of Sikkim and West Bengal, as well as parts of Nepal and Bhutan. Where it is spoken, it is considered an aboriginal language, predating the arrival of the Tibetan languages (Sikkimese, Dzongkha, and others) and more recent Nepali language. Lepcha speakers comprise four distinct communities: the Renjóngmú of Sikkim; the Támsángmú of Kalimpong, Kurseong, and Mirik; the ʔilámmú of Ilam District, Nepal; and the Promú of southwestern Bhutan. Lepcha-speaking groups in India are larger than those in Nepal and Bhutan.

The Indian census reported 50,000 Lepcha speakers, but the number of native Lepcha speakers in India may be closer to 30,000.

Endangerment Since the 1650s, Lepcha has been an endangered language due to the encroachment on Lepcha spheres of life by Tibetan and later Nepali. By 1951, 72% of Lepchas were bilingual in Lepcha and Nepali, the latter of which had become the community's lingua franca. No monolingual Lepcha speakers were recorded, and 20% of Lepchas could speak only Nepali. Transmission of Lepcha to younger generations has been hindered by primary schools teaching exclusively in Nepali, leading to Lepcha only being learned later in life.

Marriages into Nepali-speaking families, central government promotion of Hindi, and increasing interest in English among younger generations have also been cited as significant pressures against Lepcha.

Classification Lepcha is difficult to classify, but George van Driem (2001) suggests that it may be closest to the Mahakiranti languages, a subfamily of the Himalayish languages.

Lepcha is internally diverse, showing lexical influences from different majority language groups across the four main Lepcha communities. According to Plaisier (2007), these Nepali and Sikkimese Tibetan influences do not amount to a dialectal difference.

Roger Blench (2013) suggests that Lepcha has an Austroasiatic substratum, which originated from a now-extinct branch of Austroasiatic that he calls "Rongic".

Features Lepcha is a non-tonal Sino-Tibetan language, although it does have phonemic stress or pitch that may be marked in the Lepcha script. Much of its lexicon is composed of monosyllabic elements.

Notably, words that are commonly considered obscene or taboo in other languages are not treated as such by native speakers.

Script and romanization

The Lepcha script is a syllabic script featuring a variety of special marks and ligatures. Its genealogy is unclear. Early Lepcha manuscripts were written vertically, a sign of Chinese influence. Prior to the development of the Lepcha script, Lepcha literary works were composed in the Tibetan script.

Lepcha language is romanized according to varying schemes, the prevailing system being that of Mainwaring (1876). Most linguists, including Plaisier (2007), whose system is used in this article, have followed modified versions of Mainwaring's system. Other linguists and historians have used systems based on European languages such as English, French, and German.

Phonology

Consonants Lepcha consonants appear in the chart below, following Plaisier (2007): Labial Dental Alveolar Retroflex Palato-alveolar Palatal Velar GlottalNasal Plosivevoiceless aspirated voiced Affricatevoiceless aspirated voiced ~ Fricativevoiced voiceless Approximant Trill Retroflex phonemes /ʈ/, /ʈʰ/, and /ɖ/ are written in Lepcha script as , , and , respectively. Most, though not all, instances of retroflex consonants indicate a word is of Tibetan origin. To distinguish this retroflex sound in Lepcha script, a dot may be written underneath: , , and . Native instances of non-retroflex , , and may either be pronounced as written or as , , and . For example, , , may be said either or .

Lepcha has three glide consonants that may occur after certain initial consonants: , , and . When the phoneme operates as a glide, it can combine with as a double-glide: , . Notably, syllables with the glide are given their own independent forms in the Lepcha script.

Velar consonants and preceding front vowels or are palatalized as and , respectively. Fricatives and are merged before .

Lepcha speakers tend not to distinguish between and , pronouncing both as ~~. Additionally, initial is occasionally realized as . Under the influence of Nepali, some Lepcha speakers have lost the distinction between and , and between and .

Of the above phonemes, only , and may be syllable-final. Native speakers tend to neutralize the difference between final and . In syllable-final position, stops are realized as an unreleased stop, usually pronounced with a simultaneous : for example, becomes .

Vowels According to Plaisier (2007), Lepcha has eight vowels: Front Central Back Unrounded Rounded Close , Close-mid~ Mid , Open-mid Open The phoneme denoted by is shortened and appears in closed syllables; is longer and appears in open syllables. The phoneme /e/ is realized as in open syllables and in closed syllables before or . Closed syllables ending in , , , , , and show free variation between , , and even . Distinctions between and are often lost among non-literate speakers, particularly those highly fluent in Nepali language, which does not contrast the sounds.

Grammar Lepcha grammar features nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. Word order is typically subject–object–verb (SOV). Lepcha morphology is somewhat agglutinative, though most bare Lepcha lexicon is made up of one- or two-syllable words. Nouns are arranged into either head-first or head-last noun phrases. Relative clauses and genitive phrases precede nouns, whereas markers for demonstratives, definiteness, number, case, and other particles follow the noun. Lepcha is an ergative language, where the ergative case indicates transitivity and completedness of the event. There is no grammatical agreement between different parts of speech (i.e. verb conjugation). Adjectives follow nouns they modify, function as predicates, or stand independently as nominal heads. Adverbs generally directly precede verbs, and reduplication is generally productive for adverbs of time (e.g. → ).

Syntax Some basics of Lepcha syntax are outlined in Mainwaring (1876).

The basic word order in Lepcha is subject–object–verb. Adjectives follow the noun they modify.

Possessors precede the nouns they possess.

Nouns According to Plaisier (2007), Lepcha has only two true "cases" that modify the noun morphologically: the definite article and the dative case marker . All other noun markers, including for example the genitive marker, are actually invariable postpositions. A series noun markers may follow a single noun. Together, these cases and postpositions are: Postposition Meaning human plural non-human plural definite, topic / / ergative, ablative dative genitive locative only both

Plurals are marked differently according to whether they are human () or non-human () nouns. Notably, the plural is not used when the noun is followed by a number.

According to Plaisier (2007), Lepcha personal pronouns are as follows: Singular(Oblique) Dual Plural First person ( ) Second person ( ) Third person ( ) Oblique forms appear in parentheses above. Lepcha personal pronouns can refer only to humans; otherwise demonstratives are used. Personal pronouns may take the definite article .

Thematic classes Many Lepcha nouns can be grouped into one of several classes based on associated characteristics. For example, many animal names begin with the Lepcha script syllabic , e.g., , , , and . Other noun classes include and for plants, and or for snakes and bamboo products.

Verbs Lepcha verbs generally function as predicates or, in relative clauses, as modifiers before a head-noun. Verbs may also be nominalized by a combination of suffixes. For example, may be suffixed to produce .

Many intransitive verbs incorporate a causative infix, sometimes followed by a suffix, to take a transitive sense: → ; → ; → .

Verbs are followed by grammatical suffixes and particles. Verbal particles indicating sureness, polite requests, authoritativeness, dubiousness, and other nonlexical information follow clauses. Below is a chart of such verb- and clause-final suffixes and particles largely following Plaisier (2007): Suffix orParticle Meaning progressive exhaustive perfective infinitive factual definite resultant adhortative question polite request assertive authoritative dubiousness certainty inference

Verbs are negated by a circumfix, , e.g., becomes .

Vocabulary These are some sample words published in Renato Figuerido's Lepcha dictionary. English Lepcha (Latin) Lepcha (Róng/Lepcha script) Lady Ku-mo Let kón Proceed Dí Reach a height Thók Riverbank Klóp A cut Mó To pull Krút Go Nóng Flabby Thyor Reflective Light Lóng Palm Lyók To be short Tan Meat Ke-rung Overclouded Muk What comes first Ták Mother A-mo To knot Tyep A spec of Sterculia Ke-hlyám kun Be on strong legs Krang Dirt Me-ri To slice Líp Entire Shem Cold Hyáng To be drawn together Chom One's Self Te-do Wide Veng To arrest Tho To crush Shíp Mouth A-bong To twist Kar Arrow Sa-li Egg Tí To sit Ngan Flow round Kyúl Overclouded Pe-mang House A-dóng Carry Bú Dream Mong A corner Tung-kyang Basket Dyóng Large Túng Husband Evo Grain Gró Rice basket Ku-mu Placenta A-yeng-tyol Quick Rem Sew Hrap A spec of Solanum Ke-lim-bi

Sample text The following text is Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Lepcha:

Lepcha in Róng Script

Lepcha in Devanagari Script

Romanisation

IPA Transcription

Translation

Lepcha language

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