Tamang (language)

Tamang
	तामाङ, རྟ་དམག་ / རྟ་མང་
Native to	Nepal; India ; Bhutan
Ethnicity	Tamang
Native speakers	1.35 million in Nepal (2011 census); 20,154 in India (2011 census)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tamangic Tamang; ;
Writing system	Tibetan script, Devanagari
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Variously:; taj – Eastern Tamang; tdg – Western Tamang; tmk – Northwestern Tamang (not distinct); tge – Eastern Gorkha Tamang
Glottolog	nucl1729
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Tamang (Devanagari: तामाङ; tāmāng) is a term used to collectively refer to a dialect cluster spoken mainly in Nepal, Sikkim, West Bengal (Mainly Darjeeling Districts - पश्चिम बङ्गाल राज्यको दार्जीलिङ जिल्लाको बिभिन्न भूभाग), some parts of Assam and North East Region. It comprises Eastern Tamang, Northwestern Tamang, Southwestern Tamang, Eastern Gorkha Tamang, and Western Tamang. Lexical similarity between Eastern Tamang (which is regarded as the most prominent) and other Tamang languages varies between 81% to 63%. For comparison, lexical similarity between Spanish and Portuguese, is estimated at 89%.^[4] Tamang likely split from the Tibetan languages some time before the 7th century.^[5]

Dialects

Ethnologue divides Tamang into the following varieties due to mutual unintelligibility.

Eastern Tamang: 759,000 in Nepal (2000 WCD). Population total all countries: 773,000. Sub-dialects are as follows.
- Outer-Eastern Tamang (Sailung Tamang)
- Central-Eastern Tamang (Temal Tamang)
- Southwestern Tamang (Kath-Bhotiya, Lama Bhote, Murmi, Rongba, Sain, Tamang Gyoi, Tamang Gyot, Tamang Lengmo, Tamang Tam)
Western Tamang: 323,000 (2000 WCD). Sub-dialects are as follows.
- Trisuli (Nuwakot)
- Rasuwa
- Northwestern dialect of Western Tamang (Dhading) — separate ISO code. Population 55,000 (1991 census). Spoken in the central mountainous strip of Nuwakot District, Bagmati Pradesh.
- Southwestern dialect of Western Tamang
Eastern Gorkha Tamang: 4,000 (2000 WCD). Sub-dialects are as follows.
- Kasigaon
- Kerounja

The Tamang language is the most widely spoken Sino-Tibetan language in Nepal.

Geographical distribution

Ethnologue gives the following location information for the varieties of Tamang.

Eastern Tamang

Bagmati Pradesh: Bhaktapur District, Chitwan District, Dolkha District, Kathmandu District, Kavrepalanchok District, Lalitpur District, Makwanpur District, eastern Nuwakot District, Ramechhap District, Sindhuli District and western Sindhupalchowk District
Province No. 1: Okhaldhunga District, western Khotang District, and Udayapur District

Southwestern Tamang

Bagmati Pradesh: Chitwan District, southern Dhading District, western and northwestern Kathmandu District area and northwestern Makwanpur District
Province No. 2: Bara District, Parsa District and Rautahat District

Western Tamang

Bagmati Pradesh: western Nuwakot District, Rasuwa District, and Dhading District
central mountainous strip of Nuwakot District, Bagmati Pradesh (Northwestern Tamang)
northeastern Sindhupalchok District, Bagmati Pradesh: Bhote Namlan, and Bhote Chaur, on Trishuli river west bank toward Budhi Gandaki river
northwestern Makwanpur District, Bagmati Pradesh: Phakel, Chakhel, Khulekhani, Markhu, Tistung, and Palung
northern Kathmandu District, Bagmati Pradesh: Jhor, Thoka, and Gagal Phedi

Eastern Gorkha Tamang

south and east of Jagat, northern Gorkha District, Gandaki Pradesh

Grammar

Some grammatical features of the Tamang languages include:

A canonical word order of SOV
Use of postpositions;
The genitives follow nouns;
question word medial;
It is an ergative–absolutive language;
CV, CVC, CCV, V, CCVC;

Phonetically Tamang languages are tonal.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Dental/ Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	voiceless	p	t	ʈ		k
	aspirated	pʰ	tʰ	ʈʰ		kʰ
	palatalized	pʲ	tʲ	ʈʲ		kʲ
	labialized	pʷ	tʷ	ʈʷ		kʷ
Affricate	voiceless		ts
	aspirated		tsʰ
	palatalized		tsʲ
	labialized		tsʷ
Fricative			s				h
Nasal		m	n			ŋ
Rhotic			r
Approximant		w	l		j

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	i iː	u uː
Mid	e eː	o oː
Open	a aː

Nasality only marginally occurs, and is typically transcribed with a [ã] mark.

Tones

Four tones occur as high falling [â], mid-high level [á], mid-low level [à], very low [ȁ].^[6]

Writing system

Tamangic languages use Tam-Yig which is similar to Tibetan scripts and Devanāgarī. In many situations, however, Tamang is written in Devanāgarī proper.

References

↑ Eastern Tamang at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Western Tamang at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Northwestern Tamang (not distinct) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Eastern Gorkha Tamang at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
↑ "Statement 1: Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues - 2011". Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011Census/Language_MTs.html.
↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Nuclear Tamang". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/nucl1729.
↑ Ethnologue report for Spanish
↑ Zeisler, Bettina (2009). Aboh, Enoch; Smith, Norval. eds. "Reducing phonological complexity and grammatical opaqueness: Old Tibetan as a lingua franca and the development of the modern Tibetan dialects.". Complex processes in new languages: 75-95.
↑ Mazaudon (2003)

Perumal Samy P. (2013). Tamang in LSI Sikkim, volume I Page Nos. 404-472. Published by Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner,India, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India.
Hwang, Hyunkyung, Lee, Seunghun J., P. Gerber and S. Grollmann (2019). Laryngeal contrast and tone in Tamang: an analysis based on a new set of Tamang data. Journal of the Phonetic Society of Japan. pp. 41-50. doi:10.24467/onseikenkyu.23.0_41.

External links

Counting in Tamang
ELAR archive of Tamang
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[e18-1] Eastern Tamang at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Western Tamang at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Northwestern Tamang (not distinct) at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
Eastern Gorkha Tamang at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)

[2] "Statement 1: Abstract of speakers' strength of languages and mother tongues - 2011". Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011Census/Language_MTs.html.

[Glottolog-3] Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Nuclear Tamang". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/nucl1729.

[ethes-4] Ethnologue report for Spanish

[5] Zeisler, Bettina (2009). Aboh, Enoch; Smith, Norval. eds. "Reducing phonological complexity and grammatical opaqueness: Old Tibetan as a lingua franca and the development of the modern Tibetan dialects.". Complex processes in new languages: 75-95.

[6] Mazaudon (2003)

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