Stod Bhoti (''sTodpa''), occasionally known as ''Lahul Bhoti'' or ''Lahuli'', is a

Tibetic language The Tibetic languages form a well-defined group of languages descended from Old Tibetan (7th to 9th centuries).Tournadre, Nicolas. 2014. "The Tibetic languages and their classification." In ''Trans-Himalayan linguistics, historical and descriptiv ...

spoken in the

Lahaul and Spiti district The Lahaul and Spiti district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh consists of the two formerly separate districts of Lahaul () and Spiti (; or ). The present administrative centre is Kyelang in Lahaul. Before the two districts were mer ...

Himachal Pradesh Himachal Pradesh (; ; "Snow-laden Mountain Province") is a state in the northern part of India. Situated in the Western Himalayas, it is one of the thirteen mountain states and is characterized by an extreme landscape featuring several peaks ...

, India. It forms a closely knit group with other

Lahuli–Spiti languages The Lahuli–Spiti languages are a subgroup of the Tibetic languages spoken in the Lahaul and Spiti region of Himachal Pradesh, India, belonging to the South-Western group of Tibetic languages, earlier classified as Western Innovative Tibetan ...

, and is fairly close to Standard Tibetan. According to ''Ethnologue'', dialects are Stod proper (Kolong), Khoksar (i.e. Khoksar Bhoti) and Mayar (Mayar Bhoti, or Mayari). They report 85% intelligibility of the Stod dialect by Khoksar, 75% by Mayar, 62% of Khoksar by Mayar, and 95% of Khoksar by Stod Bhoti. There is a 74% lexical similarity with the related language

Spiti Bhoti The Bhoti spoken in Spiti valley Spiti (pronounced as Piti in Bhoti language) is a high-altitude region of the Himalayas, located in the north-eastern part of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. The name "Spiti" means "The middl ...

History

The area of Lahaul where the language is spoken was named "Kothi Kolong" after Kolong, the chief village of the Kothi. Grierson termed the language the "Lahaul dialect". The language was first studied after the foundation of a Moravian Church mission office in 1854. In 1881, H.A. Jaeschke published a Tibetan–English dictionary that included a comparative table of words from different languages spoken in the region, including Stod Bhoti, but without explicitly mentioning the name of the language. In 1934, Roerich studied this language extensively, naming it 'Kolong' after its chief village. The People's Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI) identified two prominent features of the language: a distinct tone and simplification of compound consonants. A grammar book has also been published.

References

Languages of Himachal Pradesh Bodish languages Endangered languages of India {{st-lang-stub