Tsum is a language from the subgroup of
Tibetic languages
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 ...
[N. Tournadre (2005) "L'aire linguistique tibétaine et ses divers dialectes." ''Lalies'', 2005, n°25, p. 7–5]
/ref> spoken by the Tsum people primarily in the Tsum Valley of the Gorka District of Nepal
Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is ma ...
. The language is also known as ''Tsumke''.
Speakers
There are over 4000 speakers of Tsum, known as ''Tsumpas''.Kathmandu
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and abroad. Younger Tsumpas are more likely to be educated in Nepali and English, leading to attrition of the language.
Language structure
Tsum has a two-tone language system.
Relationship to other languages
There is a varying degree of mutual intelligibility between Tsum and other Kyirong-Yolmo varieties. It is most closely related to Nubri and Gyalsumdo, and more distantly related to other languages in the family.
References
Sources
* Dhakal, Dubi Nanda & Mark Donohue. 2015. Inchoative/causative verb pairs in Tsum. ''Nepalese Linguistics'' 30. 45-49.
* Donohue, Mark & Dubi Nanda Dhakal. 2016. ''A Tsum Lexicon.'' (Languages of the World/Dictionaries, 61.) München: LINCOM. 197pp.
* Liu, Naijing. 2015. ''Tsum tone: a challenge for typology and phonological description''. (MA thesis, Australian National University).
* Webster, Jeff. 1992. ''A Socio-linguistic Survey of the Tibeto-Burman Dialects of North Gorkha District, Nepal.'' Ms.
{{Bodic languages
Languages of Nepal