Bumthang language

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Bumthang
Native to	Bhutan
Native speakers	20,000 (2011)[1]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Burman Tibeto-Kanauri (?) Bodish East Bodish Bumthang
Language codes
ISO 639-3	kjz
Glottolog	bumt1240
Linguistic map of Bhutan, showing the location where Bumthang is spoken

The Bumthang language (Dzongkha: བུམ་ཐང་ཁ་, Wylie: bum thang kha); also called "Bhumtam", "Bumtang(kha)", "Bumtanp", "Bumthapkha", and "Kebumtamp") is an East Bodish language spoken by about 20,000 people in Bumthang and surrounding districts of Bhutan.^[2][3] Van Driem (1993) describes Bumthang as the dominant language of central Bhutan.^[3]

Historically, Bumthang and its speakers have had close contact with speakers of the Kurtöp, Nupbi and Kheng languages, nearby East Bodish languages of central and eastern Bhutan, to the extent that they may be considered part of a wider collection of "Bumthang languages."^[4][5][6]

Bumthang language is largely lexically similar with Kheng (98%), Nyen (75%–77%), and Kurtöp (70%–73%); but less so with Dzongkha (47%–52%) and Tshangla (40%–50%, also called "Sharchop").^[2] It is either closely related to or identical with the Tawang language of the Monpa people of Tawang in India and China.^[2]

Bumthang is either written with the Tibetan or Romanized Dzongkha scripts.

There are also thirteen vowels:

There is a high register tone and a low register tone. Syllables with a high register tone are preceded by a ' mark.

Bumthang is an ergative–absolutive language. The ergative case is not used on every transitive subject, but, like in many other languages of the region shows some optionality, discussed in detail by Donohue & Donohue (2016).^[8] Using the ergative denotes a high degree of agentivity of the subject.

The plural suffix in nouns is -tshai. Adjectives follow nouns. The ergative suffix in nouns is -le, while in personal pronouns it is -i. The ergative suffix may follow the collective suffix gampo. The genitive may take on the suffix -rae (e.g. we-rae 'your own'). The telic suffix -QO, where both Q (realized as [k], [g], [ng], [t], or [d]) and O take on a different value based on the final consonant and vowel of a word, denotes the goal of a situation which the word is directed to (e.g. Thimphuk-gu 'to Thimphu', yam-do 'on the way'). Distinct from the telic, the locative suffix -na (e.g. yak-na 'in the hand').

The numeral system of Bumthang is largely base-20. The numeral thek 'one' is also used to denote 'a/an, a certain one'.

The finite verb is inflected for tense, aspect, and evidentiality. Mood is usually marked by an auxiliary. TAM categories include the present, the experienced past, the inferred past, the experienced imperfective, the periphrastic perfect, the infinitival future, the volitional future, the supine, the gerund, the adhortative, and the optative.

• Languages of Bhutan
• Bumthang District
• Bumthang Province
• Kingdom of Bumthang

• van Driem, George (1995). Grammar of Bumthang - A Language of Central Bhutan. Dzongkha Development Commission.
• van Driem, George. 2015. Synoptic grammar of the Bumthang language. Himalayan Linguistics. Open access

Wikivoyage has a phrasebook for Bumthangkha.

• Bumthang language project
• Himalayan Languages Project^[usurped]