Yolmo language

Yolmo
Helambu Sherpa
Hyolmo
Native to	Nepal
Ethnicity	Yolmo
Native speakers	10,000 (2011 census)
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Tibeto-Kanauri ? Bodish Tibetic Kyirong-Kagate Yolmo
Dialects	Eastern Yolmo (Sermathang, Chhimi) Western Yolmo (Nuwakot District) Lamjung Yolmo Ilam Yolmo
Language codes
ISO 639-3	scp
Glottolog	yolm1234

Yolmo (Hyolmo), or Helambu Sherpa, is the native Tibeto-Burman language of the Hyolmo of south-central Nepal. Yolmo is spoken predominantly in the Helambu and Melamchi valleys in northern Nuwakot District and northwestern Sindhupalchowk District. It has a high level of lexical similarity to Sherpa (61% lexical similarity) and Standard Tibetan (66% lexical similarity). The language is spoken mostly by older adults, with the younger generations having largely shifted to Nepali, though the language is being maintained for religious practices.

Yolmo does not have a written tradition although there are incipient attempts in Nepal to write the language in Devanagari. Two recent dictionaries write Yolmo in Devanagari and give a Romanisation as well.

General Information

There has been an attempt in recent years to introduce a written form of various Sherpa languages and dialects (including Yolmo/Helambrum Sherpa) that is based on Tibetan script. Yolmo, as well as other variations of Sherpa language, is related to a Tibetan dialect spoken in the eastern Tibetan Kham province in the 15th century, but has developed independently for nearly 500 years. There are many regional differences and many dialects have absorbed words from the Nepali and English language.

Some community leaders are supportive of a written script for the Yolmo language despite low literacy rates amongst Sherpa people. Younger generations are more likely to use Devanagari script. Neither the Devanagari nor the Latin alphabet adequately represent certain Yolmo sounds. Devanagari is used for modern Nepali. This adds to the Nepalization and loss of Yolmo as well as Sherpa linguistic culture in general.

History

Helambu is the traditional homeland of the Yolmo people and the upper Melanchi Valley is occupied by them as well. The total population of Yolmo in Melamchi Valley was 4577 in 2002. Their main settlements are Melamchi Ghyang, Tarke Ghyang, Nakote, Kangyul, Sermathang, Norbugoun, Timbu, and Kutumsang. Melamchi Ghyang, Tarke Ghyang, and Sermathang are the most densely populated areas. They are religiously Buddhist and the whole Helambru region is rich with religious structures as well as monuments. The majority of the larger Yolmo Sherpa villages can be considered to be temple villages which contain ghyangs (socio-religious institution of Yolmo community) and have an established religious routine and community obligation to maintain these facilities. The larger gomba complexes, like the Melanchi ghyang, are artistic, architectural wonders enriched with frescos, thankas and ancient texts of great historical value.

Traditionally the Yolmo people were herders and traders. It wasn't until recently when they started to rely on tourism, waged labor, as well as work abroad for income. They currently practice a combination of mixed agriculture involving livestock herding, hotel management, restaurants, and trading. Being a mountainous environment there is marginal land that yields low productivity. The name 'Yolmo' is derived from the Tibetan language and is defined as a 'place screened by snow mountain or glaciers'. The original settlers arrived in the Kyirung region of Tibet by the 18th century which is a 3-4 day trek from Helambru. When a Tamang community fled from Tibet they had no Lama to perform ritual ceremonies of the Buddhist and Tibetan traditions whenever someone from their community died. Yolmo Lamas were invited into the community in order to fulfil the purification ceremonies. This has created a ritual dependency between the Tamang Community and the Yolmo people. This adds to the belief that the accumulation of the Yolmo people in there various locations didn't happen all at once but sporadically over multiple decades and generations.

Phonology

Consonants

There are 36 consonants in Yolmo, which are summarized in the table below. The form is given in IPA and then to the right in brackets is given the form more frequently used in Roman orthography if different.

	Labial	Apico-Dental	Lamino-post-alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Voiceless stop	p	t		ʈ	c (ky)	k
Aspirated stop	pʰ (ph)	tʰ (th)		ʈʰ (ʈh)	cʰ (khy)	kʰ (kh)
Voiced stop	b	d		ɖ	ɟ (gy)	ɡ
Voiceless fricative		s	ɕ				h
Voiced fricative		z	ʑ
Voiceless affricate		ts	tɕ
Aspirative affricate		tsʰ (tsh)	tɕʰ (tɕh)
Voiced affricate		dz	dʑ
Nasal	m	n			ɲ	ŋ
Voiceless liquid		r̥ (rh)
Voiced liquid		r
Voiceless lateral		l̥ (lh)
Voiced lateral		l
Semivowel	w				j (y)

Vowels

There are five places of articulation for vowels, with a length distinction for each place of articulation:

	Front	Mid	Back
High	i iː		u uː
Mid	e eː		ɔ ɔː
Low		a aː

Tone

Yolmo has lexical tone. Hari indicates there is a four tone contrast but acoustic evidence indicates that there are likely only two tones; low and high. Low tone words can be marked with breathy voice, but this is not always the case. Tone is marked using acute and grave accents over the first vowel of the word, with acute used for high tone and grave used for low tone, some people use unmarked for high tone and indicate low tone with a following h, for example puh for 'son' below. Below are some examples of tone minimal pairs:

pú 'body hair'

pù ‘son’

kómba ‘thirsty’

kòmba ‘temple’

Tone is predictable in some environments. It is always low following voiced stops and affricates, and is always high following all aspirated stops, affricates and voiceless liquids. The verbal negator prefixes ma- and me- both have low tone, however if the following root has high tone it will not change tone because of the preceding low suffix.

Word order

Yolmo is a verb-final language and is Subject-Object-Verb.

ŋà=ki	tó	sà-sin
1sg-erg	rice.cooked	eat-pst
'I ate rice'

Adjectives usually come after the noun so 'small child' would be pìʑa tɕhómbo (lit. 'child small'), but some people will place them before the noun, especially in casual speech.

Nouns/Nominals

The noun phrase in Yolmo consists of an obligatory noun or pronoun, and may also include a determiner, case-marker, numeral classifier, number marker or focus marker.

Pronouns

	Singular	Plural
First person	ŋà	òraŋ/ùu (inclusive) ɲì (exclusive)
Second person	khyé	khyá
Third Person	(masc.) khó (fem.) mò (inanimate) dì	khúŋ
Reflexive	ràŋ

The first person plural form òraŋ is more frequent in the Western dialects while the form ùu is more frequent in the Eastern dialects. Dual forms can be created by adding ɲíi to the plural forms, although it is optional.

Plural

The plural marker in Yolmo is =ya. Plural marking is optional if the number is clear from context or if an overt number or adjective is used with the noun.

Case marking

Yolmo uses post-positional suffixes to mark the case of nouns. Similar to other Tibetic languages, Yolmo case markers often have multiple functions. Below the cases are listed alongside their function:

Case marker	Function
=ki	genitive, ergative, instrumental
=la	locative, allative, dative
=le(gi)	ablative

The case-markers are phonologically bound, with the =ki form becoming voiced in some environments. Where the noun has a plural marker the case-marking suffix comes after the plural- marking suffix.

Verbs

There are three main types of verbs in Yolmo, lexical verbs, auxiliary verbs and copula verbs. The lexical verbs inflect for tense, aspect, mood and evidence and can take negation.

Copula verbs

The copula verbs and their functions are given in the table below. Copulas are not inflected for person, number or politeness level and many do not distinguish tense:

	Egophoric	Dubitative	Perceptual	General Fact
Equation	yìn/yìngen/yìmba	yìnɖo
Existential	yè/yèba yèken/yèba (past tense)	yèʈo	dù dùba	òŋge

Equation copulas are used to link to noun phrases, while existential copulas are used for functions of existence, location, attribution and possession. The egophoric and perceptual are evidential distinctions, while the dubitative is used for reduced certainty. The general fact form is used for uncontroversial and universally known facts. Different varieties of Yolmo prefer different forms of the egophoric as the default; In Helambu they prefer yìn, in Lamjung yìmba and Ilam yìŋge. yèken/yèba are past tense forms of the existential. Some copula verbs can also be used as verbal auxiliaries.

Auxiliary verbs

There is a small set of auxiliary verbs in Yolmo. The auxiliary tè- is the same as the lexical verb tè- 'sit' and is used to add progressive aspect:

mò	sà	tè-ku	dù
she	eat	aux-ipvf	AUX
'she is eating'

A subset of the copulas can also be used as verbal auxiliaries; yìn,yè, yèken and dù. These contribute evidential information and for yè/yèken also some tense information. As you can see in the example above the dù copula is being used as an auxiliary, so they can co-occur with the other auxiliaries.

Tense

Yolmo has a major tense distinction between past and non-past. These are marked with suffixes on the lexical verb, -sin is the past tense marker and -ke or -ken is the non-past marker.

Aspect

There are a number of verb suffixes that are used to mark aspect, these broadly fall into categories of imperfective and perfective.

Mood

Mood is marked with a number of different suffixes. These attach to the lexical verb and are listed below:

Imperative -toŋ

Hortative -ka or -tɕo

Optative -ɲi

Dubitative -ʈo

It is worth noting that there is a small class of irregular imperatives; sà- 'eat' becomes sò.

Negation

Negation is marked on lexical verbs with the prefix mà-. Copula forms have slightly irregular forms so they are listed in the table below:

	Egophoric	Dubitative	Perceptual	General Fact
Equation	yìn/yìngen/yìmba (mìn/mìngen/mìmba)	yìnɖo (mìnɖo)
Existential	yè/yèba (mè/mèba) yèken/yèba (past tense) (mèke/méba)	yèʈo (mèʈo)	dù (mìndu) dùba (mìnduba)	òŋge (mèoŋge)

Particles

Below is a list of clause final particles found in Yolmo and a brief description of their function.

Particle	Function
ló	reported speech
nà	emphasis/insistence
yàŋ	emphasis/focus
làa	polite
lé	pleading
lò	friendly/encouraging
óo	invoking/encouraging

The ló reported speech marker is part of the wider evidential semantics in Yolmo, which are also found in the copula verbs above.

Honorifics

Yolmo has a set of lexical distinctions used for people of higher social status, particularly Lamas. Honorific lexicon can include nouns, verbs and adjectives. In the table below are some examples including normal lexical forms, the honorific forms and the English.

Regular form	Honorific form	English
tér	nàŋ	'give'
ɲí lòo	zìm	'sleep'
káŋba	ɕàp	'foot/leg'
gòo	ú	'head'
ɕìmbu	ɲéebu	'tasty'

The use of honorifics is not as common in the Ilam and Lamjung varieties, although people still recognise some forms.

Common Phrases

Greetings

Sherpa (Roman)	English
Khyoro min kang hin ? / Khyoro minla kang si ?	What is your name ?
Nye min Lhakpa hin. / Nye minla Lhakpa siwi.	My name is Lhakpa.
Khyoro khangba keni hin ? / Zimkhang keni hin ?	Where is your house ?
Nye khangba yambula hin. Kenidi? / Keniphepki?	My house is in Kathmandu. Wheredoyougo?
Nga skulla diwi.	I'm going to school.
Cho baje kyasung ?	What time is it now ?
Dash baje kyasung.	It is ten o'clock.
Lo cho lepki ?	How old are you ?
Lo khaljik tang nga lepkiwi.	I am 25 years old.
Tama khyurung ?	And you ?

Small Talk

Sherpa (Roman)	English
Di kang hin ?	What is this ?
Di kitap hin.	This is a book.
Phokiti kang hin ?	What is that ?
Phokiti naksha hin.	That is a map.
Tasam khyurung kangki ?	What are you doing nowadays ?
Nga tasam treking laka kiiwai.	I am working in Trekking.
Nam lemu chungsung.	The weather is nice.
The weather is nice.	I'm hungry.
Komba lasung.	I'm thirsty.
Kanisu pheu ? / Kanisu wau ?	Where do you come from ?
Thangbu ? / Thangburang ?	How are you ? / Are you fine ?
Las, thangburang.	Yes, I'm fine.

Numbers

Sherpa (Roman)	English		Sherpa (Roman)	English		Sherpa (Roman)	English
chik	1		khalzhik tang chik	21		saizhi	400
nyi	2		khalzhik tang nyi	22		sainga	500
sum	3		khalzhik tang sum	23		saithuk	600
zhi	4		khalzhik tang zhi	24		saidin	700
nga	5		khalzhik tang nga	25		saige	800
thuk	6		khalzhik tang thuk	26		saigu	900
din	7		khalzhik tang din	27		hazarchik	1000
ge	8		khalzhik tang ge	28
gu	9		khalzhik tang gu	29
chitamba	10		khalsum	30
chuchik	11		khalzhi	40
chirnyi	12		khalnga	50
chupsum	13		khalthuk	60
chupji	14		khaldin	70
chenga	15		khalge	80
churuk	16		khalgu	90
chuptin	17		saichik	100
chapke	18		saichik tang khalzhik tang chik	121
churku	19		sainyi	200
nyishu / khalzhik	20		saisum	300