Lepcha language

Lepcha (also Rong Rong ring or, more precisely ) is the native language of the same name Lepcha, an ethnic group in the eastern Himalayas. The Sino- Tibetan Lepcha is spoken by about 50,000 people in India mainly in the states of Sikkim and West Bengal ( in the district of Darjeeling ), but also from a few thousand in Nepal ( Ilam district ) and southwestern Bhutan. Its exact classification within the Tibeto-Burman, a main branch of the Sino Tibetan, is still unclear. Most researchers classify it as a single language within the Tibeto-Burman as a closer relationship to other sub- groups or individual languages ​​has not yet been demonstrated.

Spoken in

• Sino-Tibetan Tibetobirmanisch

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Sit

Lep

Font

Since the 17th century Lepcha is written with its own alphabet font, which goes back to a form of Tibetan script. The vowels are indicated by diacritics, the inherent vowel value, as with the Indian writing systems / a /. It differs from other writings of Indian writing circle in that final consonants are also characterized by a diacritical mark as such. At the beginning of the 18th century learned the written vertically first Chinese-style font to rotate 90 degrees counter-clockwise, with the direction of the individual graphemes, however, did not change. The reported of the Lepcha itself in-house development of its written is a myth.

Phonemes

Lepcha has the following phonemes:

• Consonants: k, kh, g, ŋ, ts ts, tsh, nj, t, th, d, n, p, ph, f, b, m, z, y, r, l, h, v, s, š, w
• Konsonanterncluster ( a grapheme ): kl, gl, pl, fl, bl, ml, hl; there are ligatures with second initial sound as y, r, ry
• Final labeling for k, m, l, n, b; P, R, T, N
• Vowels: a ( inherently ); characterized by diacritics: ā, i, ī, o, oo, u, ū, e