West Himalayish languages explained

West Himalayish
Also Known As:	Kanauric, Almora
Region:	Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand (India), Nepal
Familycolor:	Sino-Tibetan
Fam3:	Tibeto-Kanauri (?)
Glotto:	tibe1275
Glottorefname:	West Himalayish

The West Himalayish languages, also known as Almora and Kanauric, are a family of Sino-Tibetan languages centered in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and across the border into Nepal. LaPolla (2003) proposes that the West Himalayish languages may be part of a larger "Rung" group.

Languages

The languages include:

• West Himalayish
  • Kinnauri
    • Chitkuli Kinnauri
    • Kinnauri
    • Thebor
      • Sunam
      • Jangshung
      • Shumcho
  • Lahaulic
    • Pattani (Manchad)
    • Tinan
  • Gahri (Bunan)
  • Kanashi
  • Rongpo–Almora
    • Rongpo
    • Almora (Ranglo)
      • Darmiya
      • Byangsi
      • Dhuleli
      • Chaudangsi
      • Rangas (extinct early 20th century)
      • Zhangzhung

Zhangzhung, the sacred language of the Bon religion, was spoken north of the Himalayas across western Tibet before being replaced by Tibetan. James Matisoff (2001)^[1] provides lexical and phonological evidence for the classification of Zhangzhung within West Himalayish.

Classification

Widmer (2014:47)^[2] classifies the West Himalayish languages as follows. The recently discovered Dhuleli language has been added from Regmi & Prasain (2017).^[3]

• West Himalayish
  • Western
    • Lahaul: Manchad, Tinan
    • Kinnaur: Kanashi, Lower Kinnauri, Standard Kinnauri, Chitkhuli, Jangrami, Shumcho
  • Eastern
    • Central: Bunan, Sunnami, Rongpo; possibly Zhangzhung
    • Almora: Rangas, Darmiya, Byangsi, Dhuleli, Chaudangsi

Widmer (2014:53–56)^[2] classifies Zhangzhung within the Eastern branch of West Himalayish, and notes that it appears particularly close to languages of the Central subgroup (Bunan, Sunnami, and Rongpo).

Widmer (2017)^[4] notes that many Tibetan varieties in the western Tibetan Plateau have been influenced by West Himalayish languages.

Vocabulary

Widmer (2017)^[4] lists the following lexical items that differ in the Eastern and Western branches of West Himalayish.

Language	‘one’	‘hand’	‘cry’	‘black’
Proto-Eastern West Himalayish	it	gut	krap-	rok-
	itsa	gùṛa	krap-	roki
	idh	guḍ	kərop-	roko
Kinnauri (Southern)	id	gŭd'	krap-	rŏkh
Proto-Western West Himalayish	tik	lak	tjo-	kʰaj/*wom
	tiki	lak	tjo-	kʰaj
	tig	lag	tyõ-	kʰasyũ
Byangsi	tigɛ	là	tye-	wamdɛ

Widmer (2014:53-56)^[2] classifies Zhangzhung within the eastern branch of West Himalayish, and lists the following cognates between Zhangzhung and Proto-West Himalayish.

Gloss	Zhangzhung	Proto-West Himalayish
barley	zad	zat
blue	ting	tiŋ-
diminutive suffix	-tse	-tse ~ *-tsi
ear	ra tse	re
fat	tsʰas	tsʰos
girl	tsa med	tsamet
god	sad	sat
gold ?	zang	zaŋ
heart	she	ɕe
old (person)	shang ze	ɕ(j)aŋ
red	mang	maŋ
white	shi nom	ɕi

References

• George van Driem (2001) Languages of the Himalayas: An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayan Region. Brill.
• LaPolla, Randy. 2001. The Tibeto-Burman Languages of Uttar Pradesh.
• Widmer, Manuel. 2017. The linguistic prehistory of the western Himalayas: endangered minority languages as a window to the past. Presented at Panel on Endangered Languages and Historical Linguistics, 23rd International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL 23), San Antonio, Texas.
• Widmer, Manuel. 2018. The linguistic prehistory of the western Himalayas. Proceedings of the 51st International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics (2018). Kyoto: Kyoto University.

Notes and References

1. Matisoff, James. 2001. "The interest of Zhangzhung for comparative Tibeto-Burman." In New Research on Zhangzhung and Related Himalayan Languages (Bon Studies 3). Senri Ethnological Studies no. 19, p.155-180. Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology 国立民族学博物館.
2. Widmer, Manuel. 2014. "A tentative classification of West Himalayish." In A descriptive grammar of Bunan, 33-56. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Bern.
3. Regmi, Dan Raj; Prasain, Balaram. 2017. A sociolinguistic survey of Dhuleli. Linguistic Survey of Nepal (LinSuN), Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal.
4. Widmer, Manuel. 2017. The linguistic prehistory of the western Himalayas: endangered minority languages as a window to the past. Presented at Panel on Endangered Languages and Historical Linguistics, 23rd International Conference on Historical Linguistics (ICHL 23), San Antonio, Texas.