The Shamskat dialect () of the

Ladakhi language The Ladakhi language is a Tibetic language spoken in the Indian union territory of Ladakh. It is the predominant language in the Buddhist-dominated district of Leh district, Leh, and a minority language in the district of Kargil district#Langua ...

is spoken in the

Sham Sham may refer to: Arabic use * Al-Sham or Shām (شام), the Arabic term for the Greater Syria region, known in English as the Levant or the eastern Mediterranean, which includes the modern countries of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Cyprus ...

region of

Ladakh Ladakh () is a region administered by India as a union territory and constitutes an eastern portion of the larger Kashmir region that has been the subject of a Kashmir#Kashmir dispute, dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947 and India an ...

, a region administered by India as a

union territory Among the states and union territories of India, a Union Territory (UT) is a region that is directly governed by the Government of India, central government of India, as opposed to the states, which have their own State governments of India, s ...

. Along the Indus, there is a clear geographical boundary between two dialects of Shamskat and Kenskat. Nimo, the first village of Shamskat speakers, lies in the sharply cut basin near the narrow gorge of Indus river. It is the predominant language in the west of the

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

-dominated district of

Leh Leh () is a city in Indian-administered Ladakh in the Kashmir#Kashmir_dispute, disputed Kashmir region. The application of the term "administered" to the various regions of Kashmir and a mention of the Kashmir dispute is supported by the WP:TE ...

. Shamskat pronunciation resembles that of

Old Tibetan Old Tibetan refers to the earliest attested form of Tibetan language, reflected in documents from the adoption of writing by the Tibetan Empire in the mid-7th century to the early 9th century. In 816 CE, during the reign of Tibetan King Sadnaleg ...

. Shamskat retains its

Classical Tibetan Classical Tibetan refers to the language of any text written in Tibetic after the Old Tibetan period. Though it extends from the 7th century until the modern day (along with Arabic, Ge'ez, and New Persian, it is one of the handful of 'living' ...

vocabulary, while the Balti and Purgi have little influence from the vocabulary of its neighbour Shina. The native speakers of these languages are called ''Shamma''.

Pronunciation

Shamskat is usually written using

Tibetan script The Tibetan script is a segmental writing system, or '' abugida'', forming a part of the Brahmic scripts, and used to write certain Tibetic languages, including Tibetan, Dzongkha, Sikkimese, Ladakhi, Jirel and Balti. Its exact origins ...

, with the pronunciation being much closer to written

than most other

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 ...

. Shamskat pronounces many of the prefix, suffix and head letters that are silent in many other Tibetic languages, in particular Central Tibetan.Bielmeier, Roland. 1985. 'A Survey of the Development of Western and South-western Tibetan dialects', in Barbara Nimri Aziz and Matthew Kapstein (eds.), ''Soundings in Tibetan Civilisation''.

References

External links

*A. H. Francke 190
A Sketch of Ladakhi Grammar
'Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal'' 70.1 {{Ladakh Bodic languages Languages of Gilgit-Baltistan Languages of Ladakh Culture of Ladakh Languages written in Tibetan script