Tshangla
| Tshangla | |
|---|---|
| Sharchop | |
| Pronunciation | [tsʰaŋla] |
| Native to | Bhutan, Arunachal Pradesh, Tibet |
| Ethnicity | Sharchops, Memba, Pemako Tibetans |
|
Native speakers
|
170,000 (1999–2007) |
|
Sino-Tibetan
|
|
| Dialects |
|
| none official; Tibetan used | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either: tsj – Tshangla kkf – Kalaktang Monpa (?) |
| Glottolog | tsha1247 |
Tshangla (/tsʰaŋla/), also called Sharchop, is a Sino-Tibetan language of the Bodish branch closely related to the Tibetic languages and many of its vocabulary derives from Classical Tibetan. Tshangla is primarily spoken in Eastern Bhutan and acts as a lingua franca in the country particularly among Sharchop/Tshangla communities, it is also spoken in Arunachal Pradesh, India and Tibet. Tshangla language is the principal pre-Tibetan (pre-Dzongkha) people of Bhutan.
Tshangla is frequently assumed to be close to the Tibetic languages. Bradley (2002) includes in among the East Bodish languages. Van Driem (2011), however, leaves it unclassified within Sino-Tibetan, pending further research.
Tshangla is primarily spoken in East and Southeast Bhutan, especially in the Trashigang district. The language is referred to as “Sharchopka” meaning 'the people in the east' in Dzongkha, the national language Bhutan.
It is also spoken in the Arunachal Pradesh of India, where it is sometimes referred to as “Central Monpa”, and in Southeast Tibet, where it is referred to as “Cangluo” (Andvik 2010: 4-6)
There are approximately 170,000 speakers of Tshangla, living in Bhutan (157,000), India (11,000) and Tibet (7000). It is not reported to be endangered in any way, as there are still many children learning it as their first language. Indeed, it is often described as being the majority language of eastern Bhutan, where it functions as something of a lingua franca. Andvic (2010: 4) reports that “most Bhutanese have at least some rudimentary knowledge of Tshangla”. In addition, it’s common for Western Bhutanese to learn some Tshangla through classmates in the school system (Yang Gyeltshen, p.c.).
Despite its predominance in eastern Bhutan, Tshangla is described by Andvik (2010: 4) as “an unwritten language”, meaning that it “is not in any country standardized by governing fiat, taught in the schools, recognized as an official language, or even given status as a minority language.” However, Ethnologue reports that 47% of L1 speakers are literate, mainly using Uchen Tibtean script. Though there are no official publications in Tshangla, the language is used in radio and television broadcasts. (It remains undetermined what kind of orthography is used for writing copy for those broadcasts; Yang Gyeltshen, p.c.)
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