Introduction to the Denjongke language

Denjongke is a Tibetic language spoken in Sikkim, India. Tibetic languages consist of 25 or so languages (or “dialect groups”), thus forming a larger group than the 19 Romance languages deriving from Latin (Tournadre 2008: 282). One of the most closely related languages within the Tibetic family is Dzongkha, the official language of Bhutan.

The language name Denjongke (Wylie ‘bras-ljongs-skad) refers to a language (skad) spoken in the valley (ljong) of rice/fruit (bras). While the language name Denjongke is most readily understood by other Tibetic groups, the most common endomyn (term that the speakers themselves use) is Lhoke (lho-skad), which means ‘language of the south’. In inter-ethnic contacts within India, the language is known as (Sikkimese) Bhutia. The term Bhutia, however, is problematic in that it may be applied to any of the Tibetic tribes of the southern Himalays (e.g. Humla Bhutias in North-Western Nepal). Finally, in the Ethnologue (Lewis, Simons & Fennig 2013) the language is known as Sikkimese (with the abbreviation sip).

The Census of India 2001 lists 41,825 speakers for Denjongke. The exact number of speakers is difficult to determine because many young ethnic Denjongpas either do not speak the language or have a very limited knowledge of it and because many Lepchas living close to Denjongpas/Bhutias are reported to speak Denjongke.

A sketch of Denjongke grammar was produced more than a hundred years ago by Sandberg (1888, 1895). Walsh (1905), Grierson ([1909] 1967) and Shafer (1974) also provide some lexical data and historical-comparative observations on Denjongke phonology (sound system). Currently, work on a descriptive grammar of Denjongke is in progress.

At present, the language is still quite actively spoken in various communities across Sikkim, but most speakers are bilingual in Nepali. Because of the rapid drop in the number of young speakers, Denjongke has been called “severely endangered” (Turin 2014: 384) and even “moribund” (van Driem 2007: 312).

Written language:

Until the annexation by India in 1975, Denjongke was exclusively an oral language while Classical Tibetan was used for writing. Under Indian rule, Denjongke, along with other minority languages of Sikkim, was introduced as an elective subject at schools. For this purpose a literary form of the language was needed. Through the efforts of ནོར་ལྡན་ ཆེ་རིང་ བྷོ་ཊི་ཡ་ Norden Tshering Bhutia the Tibetan script with some modifications was adopted for writing the language. Schoolbooks were produced, most often by translating from existing Tibetan materials, first by དཔལ་ལྡན་ ལ་ཆུང་པ་ Palden Lachungpa and then extensively by པད་མ་ རིག་འཛིན་ སྟག་ཅུང་དར་པོ་ Pema Rinzing Takchungdarpo. Despite the language development project having started at the end of the 1970s, in many localities such as Tingchim (North Sikkim) and Lingdum (East Sikkim) it was not until the late 1980s that vernacular language classes in Denjongke were introduced in schools (Balikci 2008: 327). More recently, other types of literature have appeared. In 1996 བྷའི་ཅུང་ ཚེས་བཅུ་དར་པོ་ Bhaichung Tsichudarpo (Text Book Officer of the Government of Sikkim) published the first Denjongke novel called རེ་ཆེ་ richhi ‘hope’, and several authors have produced, among other things, poetry, proverbs and plays. At present, there are some 30 authors who have produced Denjongke literature. A daily Denjongke radio programme has been broadcast since the 1960s, first from Kurseong (West Bengal) and later from Gangtok All India Radio station. Dictionaries have been produced by N. T. Bhutia & Takchungdarpo (2001), P. Bhutia (2004), Lama (2013), Takchungdarpo (2013) and Phenasa (2013).

 by Juha Yliniemi.