Lepcha language

Lepcha
Róng ríng
ᰛᰩᰵᰛᰧᰵᰶ‎
The word 'Róng ríng' written in Lepcha (Róng) Script
Region	Sikkim, India; parts of Nepal and Bhutan
Native speakers	66,500 (2011-2013)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Himalayish Lepcha
Writing system	Lepcha script Tibetan script
Official status
Official language in	India Sikkim
Language codes
ISO 639-3	lep
Glottolog	lepc1244
ELP	Lepcha

Lepcha language, or Róng language (Lepcha: ᰛᰩᰵᰛᰧᰵᰶ‎; Róng ríng), is a Himalayish language spoken by the Lepcha people in Sikkim, India and parts of West Bengal, Nepal, and Bhutan.

Despite spirited attempts to preserve the language, Lepcha has already effectively been lost everywhere in favour of Nepali. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) lists Lepcha as an endangered language with the following characterization.

The Lepcha language is spoken in Sikkim and Darjeeling district in West Bengal of India. The 1991 Indian census counted 39,342 speakers of Lepcha. Lepcha is considered to be one of the indigenous languages of the area in which it is spoken. Unlike most other languages of the Himalayas, the Lepcha people have their own indigenous script (the world's largest collection of old Lepcha manuscripts is kept in Leiden, with over 180 Lepcha books).

Lepcha is the language of instruction in some schools in Sikkim. In comparison to other Tibeto-Burman languages, it has been given considerable attention in the literature. Nevertheless, many important aspects of the Lepcha language and culture still remain undescribed.

There are very few remaining households where the younger generation actively speaks the language. The entire Lepcha area is bilingual. Revitalization efforts are minimal and have had no major impact in conserving the language where it was indigenously spoken. Dwindling population and culture loss have rendered the use of Lepcha superficial and its importance has remained confined to cultural and ceremonial activities where it is required as a part of a tradition that has endured.

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 to be an aboriginal language, pre-dating 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, however the number of native Lepcha speakers in India may be closer to 30,000.

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

Main article: Lepcha script

The Lepcha script (also known as "róng") 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	Glottal
Nasal		m ⟨m⟩	n ⟨n⟩				ɲ ⟨ny⟩	ŋ ⟨ng⟩
Plosive	voiceless	p ⟨p⟩	t ⟨t⟩		ʈ ⟨tr⟩		c ⟨c⟩	k ⟨k⟩	ʔ ⟨ʔ⟩
	aspirated	pʰ ⟨ph⟩	tʰ ⟨th⟩		ʈʰ ⟨thr⟩		cʰ ⟨ch⟩	kʰ ⟨kh⟩
	voiced	b ⟨b⟩	d ⟨d⟩		ɖ ⟨dr⟩			ɡ ⟨g⟩
Affricate	voiceless			ts ⟨ts⟩
	aspirated			tsʰ ⟨tsh⟩
	voiced			z~dz ⟨z⟩
Fricative	voiced	v ⟨v⟩				ʒ ⟨j⟩
	voiceless	f ⟨f⟩		s ⟨s⟩		ʃ ⟨sh⟩
Approximant		w ⟨w⟩	l ⟨l⟩				j ⟨y⟩		h ⟨h⟩
Trill				r ⟨r⟩

Retroflex phonemes /ʈ/, /ʈʰ/, and /ɖ/ are written in Lepcha script as ᰀᰥ kr, ᰝᰥ hr, and ᰃᰥ gr, 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: ᰀᰥ᰷, ᰝᰥ᰷, and ᰃᰥ᰷. Native instances of non-retroflex ᰀᰥ kr, ᰝᰥ hr, and ᰃᰥ gr may either be pronounced as written or as ⟨tr⟩, ⟨thr⟩, and ⟨dr⟩. For example, tagrikup, 'boy', may be said either [ta ɡri kɯʔp̚] or [ta ɖi kɯʔp̚].

Lepcha has three glide consonants that may occur after certain initial consonants: /r/, /j/, and /l/. When the phoneme /r/ operates as a glide, it can combine with /j/ as a double-glide: ᰕᰥᰤᰩᰮ mryóm, 'to spread over the ground, creep'. Notably, syllables with the glide /l/ are given their own independent forms in the Lepcha script.

Velar consonants /k/ and /ɡ/ preceding front vowels /i/ or /e/ are palatalized as [kʲ] and [ɡʲ], respectively. Fricatives /s/ and /ʃ/ are merged before /i/.

Lepcha speakers tend not to distinguish between /z/ and /ʒ/, pronouncing both as [z]~[dz]~[ʒ]. Additionally, initial /ŋ/ is occasionally realized as [ɦ]. Under the influence of Nepali, some Lepcha speakers have lost the distinction between /pʰ/ and /f/, and between /v/ and /w/.

Of the above phonemes, only /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /k/, /t/, /p/, /r/, and /l/ may be syllable-final. Native speakers tend to neutralize the difference between final /n/ and /ŋ/. In syllable-final position, stops are realized as an unreleased stop, usually pronounced with a simultaneous /ʔ/: for example, /k/ becomes [ʔk̚].

Vowels

According to Plaisier (2007), Lepcha has eight vowels:

	Front	Central	Back
	Unrounded			Rounded
Close	i ⟨i⟩, ⟨í⟩		ɯ ⟨u⟩	u ⟨ú⟩
Close-mid	e~ɛ ⟨e⟩			o ⟨o⟩
Mid		ə ⟨a⟩, ⟨â⟩
Open-mid				ɔ ⟨ó⟩
Open		a ⟨á⟩

The phoneme denoted by ⟨í⟩ is shortened and appears in closed syllables; ⟨i⟩ is longer and appears in open syllables. The phoneme /e/ is realized as [e] in open syllables and in closed syllables before /ŋ/ or /k/. Closed syllables ending in /p/, /m/, /l/, /n/, /r/, and /t/ show free variation between [e], [ɛ], and even [ɪ]. Distinctions between /o/ and /ɔ/ 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. nám 'year' → nám-nám 'yearly').

Nouns

According to Plaisier (2007), Lepcha has only two true "cases" that modify the noun morphologically: the definite article -re and the dative case marker -m. 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
-ᰠᰴ -sang	human plural
-ᰎᰴ -pong	non-human plural
-ᰛᰬ -re	definite, topic
-ᰍᰪ/-ᰍᰪᰰ -nu/nun	ergative, ablative
- ᰮ -m	dative
-ᰠᰦ -sá	genitive
-ᰀᰦ -ká	locative
-ᰕᰪ -mu	only
-ᰉᰬᰳ -nyet	both

Plurals are marked differently according to whether they are human (-sang) or non-human (-pong) 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	ᰃᰨ go (ᰀᰠᰪ kasu)	ᰀᰦᰉᰧᰶ kányí	ᰀᰦᰚᰫ káyú
Second person	ᰝᰩ hó (ᰣᰦᰌᰨ ʔádo)	ᰣᰦᰉᰧᰶ ʔányí	ᰣᰦᰚᰫ ʔáyú
Third person	ᰝᰪ hu (ᰝᰪᰌᰨ hudo)	ᰝᰪᰉᰧᰶ hunyí	ᰝᰪᰚᰫ huyú

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 -re.

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 ⟨sâ⟩, e.g., ᰠᰲᰶ sâr 'goat', ᰠᰶᰛᰤᰨᰮ sâryom 'otter', ᰠᰶᰜᰩᰭ sâlók 'rhinoceros', and ᰠᰝᰪ sâhu 'monkey'. Other noun classes include ⟨sâ⟩ and ⟨ka⟩ for plants, and ⟨pe⟩ or ⟨pâ⟩ 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, zo 'eat' may be suffixed to produce zo-shang-re 'eating'.

Many intransitive verbs incorporate a causative -y- infix, sometimes followed by a -t suffix, to take a transitive sense:

• ᰕᰦᰭ mák 'die' → ᰕᰤᰦᰭ myák 'kill';
• ᰏᰶ plâ 'come forth' → ᰏᰤᰶ plyâ 'bring forth';
• ᰄᰫ glú 'fall down' → ᰄᰤᰳ/ᰄᰤᰬᰳ glyat/glyet 'drop'.

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 or Particle	Meaning
-wám/-ʔám/-bám	progressive
-tho	exhaustive
-hát	perfective
-shang	infinitive
-bú	factual
-re	definite
nón	resultant
ká	adhortative
gó	question
le	polite request
ma	assertive
ce	authoritative
te	dubiousness
pá	certainty
lyók	inference

Verbs are negated by a circumfix, ma-⟩...⟨-n(e), e.g., khut 'to be able' becomes ma-khut-ne 'to be unable'.

Vocabulary

These are some sample words published in Renato Figuerido's Lepcha dictionary.

Caption text

English	Lepcha (Latin)	Lepcha (Róng/Lepcha script)
Lady	Ku-mo	ᰀᰪᰕᰨ‎
Let	kón	ᰀᰩᰰ‎
Proceed	Dí	ᰌᰧᰶ‎
Reach a height	Thók	ᰋᰩᰭ‎
Riverbank	Klóp	ᰁᰩᰱ‎
A cut	Mó	ᰕᰩ‎
To pull	Krút	ᰀᰥᰫᰳ‎
Go	Nóng	ᰍᰩᰵ‎
Flabby	Thyor	ᰋᰤᰨᰲ‎
Reflective Light	Lóng	ᰜᰩᰵ‎
Palm	Lyók	ᰜᰤᰩᰭ‎
To be short	Tan	ᰊᰰ‎
Meat	Ke-rung	ᰀᰬᰛᰪᰵ‎
Overclouded	Muk	ᰕᰪᰭ‎
What comes first	Ták	ᰊᰦᰭ‎
Mother	A-mo	ᰣᰕᰨ‎
To knot	Tyep	ᰊᰤᰬᰱ‎
A spec of Sterculia	Ke-hlyám kun	ᰀᰬᰞᰤᰮ ᰀᰪᰰ‎
Be on strong legs	Krang	ᰀᰥᰴ‎
Dirt	Me-ri	ᰕᰬᰛᰧ‎
To slice	Líp	ᰜᰧᰶ‎
Entire	Shem	ᰡᰬᰮ‎
Cold	Hyáng	ᰝᰤᰦᰵ‎
To be drawn together	Chom	ᰇᰨᰮ‎
One's Self	Te-do	ᰊᰬᰌᰨ‎
Wide	Veng	ᰟᰬᰵ‎
To arrest	Tho	ᰋᰨ‎
To crush	Shíp	ᰡᰧᰶ‎
Mouth	A-bong	ᰣᰓᰨᰵ‎
To twist	Kar	ᰀᰲ‎
Arrow	Sa-li	ᰠᰜᰧ‎
Egg	Tí	ᰊᰧᰶ‎
To sit	Ngan	ᰅᰰ‎
Flow round	Kyúl	ᰀᰤᰫᰯ‎
Overclouded	Pe-mang	ᰎᰬᰕᰴ‎
House	A-dóng	ᰣᰌᰩᰵ‎
Carry	Bú	ᰓᰫ‎
Dream	Mong	ᰕᰨᰵ‎
A corner	Tung-kyang	ᰊᰪᰵᰀᰤᰴ‎
Basket	Dyóng	ᰌᰤᰩᰵ‎
Large	Túng	ᰊᰫᰵ‎
Husband	Evo	ᰣᰬᰟᰨ‎
Grain	Gró	ᰃᰥᰩ‎
Rice basket	Ku-mu	ᰀᰪᰕᰪ‎
Placenta	A-yeng-tyol	ᰣᰚᰬᰵᰊᰤᰨᰯ‎
Quick	Rem	ᰛᰬᰮ‎
Sew	Hrap	ᰝᰥᰱ‎
A spec of Solanum	Ke-lim-bi	ᰀᰬᰜᰧᰮᰓᰧ‎

See also

• Lepcha script
• Sikkimese Tibetan language
• Languages of Nepal
• Languages of India
• Languages of Bhutan

Further reading

• Plaisier, Heleen (13 November 2010). "Information on Lepcha Language and Culture". Retrieved 16 April 2011.
• Mainwaring, George Byres (1876). A grammar of the Róng (Lepcha) language, as it exists in the Dorjeling and Sikim hills. Calcutta: Printed by C. B. Lewis, Baptist Mission Press.