Nyenkha
| Nyenkha | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
Bhutan | |
| speaker | 8,700 (2010) | |
| Linguistic classification |
||
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-3 |
neh |
|
Nyenkha ( Dzongkha : འནྱེན་ ཁ་; transcription after Wylie : 'Nyen-kha; also "' Nyenkha", "Henkha", "Lap", "Nga Ked" and "Mangsdekha") is an East Tibetan language spoken by around 10,000 people is spoken in the Trongsa district in the cities of Sephu Geo and Trongsa Town as well as by the villages of Dangchhu, Phobjikha, Ridha, Taktse, Tashidingkha and Usar and in the southeast of the Wangdue Phodrang district on the Black River. Nyenkha is related to Bumthang and Kurtöp. It has a lexical similarity of 75 to 77% with Bumthang and 69% with Kurtöp, but the languages are not mutually understandable. Dialects of Nyenkha have a variation in tone and vocabulary, the dialects are usually named after the villages in which they are spoken, examples of which are Chutobikha and Phobjikha.
speaker
The 1991 census showed that Nyenkha is spoken by 11,472 people in six Gewogs . In 1993 the number rose to 10,000, according to van Driem . In 2010 Nyenkha was spoken in ten Gewogs, but only by about 8,700 people. The emigration and movement of the modernization trend limited the practicability of Nyenkha as a working language, despite the decline in numbers and the shift to bilingualism, the majority of young people are fluent in Nyenkha.
Language comparison
Nyenkha shows some similarities to the closely related language Kurtöp and to the national language Dzongkha.
| Nyenkha | Kurtöp | Dzongkha | German |
|---|---|---|---|
| the U | dasum / dusum | dari | today |
| dawl | dangla | khatsa | yesterday |
| naembae | yamba | naba | tomorrow |
| doe / doegyi | dodlai | nyaeda | sleep |
| zoo / zayee | zooye | za | eat |
| chhung | thrung | chhum | rice |
| nes | nad | naa | barley |
| zeng | kar | kaa | wheat |
| kapch | kebtang | kebta | loaf |
| kheh | khoe | chhu | water |
grammar
Nyenkha has no gender . Nouns and pronouns can be singular or plural .
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st person | སྔ་ nga |
ནེ་ ney |
| 2nd person | གཡེ་ gye |
ཡིད་ yid |
| 3rd person | ཁི་ khi |
བོས་ boe |
In contrast to Dzongkha and many languages of Bhutan, Nyenkha also inflects verbs with different numbers and persons:
| Nyenkha | example |
|---|---|
| སསྔ་ ལཱ ེ ག་ དོ་ nga laeg-do |
I am walking |
| གཡནེ་ ལཱ་ ཆུག་ དོ་ ney laachhug-do |
We are going now |
| ཁི ཁི་ ལས་ ཤི་ khi las-shi |
He / she left |
| བོས་ ལཱ་ ཆུག་ ཤི་ boe laachhug-shi |
You left |
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Jagar Dorji: Hen Kha: A Dialect of Mangde Valley in Bhutan Archived from the original on January 27, 2012. Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) In: Journal of Bhutan Studies . 24, Summer 2011, pp. 69-86. Retrieved October 31, 2016.
- ↑ George L. van Driem : Language Policy in Bhutan (PDF) SOAS . 1993. Archived from the original on November 1st, 2010. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 5, 2016.
