w:Sherpa language

Sherpa belongs to the Tibetic branch of the Tibeto-Burman family. It is closely related to Central Tibetan, Jirel, Humla, Mugom, Dolpo, Lo-ke, Nubri, Tsum, Langtang, Kyirong, Yolmo, Gyalsumdo, Kagate, Lhomi, Walung, and Tokpe Gola. Literary Tibetan LT- becomes /lh/ and SR- becomes /ʈ/. There are five closely related dialects, these being Solu, Khumbu, Pharak, Dram, and Sikkimese Sherpa.Tournadre, N. (2014). The Tibetic languages and their classification. Trans-Himalayan linguistics: Historical and descriptive linguistics of the Himalayan area, 266(1), 105-29.

Sherpa is a tonal language.{{cite web| url=https://www.ethnologue.com/language/xsr | title=Sherpa | publisher=Ethnologue | access-date=30 August 2019 }} Sherpa has the following consonants:{{cite journal |title=Nepalese Linguistics |journal=Journal of the Linguistic Society of Nepal |date=November 2008 |volume=23 |pages=371–380 |url=http://himalaya.socanth.cam.ac.uk/collections/journals/nepling/pdf/Nep_Ling_23.pdf |access-date=8 October 2021}}

• Stop sounds {{IPA|/p, t̪, ʈ, k/}} can be unreleased {{IPAblink|p̚, t̪̚, ʈ̚, k̚}} in word-final position.
• Palatal sounds {{IPA|/c cʰ ɟ/}} can neutralize to velar sounds {{IPA|[k kʰ ɡ]}} when preceding {{IPA|/i, e, ɛ/}}.
• {{IPA|/n/}} can become a retroflex nasal {{IPAblink|ɳ}} when preceding a retroflex stop.
• {{IPA|/p/}} can have an allophone of {{IPAblink|ɸ}} when occurring in fast speech.
• /l/ and /r/ are devoiced at the end of a word or before a consonant.

• Vowel sounds {{IPA|/i, u/}} have the allophones {{IPA|[ɪ, ʊ]}} when between consonants and in closed syllables.{{Cite book|last=Graves|first=Thomas E.|title=The Phonetics and Phonology of the Sherpa Language|year=2007}}

There are four distinct tones; high {{IPA|/v́/}}, high falling {{IPA|/v̂/}}, low {{IPA|/v̀/}}, and low rising {{IPA|/v̌/}}. Regardless of the regular tone of the word, the last syllable of a question is to be pronounced with a rising tone.

Verb stems are modified for aspect and mood. The imperfective and perfective aspects and the volitional (whether an action was intentional), infinitive, disjunct, and imperative (commands) moods are differentiated. In verb suffixes, the infinitive, disjunct (action not intended or not known to be intended), past observational, mirative (speaker's surprise), volitional, augmentative (greater intensity), participle, durative (action lasts through an extended time), hortative (plural imperative), dictative (narrating a story), descentive, ablative, and locative are distinguished. A verb stem may take on up to three suffixes. The perfective and imperfective aspects are often treated as past and non-past tenses, respectively. The labels "locative" and "ablative" do not refer to the function of the aspect but rather the homomorphous case-like clitic of the same name. Sherpa is strictly verb-final.

The infinitive also marks the verb of a relative clause and a general action with no specific subject.

{{Interlinear|ɲɛ pèt̪-u čʰū t̪í t̪èŋa nɔ́k|1SG.GEN spill.PRF-INF water DEF cold MIR|The water that I spilled is cold

| abbreviations = PRF:perfective aspect

}}

The ablative marking denotes successive actions with some causal relationship.

{{Interlinear|t̪í-ci dzím-ne gal|3SG-GEN catch.PRF-ABL go.PRF.DSJT|He caught (it) and went

| abbreviations = DSJT:disjunct;PRF:perfective aspect

}}

The locative marking denotes when the action in the main clause is done for the purpose of achieving the action in the locative clause.

{{Interlinear|d̪am-i sa-p-la sʌma tsò-suŋ|PROPER.FEM-GEN eat.IMPF-INF-LOC food cook.PRF.DSJT-POBS|Damu cooked food in order to eat

| abbreviations = POBS:past observational;DSJT:disjunct;PROPER:proper noun;IMPF:imperfective aspect;LOC:locative;PRF:perfective aspect

}}

The copula(Imperfective hín, perfective hot̪u)is used for existence, location, identity, and adjectival predicates. The evidential particle wɛ́ occurs at the end of phrases to denote an action which the speaker witnessed. The negative particle má is used with perfective verbs.

There are four case-like clitics in Sherpa: nominative, genitive, locative, and ablative. These can also be used to mark arguments of a verb. There is a split-ergative system based on aspect; nominative-accusative in the imperfective and ergative-absolutive in the perfective.{{Cite thesis |last=Graves |first=Thomas E. |title=A grammar of Hile Sherpa |date=April 2007 |access-date=October 16, 2024 |degree=PhD |publisher=University of New York at Buffalo |url=https://theswissbay.ch/pdf/Books/Linguistics/Mega%20linguistics%20pack/Sino-Tibetan/Sherpa%2C%20A%20Grammar%20of%20Hile%20%28Graves%29.pdf |language=en}}

Personal pronouns in Sherpa inflect for number and case. Third-person pronouns may be used as demonstratives, and the third person singular nominative also serves as the postnominal definite marker.

There are two articles, which occur phrase-finally. The indefinite form is signaled with the enclitic -i at the end of a noun phrase.

The general word order within noun-phrases is Noun-Adjective. Quantifiers and numerals also follow the noun they modify. Numerals may take on the suffix -pa to denote ordinality or -kʌr to denote collectivity.

The following table lists the days of the week, which are derived from the Tibetan language ("Pur-gae").

The following is a sample text in Sherpa of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Sherpa in Devanagari script

:मि रिग ते रि रङ्वाङ् दङ् चिथोङ गि थोप्थङ डडइ थोग् क्येउ यिन्। गङ् ग नम्ज्योद दङ् शेस्रब् ल्हन्क्ये सु ओद्दुब् यिन् चङ् । फर्छुर च्यिग्गि-च्यिग्ल पुन्ग्यि दुशेस् ज्योग्गोग्यि।

Sherpa in Tibetan script

:མི་རིགས་ཏེ་རི་རང་དབང་དང་རྩི་མཐོང་གི་ཐོབ་ཐང་འདྲ་འདྲའི་ཐོག་སྐྱེའུ་ཡིན། གང་ག་རྣམ་དཔྱོད་དང་ཤེས་རབ་ལྷན་སྐྱེས་སུ་འོད་དུབ་ཡིན་ཙང་། ཕར་ཚུར་གཅིག་གིས་གཅིག་ལ་སྤུན་གྱི་འདུ་ཤེས་འཇོག་དགོས་ཀྱི།

Sherpa in IAST transliteration

:Mi rig te ri raṅvāṅ daṅ cithoṅ gi thopthaṅ ḍaḍaï thog kyeu yin. Gaṅ ga namjyod daṅ śesrab lhankye su oddub yin caṅ, pharchur cyiggi-cyigla pungyi duśes jyoggogyi.

Sherpa in the Wylie transliteration

:Mi rigs te ri rang dbang dang rtsi thong gi thob thang 'dra 'dra'i thog skyeu yin. Gang ga rnam dpyod dang shes rab lhan skyes su 'od dub yin tsang, phar tshur gcig gis gcig la spun gyi 'du shes 'jog dgos kyi.

Translation

:Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

{{Reflist}}

• [http://www.himalisherpa.com Himali Sherpa:Sherpa Culture dictionary]
• [https://languages.nepalresearch.org/sh-eng.pdf Sherpa-English and English-Sherpa Dictionary]
• [http://lacito.vjf.cnrs.fr/vient-de-paraitre/tournadre_dicosherpa.htm Sherpa dictionary] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130302065148/http://lacito.vjf.cnrs.fr/vient-de-paraitre/tournadre_dicosherpa.htm |date=2 March 2013 }} Print edition
• [https://omniglot.com/writing/sherpa.htm Sherpa language] Omniglot

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Category:Languages of Nepal

Category:South Bodish languages

Category:Subject–object–verb languages

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Category:Languages written in Devanagari

Category:Languages of Koshi Province