Lepcha (language)

Lepcha
Spoken in	India ; also Nepal , Bhutan
speaker	66,730
Linguistic classification	Trans-Himalayan (Tibeto-Burman) Lepcha
Language codes
ISO 639 -1	-
ISO 639 -2	sit
ISO 639-3	lep

Lepcha is a trans-Himalayan language that is mainly spoken in Sikkim and in the Darjeeling district in the Indian state of West Bengal . The number of speakers in India is estimated at around 30,000, although the exact number is unclear. Outside of India there are about 100 lepcha households in the Ilām district of Nepal and about 1000 speakers in southwestern Bhutan . According to Ethnologue, the Lepcha has a total of 66,730 speakers. The Lepchas call themselves Róng and their language Róng ríng , the Lepcha word for language being ʔáríng . The term "lepcha" comes from the Nepalese word lāpce or lāpcā , which originally had a derogatory connotation and denoted inarticulate speaking or babbling. The Lepchas probably represent the original population of Sikkim. Today, however, they are only a minority in Sikkim, as there are very many immigrants from Nepal.

People of the Lepcha

The Lepchas are divided into four main groups, with the allocation being made according to the region. The Lepchas of Kalimpong , Kurseong , Mirik and Darjeeling call támsángmú and that of Sikkim renjóngmú (Plaisier 2007: 2). The Lepcha group in Nepal is called ʔilámmú and that of Bhutan is known as the promú . In terms of language, these four groups do not represent different dialects. Nevertheless, there are regional differences, which are primarily of a lexical nature and are based on loan words from languages ​​spoken in the respective regions.

The Lepchas are clans or families organized, putsho be mentioned.

The original religion of the Lepchas is of a shamanistic nature . Although the lepchas were converted to Buddhism in the 18th century , shamanism is still practiced alongside it. There are a few lepchas in the Darjeeling district who converted to Christianity in the 19th century . Many of these have given up their language and the shamanistic rituals.

Bamboo plays an important role in the life and culture of the lepchas. Different types of bamboo are used, for example, for building houses and bridges or for arrows, baskets, fences and other household items.

The lepchas have their own traditional clothing, but the lepchas of Bhutan no longer wear these clothes, but those that are otherwise customary in Bhutan.

classification

Lepcha clearly belongs to the Trans-Himalayan languages ​​(also called Tibeto-Burmese). However, the exact position within the Trans-Himalayan languages ​​is still unclear to this day. In van Driem's (2014) Fallen Leaves Model, Lepcha therefore represents its own leaf. In earlier times, however, there were already assumptions about the classification of Lepcha within the trans-Himalayan language family. For example, Robert Shafer assigned Lepcha to his Northern Naga group. He even saw Lepcha as closely related to the practically unknown Tengsa language.

font

The Lepchas have their own literary tradition that goes back to the 18th century, as well as their own script. The Lepcha script was probably introduced during the reign of the third Chögel of Sikkim, Chögä Châdo 'Namgä, in the 18th century. According to the Lepcha tradition, however, the font was created by the scientist Thikúng Mensalóng. It is believed that he lived at the time of Sikkim's patron saint, 'Lama Lhatsun Chenpo, who played a crucial role in Sikkim's conversion to Buddhism. The Lepcha script would therefore have existed since the 17th century. It seems plausible that scripture was introduced during the conversion to Buddhism. It is often the case that the missionaries wanted to translate the religious texts into the local language and an alphabet was needed for this.

Lepcha is written from left to right with spaces between the words. There are 36 characters for consonants . These are listed in Figure 1. Vowels are written with diacritics , the absence of which means the vowel a . The diacritics for the vowels are shown in Figure 2. There are a total of nine diacritics for the vowels. All consonants can appear at the beginning of a word, but only -k, -t, -n, -p, -m, -r, -l and -ng at the end . Different characters are used for these consonants at the end of a word. These are listed in Figure 3.

There are consonant clusters with the glides -y, -l, -r . There are special symbols for this. The ones for -l are already listed in Figure 1. The cluster, which is transliterated as hl , is actually not a cluster, but a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative [l] ̥. The character in Figure 4 is used for clusters with -y . Retroflexes are written as clusters with -r in transliteration , although they actually do not represent a consonant cluster. Retroflexes only occur in loan words from the Dränjoke . The symbol or diacritic used to write retroflexed sounds is shown in Figure 4.

Tab. 1: Lepcha consonant characters

ᰣ ʔa	ᰀ ka	ᰂ kha	ᰃ ga	ᰅ nga	ᰆ approx	ᰇ cha	ᰈ yes	ᰉ nya
	ᰊ ta	ᰋ tha	ᰌ there	ᰍ na	ᰎ pa	ᰐ pha	ᰑ fa	ᰓ ba	ᰕ ma
	ᰗ tsa	ᰘ tsha	ᰙ za	ᰚ ya	ᰛ ra	ᰜ la	ᰝ ha	ᰟ especially
	ᰡ sha	ᰠ sa	ᰢ wa
	ᰁ kla	ᰄ gla	ᰏ pla	ᰒ fla	ᰔ bla	ᰖ mla	ᰞ hla

Tab. 2: Lepcha vowel signs

a

ᰵ á

ᰦ â

ᰧ i

ᰧᰶ í

ᰨ o

ᰩ ó

ᰪ u

ᰫ ú

ᰬ e

Tab. 3: Final consonant signs

ᰭ -k	ᰮ -m	ᰯ -l
ᰰ -n	ᰱ -p	ᰲ -r
ᰳ -t	ᰵ -ng	ᰴ -ang

Tab. 4: Clusters with -y and -r

ᰤ -y

ᰥ -r

Aspects of grammar

Some aspects of the grammar of the Lepcha are listed here, but it is not a summary of the entire grammar.

Phonology

The consonant inventory is shown in Figure 5. Lepcha has labial, dental, retroflex, palatal and velar plosives, a distinction being made between voiceless aspirated, voiceless unaspirated, and voiced. Only with the palatal plosives there is no voiced one.

The voiceless velar plosive / k / is palatalized to [kj] before the vowels / i / and / e /. At the end of a syllable / k /, / t / and / p / are realized unsolved, usually with a preceding glottal plosive. The voiced velar plosive / g / is also palatalized before / i / and / e / [gj].

With the nasals, Lepcha differentiates between labial, dental, palatal and velar. At the beginning of a syllable, the velar nasal is sometimes realized as a voiced glottal fricative [ɦ]. According to Plaisier (2007: 23), there are not many attested forms with this case, which is the opposite of rhinoglottophilia.

The plosives referred to here as dental can also be freely spoken of as alveolar.

There is a free alternation between the labiodental fricative / f / and the bilabial [ɸ]. The difference between / f / and / ph / seems to disappear more and more under the influence of Nepali. Lepcha distinguishes between an alveolar / s / and a postalveolar fricative / ʃ /. The distinction is neutralized before an / i /.

The voiced alveolar fricative / z / is sometimes also implemented as an alveolar affricate [dz]. According to Plaisier (2007: 28), the distinction between / z / and / ʒ / is no longer made by some speakers. The phoneme / r / is a trill, although it is sometimes also realized as a flap [ɾ].

Through the contact with the Nepali the distinction between / v / and / w / disappears more and more.

There are eight phonemic vowels in the Lepcha. These are listed in Figure 6.

Tab. 5: Lepcha consonants

	labial	dental	alveolar	retroflex	palatal	velar	glottal
voiceless plosive	[p] p	[t] t		[ʈ] tr	[c] c	[k] k	[ʔ] ʔ
aspirated voiceless plosive	[p h ] ph	[t h ] th		[ʈ h ] thr	[c h] ch	[k h ] kh
voiced plosive	[b] b	[d] d		[ɖ] dr		[g] g
nasal	[m] m	[n] n			[ɲ] ny	[ŋ] ng
voiceless affricates			[ts] ts
aspirated voiceless affricates			[ts h ] tsh
voiceless fricative	[f] f		[s] [ʃ] s sh
voiced fricative	[v] v		[z] [ʒ] zj
Trill			[r] r
voiced approximant	[w] w	[l] l			[j] y
voiceless approximant							[h] h

Tab. 6: Lepcha vowels

	front		back
closed	[i] i, í	[ɯ] u	[u] ú
half-closed			[o] o
half open	[e ɛ] e	[ə] a, â	[ɔ] ó
open		[a] á

morphology

Regarding parts of speech, there are nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, numerals, postpositions, suffixes, conjunctions and particles.

Nominal morphology

Nouns can be marked with plural suffixes to express plural. There are two different plural suffixes in Lepcha. -pang is used for animals, things etc. or for everything except people. The plural suffix for humans is -sang . It is also used for gods and good supernatural beings. -pang, on the other hand, is used for evil beings such as demons etc. The plural suffixes, however, are not added if there is a numeral before the noun.

The personal pronouns distinguish between three persons, as well as between singular, dual and plural. The personal pronouns are listed in Figure 7.

Tab. 7: Lepcha personal pronouns

	Singular	dual	Plural
1st person	go	kányí	káyú
2nd person	hó	ʔányí	ʔáyú
3rd person	hu	hunyí	huyú

There are six case suffixes in Lepcha: ablative -nun ∼ -nu , lative -lóm , genitive -sá , comitive -sá ∼ -sa , locative -ká and dative -m .

Numerals

Figure 8 shows the numbers from 1-10. Those from 11 to 19 are formed with the suffix -tháp on the respective number. There are full numbers and abbreviated forms of them. From 20 onwards, counting is based on the vigesimal system, with khá "one score" serving as the basis.

Tab. 8: Lepcha Numeralia

ti	0
kát	1
nyet	2
sám	3
fali	4th
fangú	5
tarók	6th
kakyók	7th
kaku	8th
kakyót	9
kati	10

Verbal morphology

Tense, aspect, mode and other things are expressed with postpositions and auxiliary verbs. The verbs in Lepcha each have two verb stems; one regular and one inflected. Those verbs with a closed stem, i.e. H. with a final consonant, and some exceptions with an open stem only have a regular stem. In table 9 all affixes and auxiliary verbs for the formation of tense, aspect, mode etc. are listed.

Tab. 9: Affixes

negation	ma- , -ne
gerund	-lung
participle	-wung
infinitive	-hang
Aorist	-O
Non-past tense	-sho
Factitive	-bú
Supinum / Adhortative	-ká (locative)
Source of Action	-nun ∼ -nu (ablative)
Completive auxiliary verb	lel
Exhaustive auxiliary verb	tho
Resultative auxiliary verb	nón
Perfect auxiliary verb	Has
Progressive auxiliary verb	bám

Particles

There are some particles in the Lepcha to express mode and emotions. These are always at the end of the clause. The particle le is used to express a polite request, while ce denotes authority, which means that the addressee is asked to do something. There is also a dubitative particle te and the particle pú , with which possibilities are expressed. For inferences and conjectures there is the particle lyók . There are also the particles pá, for security based on direct perception or observation, and yâmbá , which expresses that something has just been discovered. Something that was told by someone else is marked with the particle mere .

literature

• Heleen Plaisier: A Grammar of Lepcha . Brill, Leiden / Boston 2007.
• George van Driem : Languages ​​of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region, containing an Introduction to the Symbiotic Theory of Language . 2 volumes. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2001.
• George van Driem: Trans-Himalayan . In: Trans-Himalayan Linguistics . Nathan Hill & Thomas Owen-Smith (Eds.). Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin 2014. pp. 11–40.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Plaisier 2007: 1
2. ↑ van Driem 2001: 819
3. ↑ Lepcha. In: ethnologue.com. Accessed August 31, 2019 . 
4. ↑ ^{a b c} van Driem 2001: 820
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Plaisier 2007: 2
6. ↑ Plaisier 2007: 3
7. ↑ ^{a b c} Plaisier 2007: 4
8. ↑ van Driem 2001: 819
9. ↑ van Driem 2001: 818
10. ↑ ^{a b c} Plaisier 2007: 34
11. ↑ Plaisier 2007: 32
12. ↑ Plaisier 2007: 37
13. ↑ Plaisier 2007: 21
14. ↑ Plaisier 2007: 23
15. ↑ Plaisier 2007: 24-25
16. ↑ ^{a b} Plaisier 2007: 26
17. ↑ Plaisier 2007: 27
18. ↑ Plaisier 2007: 29
19. ↑ Plaisier 2007: 17
20. ↑ Plaisier 2007: 45
21. ↑ ^{a b} Plaisier 2007: 54
22. ↑ Plaisier 2007: 66
23. ↑ Plaisier 2007: 95
24. ↑ Plaisier 2007: 103
25. ↑ Plaisier 2007: 131