| Sherpa | |
| Nativename: | '''शेर्वी तम्ङे''', śērwī tamṅē, Tibetan: '''ཤར་པའི་སྐད་ཡིག''', shar pa'i skad yig |
| States: | Nepal, India |
| Ethnicity: | Sherpa |
| Date: | 2011 & 2021 census |
| Ref: | e27 |
| Familycolor: | Sino-Tibetan |
| Fam2: | Tibeto-Burman |
| Fam3: | Tibeto-Kanauri (?) |
| Fam4: | Bodish |
| Fam5: | Tibetic |
| Fam6: | Southern Tibetic |
| Script: | Tibetan, Devanagari |
| Nation: |  India
|
| Iso3: | xsr |
| Glotto: | sher1255 |
| Glottorefname: | Solu-Khumbu Sherpa |
| Region: | Nepal, Sikkim |
Sherpa (also Sharpa, Sherwa, or Xiaerba) is a Tibetic language spoken in Nepal and the Indian state of Sikkim, mainly by the Sherpa. The majority speakers of the Sherpa language live in the Khumbu region of Nepal, spanning from the Chinese (Tibetan) border in the east to the Bhotekosi River in the west.[2] About 127,000 speakers live in Nepal (2021 census), some 16,000 in Sikkim, India (2011), and some 800 in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (1994). Sherpa is a subject-object-verb (SOV) language. Sherpa is predominantly a spoken language, although it is occasionally written using either the Devanagari or Tibetan script.
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.[3]
Sherpa is a tonal language.[4] Sherpa has the following consonants:[5]
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palato- alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | pronounced as /ink/ (m) | pronounced as /ink/ (n) | pronounced as /ink/ (ny) | pronounced as /ink/ (ng) | ||||||
| Plosive/ Affricate | voiceless | pronounced as /ink/ (p) | pronounced as /ink/ (t) | pronounced as /ink/ (ts) | pronounced as /ink/ (ṭ) | pronounced as /ink/ (c) | pronounced as /ink/ (ky) | pronounced as /ink/ (k) | ||
| aspirated | pronounced as /pʰ/ (ph) | pronounced as /t̪ʰ/ (th) | pronounced as /t͡sʰ/ (tsh) | pronounced as /ʈʰ/ (ṭh) | pronounced as /t͡ʃʰ/ (ch) | pronounced as /cʰ/ (khy) | pronounced as /kʰ/ (kh) | |||
| voiced | pronounced as /ink/ (b) | pronounced as /ink/ (d) | pronounced as /ink/ (dz) | pronounced as /ink/ (ḍ) | pronounced as /ink/ (j) | pronounced as /ink/ (gy) | pronounced as /ink/ (g) | |||
| Fricative | pronounced as /ink/ (s) | pronounced as /ink/ (sh) | pronounced as /ink/ (h) | |||||||
| Liquid | voiceless | pronounced as /ink/ (lh) | pronounced as /ink/ (hr) | |||||||
| voiced | pronounced as /ink/ (l) | pronounced as /ink/ (r) | ||||||||
| Semivowel | pronounced as /ink/ (w) | pronounced as /ink/ (y) | ||||||||
| Front | Back | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| oral | nasal | oral | nasal | ||
| High | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
| Mid-high | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
| Mid-low | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
| Low | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
There are four distinct tones; high pronounced as //v́//, high falling pronounced as //v̂//, low pronounced as //v̀//, and low rising pronounced as //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.
| Infinitive | -u/-p | |
| Disjunct/Hortative | -(k)i | |
| Past Observational | -suŋ | |
| Mirative | -nɔk | |
| Volitional | -ĩ | |
| Augmentative | -(s)a | |
| Participle | -CṼ(C),-n | |
| Durative | -i | |
| Dictative | -si | |
| Ablative | -ne | |
| Locative | -la |
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-accusitive in the imperfective and ergative-absolutive in the perfective.[7]
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.
| Singular | Plural | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | Genitive | Locative | Nominative | Genitive | Locative | ||
| 1 (incl.) | -- | -- | -- | d̪ʌkpu | d̪ʌkpi | d̪ʌkpula | |
| 1 (excl.) | ŋʌ | ɲɛ | ŋʌla | ɲirʌŋ | ɲire | ɲirʌŋla | |
| 2 | cʰuruŋ | cʰore | cʰuruŋla | cʰírʌŋ | cʰíre | cʰírʌŋla | |
| 3 | t̪í | t̪íki | t̪íla | t̪iwɔ́ | t̪íwi | t̪iwɔ́la | |
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.
| one | čìk | eleven | čučik | |
| two | ɲì | twelve | čìŋɲi | |
| three | sùm | thirteen | čùpsum | |
| four | ǰi | twenty | kʰʌlǰik | |
| five | ŋà | twenty-one | kʰʌlǰik | |
| six | t̪úk | thirty | kʰʌlsum | |
| seven | d̪in | fifty | kʰʌlŋa | |
| eight | jɛ́ | seventy | kʰʌld̪in | |
| nine | gu | ninety | kʰʌlgu | |
| ten | čìt̪ʰʌmba | one hundred | kʰʌl čìt̪ʰʌmba |
The following table lists the days of the week, which are derived from the Tibetan language ("Pur-gae").
| Sunday | ŋi`ma | |
| Monday | Dawa | |
| Tuesday | Miŋma | |
| Wednesday | Lakpa | |
| Thursday | Phurba | |
| Friday | Pasaŋ | |
| Saturday | Pemba |
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.