.mw-parser-output .hidden-begin{box-sizing:border-box;width:100%;padding:5px;border:none;font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .hidden-title{font-weight:bold;line-height:1.6;text-align:left}.mw-parser-output .hidden-content{text-align:left}@media all and (max-width:500px){.mw-parser-output .hidden-begin{width:auto!important;clear:none!important;float:none!important))You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Nepali. (August 2018) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
View a machine-translated version of the Nepali article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Nepali Wikipedia article at [[:ne:शेर्पा भाषा]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template ((Translated|ne|शेर्पा भाषा)) to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.
| Sherpa | |
|---|---|
| शेर्वी तम्ङे, śērwī tamṅē, ཤར་པའི་སྐད་ཡིག, shar pa'i skad yig | |
 'Sherpa' in Devanagari and Tibetan scripts | |
| Native to | Nepal, India |
| Region | Nepal, Sikkim, Tibet |
| Ethnicity | Sherpa |
Native speakers | 140,000 (2011 & 2021 census)[1] |
| Tibetan, Devanagari | |
| Official status | |
Official language in |  Nepal India
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | xsr |
| Glottolog | sher1255 |
| ELP | Sherpa |
 Sherpa is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
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.[3] 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.[3]
Phonology
[edit]Sherpa is a tonal language.[4][5] Sherpa has the following consonants:[6]
Consonants
[edit]| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Retroflex | Palato- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m ⟨མ m⟩ | n ⟨ན n⟩ | ɲ ⟨ཉ ny⟩ | ŋ ⟨ང ng⟩ | |||||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p ⟨པ p⟩ | t̪ ⟨ཏ t⟩ | t͡s ⟨ཙ ts⟩ | ʈ ⟨ཊ ṭ⟩ | t͡ʃ ⟨ཅ c⟩ | c ⟨ཀྱ ky⟩ | k ⟨ཀ k⟩ | |
| aspirated | pʰ ⟨ཕ ph⟩ | t̪ʰ ⟨ཐ th⟩ | t͡sʰ ⟨ཚ tsh⟩ | ʈʰ ⟨ཋ ṭh⟩ | t͡ʃʰ ⟨ཆ ch⟩ | cʰ ⟨ཁྱ khy⟩ | kʰ ⟨ཁ kh⟩ | ||
| voiced | b ⟨བ b⟩ | d̪ ⟨ད d⟩ | d͡z ⟨ཛ dz⟩ | ɖ ⟨ཌ ḍ⟩ | d͡ʒ ⟨ཇ j⟩ | ɟ ⟨གྱ gy⟩ | ɡ ⟨ག g⟩ | ||
| Fricative | s ⟨ས s⟩ | ʃ ⟨ཤ sh⟩ | h ⟨ཧ h⟩ | ||||||
| Liquid | voiceless | l̪̥ ⟨ལྷ lh⟩ | ɾ̥ ⟨ཧྲ hr⟩ | ||||||
| voiced | l̪ ⟨ལ l⟩ | ɾ ⟨ར r⟩ | |||||||
| Semivowel | w ⟨ཝ w⟩ | j ⟨ཡ y⟩ | |||||||
- Stop sounds /p, t̪, ʈ, k/ can be unreleased [p̚, t̪̚, ʈ̚, k̚] in word-final position.
- Palatal sounds /c cʰ ɟ/ can neutralize to velar sounds [k kʰ ɡ] when preceding /i, e, ɛ/.
- /n/ can become a retroflex nasal [ɳ] when preceding a retroflex stop.
- /p/ can have an allophone of [ɸ] when occurring in fast speech.
Vowels
[edit]| Front | Back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| oral | nasal | oral | nasal | |
| High | i | ĩ | u | ũ |
| Mid-high | e | ẽ | o | õ |
| Mid-low | ɛ | ɛ̃ | ɔ | ɔ̃ |
| Low | a | ã | ʌ | ʌ̃ |
- Vowel sounds /i, u/ have the allophones [ɪ, ʊ] when between consonants and in closed syllables.[4]
Tones
[edit]There are four distinct tones; high /v́/, falling /v̂/, low /v̀/, rising /v̌/.
Grammar
[edit]This section has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
This section may be too technical for most readers to understand. Please help improve it to make it understandable to non-experts, without removing the technical details. (August 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
This section may have confusing or ambiguous abbreviations. Please review the Manual of Style, help improve this section, and discuss this issue on the talk page. (August 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
(Learn how and when to remove this message)
Some grammatical aspects of Sherpa are as follows:
- Nouns are defined by morphology when a bare noun occurs in the genitive and this extends to the noun phrase.[incomprehensible] They are defined syntactically by co-occurrence with the locative clitic and by their position in the noun phrase (NP) after demonstratives.
- Demonstratives are defined syntactically by their position first in the NP directly before the noun.
- Quantifiers: Number words occur last in the noun phrase with the exception of the definite article.
- Adjectives occur after the noun in the NP and morphologically only take genitive marking when in construct with a noun.
- Verbs may morphologically be distinguished by differing or suppletive roots for the perfective, imperfective, and imperative. They occur last in a clause before the verbal auxiliaries.
- Verbal auxiliaries occur last in a clause.
- Postpositions occur last in a postpositional NP.
Other typological features of Sherpa include split ergativity based on aspect, SO & OV (SOV), N-A, N-Num, V-Aux, and N-Pos.
Vocabulary
[edit]The following table lists the days of the week, which are derived from the Tibetan language ("Pur-gae").
| English | Sherpa |
|---|---|
| Sunday | ŋi`ma ( / ŋ / is the sound Ng') |
| Monday | Dawa |
| Tuesday | Miŋma |
| Wednesday | Lakpa |
| Thursday | Phurba |
| Friday | Pasaŋ |
| Saturday | Pemba |
Sample Text
[edit]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.
References
[edit]- ^ Sherpa at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024)
- ^ "50th Report of the Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities in India" (PDF). 16 July 2014. p. 109. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 January 2018. Retrieved 6 November 2016.
- ^ a b "Sherpa | History & Culture". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 28 February 2021.
- ^ a b Graves, Thomas E. (2007). The Phonetics and Phonology of the Sherpa Language.
- ^ "Sherpa". Ethnologue. Retrieved 30 August 2019.
- ^ "Nepalese Linguistics" (PDF). Journal of the Linguistic Society of Nepal. 23: 371–380. November 2008. Retrieved 8 October 2021.
External links
[edit]- Himali Sherpa:Sherpa Culture dictionary
- Sherpa-English and English-Sherpa Dictionary
- Sherpa dictionary Archived 2 March 2013 at the Wayback Machine Print edition
- Sherpa language Omniglot
Sino-Tibetan branches | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Western Himalayas (Himachal, Uttarakhand, Nepal, Sikkim) |
|  | |||
| Eastern Himalayas (Tibet, Bhutan, Arunachal) | |||||
| Myanmar and Indo-Burmese border |
| ||||
| East and Southeast Asia |
| ||||
| Dubious (possible isolates) (Arunachal) |
| ||||
| Proposed groupings | |||||
| Proto-languages | |||||
Italics indicates single languages that are also considered to be separate branches. | |||||
| West Himalayish (Kanauric) |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bodish |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tamangic |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Official language | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indigenous languages |
| ||||||||||||||||||
