ʼOle Language
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ʼOle, also called ʼOlekha or Black Mountain Monpa, is a moribund, possibly Sino-Tibetan language spoken natively by 1 person in the Black Mountains of
Wangdue Phodrang Wangdue Phodrang (, Dzongkha 'Wangdi Phodr'a) is a town and capital (dzongkhag thromde) of Wangdue Phodrang District in central Bhutan. It is located in Thedtsho Gewog. Khothang Rinchenling History The town shares its name with the Wangdue Ph ...
and
Trongsa District Trongsa District (Dzongkha: ཀྲོང་གསར་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie transliteration: ''Krong-gsar rdzong-khag'') is one of the districts of Bhutan. It is the most central district of Bhutan and the geographic centre of Bhutan is ...
s in western
Bhutan Bhutan, officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked country in South Asia, in the Eastern Himalayas between China to the north and northwest and India to the south and southeast. With a population of over 727,145 and a territory of , ...
. The term ʼOle refers to a clan of speakers.


Geographic distribution

According to the ''
Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It w ...
'', ʼOlekha is spoken in the following locations of
Bhutan Bhutan, officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked country in South Asia, in the Eastern Himalayas between China to the north and northwest and India to the south and southeast. With a population of over 727,145 and a territory of , ...
. *
Trongsa District Trongsa District (Dzongkha: ཀྲོང་གསར་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie transliteration: ''Krong-gsar rdzong-khag'') is one of the districts of Bhutan. It is the most central district of Bhutan and the geographic centre of Bhutan is ...
: 3 enclaves west of Mangde river *
Wangdue Phodrang District Wangdue Phodrang District (Dzongkha: དབང་འདུས་ཕོ་བྲང་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Dbang-'dus Pho-brang rdzong-khag''; previously spelled "Wangdi Phodrang") is a Thromde and dzongkhag (district) of central B ...
: Adha, Jangji, Rukha, Thrumzur, and Wangling villages Dialects are separated by the Black Mountains.


Classification

ʼOle forms a distinct branch of Sino-Tibetan/Tibeto-Burman. it is not closely related to
Tshangla language Tshangla is a Sino-Tibetan language of the Bodish branch closely related to the Tibetic languages. Tshangla is primarily spoken in Eastern Bhutan and acts as a lingua franca in the region; it is also spoken in the adjoining Tawang tract in the ...
of eastern Bhutan, also called "Monpa" and predating Dzongkha in the region, which belongs to a different branch of the family. Gerber (2018) notes that Black Mountain Mönpa has had extensive contact with Gongduk before the arrival of
East Bodish languages The East Bodish languages are a small group of non-Tibetic Bodish languages spoken in eastern Bhutan and adjacent areas of Tibet and India. They include: * Dakpa (Tawang Monpa) * Dzala * Nyen, including Mangde and Phobjib * Chali * Bumthang ...
in
Bhutan Bhutan, officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked country in South Asia, in the Eastern Himalayas between China to the north and northwest and India to the south and southeast. With a population of over 727,145 and a territory of , ...
. The following comparative vocabulary table from Gerber (2020) compares Gongduk, Black Mountain Mönpa, and Bjokapakha, which is a divergent
Tshangla Tshangla is a Sino-Tibetan language of the Bodish branch closely related to the Tibetic languages. Tshangla is primarily spoken in Eastern Bhutan and acts as a lingua franca in the region; it is also spoken in the adjoining Tawang tract in the ...
variety. Comparison of numerals: Comparison of pronouns:


Dialects

Black Mountain Monpa is spoken in at least 6 villages. The variety spoken in Rukha village, south-central Wangdi is known as ʼOlekha.Gwendolyn Hyslop. 2016. Worlds of knowledge in Central Bhutan: Documentation of ʼOlekha. Language Documentation & Conservation 10. 77-106. Out of a population of 100-150 people (about 15 households) in Rukha village, there is only one elderly female fluent speaker and two semi-fluent speakers of ʼOlekha. George van Driem (1992)van Driem, George. 1992. ''The Monpa language of the Black Mountains''. Presented at ICSTLL 25. reports a Western dialect (spoken in Rukha and Reti villages) and Eastern dialect (spoken in Cungseng village). According to Tournadre & Suzuki (2023), there are three dialects, spoken by 500 speakers in Tronsa ཀྲོང་སར་ and Wangdi Phodr’a དབང་འདུས་ཕོ་བྲང་ districts.. *western (in Riti and Rukha) *northern (in Wangling, Jangbi, and Phumz’ur) *southern (in Cungseng and Berti)


History

ʼOle was unknown beyond its immediate area until 1990, and is now highly endangered, and was originally assumed to be
East Bodish The East Bodish languages are a small group of non-Tibetic Bodish languages spoken in eastern Bhutan and adjacent areas of Tibet and India. They include: * Dakpa (Tawang Monpa) * Dzala * Nyen, including Mangde and Phobjib * Chali * Bumthang ...
.Blench, R. & Post, M. W. (2013)
Rethinking Sino-Tibetan phylogeny from the perspective of Northeast Indian languages
/ref>
George van Driem George "Sjors" van Driem (born 1957) is a Dutch professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Bern. He studied East Asian languages and is known for the father tongue hypothesis. Education * Leiden University, 1983–1987 (PhD, ''A Gra ...
described ʼOle as a remnant of the primordial population of the Black Mountains before the southward expansion of the ancient East Bodish tribes. More recently, Gwendolyn Hyslop (2016), agreeing with van Driem, has suggested that ʼOle is an isolate branch of the Sino-Tibetan family that has been heavily influenced by
East Bodish languages The East Bodish languages are a small group of non-Tibetic Bodish languages spoken in eastern Bhutan and adjacent areas of Tibet and India. They include: * Dakpa (Tawang Monpa) * Dzala * Nyen, including Mangde and Phobjib * Chali * Bumthang ...
. Because of the small number of cognates with East Bodish languages once loans are identified, Blench and Post provisionally treat ʼOle as a
language isolate A language isolate is a language that has no demonstrable genetic relationship with any other languages. Basque in Europe, Ainu and Burushaski in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, Haida and Zuni in North America, Kanoê in South America, and Tiwi ...
, not just an isolate within Sino-Tibetan.


Phonology

* Consonants in parentheses are only found in loanwords. * /s z/ are realized as dental fricatives ðin eastern dialects. * The stops /t k/ are glottalised and unreleased t̚ ʔk̚at the end of syllables. * /a/ can often be heard as * A distinction in vowel length can be attested, but it is not known whether it is phonemic. Additionally, ʼOle has two tones; high and low.


Vocabulary

Hyslop (2016) notes that ʼOlekha has borrowed heavily from
East Bodish The East Bodish languages are a small group of non-Tibetic Bodish languages spoken in eastern Bhutan and adjacent areas of Tibet and India. They include: * Dakpa (Tawang Monpa) * Dzala * Nyen, including Mangde and Phobjib * Chali * Bumthang ...
and
Tibetic languages The Tibetic languages form a well-defined group of languages descending from Old Tibetan.Tournadre, Nicolas. 2014. "The Tibetic languages and their classification." In ''Trans-Himalayan linguistics, historical and descriptive linguistics of the ...
, but also has a layer of native vocabulary items. Numerals are mostly borrowed from East Bodish languages, while body parts and nature words are borrowed from both Tibetic and East Bodish languages. Hyslop (2016) lists the following ʼOlekha words of clearly indigenous (non-borrowed) origin. *six: ' *head: ' *face: ' *rain: ' *earth: ' *ash: ' *stone: ' *fire: ' *grandfather: ' *grandmother: ' *chicken: ' *mustard: ' *cotton: ' *eggplant: ' *
foxtail millet Foxtail millet, scientific name ''Setaria italica'' (synonym ''Panicum italicum'' L.), is an annual grass grown for human food. It is the second-most widely planted species of millet, and the most grown millet species in Asia. The oldest evidenc ...
: ' The pronouns and lexical items for all foraged plants are also of indigenous origin. Additionally, the
central vowel A central vowel, formerly also known as a mixed vowel, is any in a class of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned approximately halfway between a front vowel ...
/ɤ/ and
voiced uvular fricative The voiced uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some Speech communication, spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , an inverted small uppercase letter , or in broad t ...
/ʁ/ are only found in non-borrowed words. Words whose origin is not certain (i.e., may or may not be borrowed) are: *nose: ' (perhaps borrowed from East Bodish?) *arm: ' (perhaps borrowed from Tibetic?) *wind: ' *water: ' *mother: ' *father: ' *dog: ' *sheep: ' *barley: ' * bitter buckwheat: ' The cardinal numerals are: # tɛk # nhü # sam # blö # lɔŋ # o̤ːk # nyí # jit it# doːga # chö


References


Further reading

* * * *


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ole language Languages of Bhutan Olekha