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Languages Of Bhutan
There are two dozen languages of Bhutan, all members of the Tibeto-Burman language family except for Nepali, which is an Indo-Aryan language, and Bhutanese Sign Language. Dzongkha, the national language, is the only native language of Bhutan with a literary tradition, though Lepcha and Nepali are literary languages in other countries. Other non-Bhutanese minority languages are also spoken along Bhutan's borders and among the primarily Nepali-speaking Lhotshampa community in South and East Bhutan. Chöke (or Classical Tibetan) is the language of the traditional literature and learning of the Buddhist monastics. Sino-Tibetan languages Geographically, since Bhutan is predominantly located on the Tibetan plateau, almost all spoken languages of the country belong to the family of Sino-Tibetan languages, or more specifically, the Bodish sprachbund. Dzongkha and other Tibetic languages The Central Bodish languages are a group of related Tibetic languages descended from Old Tibeta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gongduk Language
Gongduk or Gongdu (, it is also known as Gongdubikha) is an endangered Sino-Tibetan language spoken by about 1,000 people in a few inaccessible villages located near the Kuri Chhu river in the Gongdue Gewog of Mongar District in eastern Bhutan. The names of the villages are Bala, Dagsa, Damkhar, Pam, Pangthang, and Yangbari ('' Ethnologue''). Gongduk has complex verbal morphology, which Ethnologue considers a retention from Proto-Tibeto-Burman, and is lexically highly divergent.Blench, R. & Post, M. W. (2013)Rethinking Sino-Tibetan phylogeny from the perspective of Northeast Indian languages/ref> On this basis, it is apparently not part of any major subgroup and will probably have to be assigned to its own branch. The people are said to have come from hunters that would move from place to place at times. The language is notable for only being discovered by linguists in 1991. Currently, George van Driem is working towards the completion of a description of Gongduk based on hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
