Native to India, China, Pakistan Native speakers 130,000 (2000–2001) | Region Leh, Baltistan Writing system Tibetan script | |
Language family Sino-Tibetan
Tibeto-Kanauri ?
Bodish
Tibetic
Ladakhi–Balti
Ladakhi ISO 639-3 Either:
lbj – Ladakhi
zau – Zangskari | ||
The Ladakhi language (Tibetan: ལ་དྭགས་སྐད་, Wylie: La-dwags skad), also called Bhoti, is the predominant language in the Leh district of Ladakh, India. Ladakhi is a Tibetic language, but is not mutually intelligible with Standard Tibetan.
Contents
Ladakhi has approximately 100,000 speakers in India, and perhaps 12,000 speakers in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China, mostly in the Qiangtang region. Ladakhi has several dialects, Ladakhi proper (also called Lehskat after the capital of Ladakh, Leh, where it is spoken); Shamskat, spoken to the northwest of Leh; Stotskat, spoken to the southeast in the Indus valley; and Nubra, spoken in the north. The varieties spoken in Upper Ladakh and Zangskar have many features of Ladakhi and many other features of western dialects of Central Tibetan.
Most dialects of Ladakhi lack tone, but Stotskat and Upper Ladakhi are tonal like Central Tibetan.
Classification
Nicolas Tournadre considers Ladakhi, Balti, and Purik to be distinct languages on the basis of mutual intelligibility. (Zangskari is not as distinct.) As a group they are termed Ladakhi–Balti or Western Archaic Tibetan, as opposed to Western Innovative Tibetan languages such as Spiti Bhoti.
Zanskari
Zanskari is a dialect of Ladakhi and has four subdialects, Stod, Zhung, Sham, and Lungna. It is written using the Tibetan script.
Script
Ladakhi is usually written using Tibetan script with the pronunciation of Ladakhi being much closer to written Classical Tibetan than most other Tibetic languages. Ladakhis pronounce many of the prefix, suffix and head letters that are silent in many other Tibetic languages, such as Amdo, Khams, and Central Tibetan. This tendency is more pronounced to the west of Leh, and on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control, in Baltistan. For example, a Tibetan would pronounce sta 'axe' as [tá], but a Ladakhi would say [sta]. While a Tibetan would pronounce འབྲས་ (’bras) 'rice' as [ɳʈɛ́ʔ], Ladakhis say [ɖas], and the Kargilpa (Burig) pronounce it [bras].
The question of whether to write colloquial Ladakhi in the Tibetan script or to write only a slightly Ladakhified version of Classical Tibetan is controversial in Ladakh. Muslim Ladakhis speak Ladakhi but most do not read the Tibetan script and most Buddhist Ladakhis can sound out the Tibetan script but do not understand Classical Tibetan, but some Ladakhi Buddhist scholars insist that Ladakhi must be written only in a form of Classical Tibetan. A limited number of books and magazines have been published in colloquial Ladakhi.
Written Ladakhi is most often romanised using modified Wylie transliteration, with a th denoting an aspirated dental t, for example.
Recognition
The medium of instruction in most schools in Ladakh is English, with either Hindi or Urdu as a compulsory second language, and a choice of Arabic or classical Tibetan as the compulsory third language. Government schools in Ladakh are under JK SBOSE, which calls the Tibetan subject Bodhi. Private schools under the CBSE and the Central Institute of Buddhist Studies, Leh call it Tibetan.
A section of Ladakhi society has been demanding inclusion of a newly named language, Bhoti, to be added to the 8th Schedule of the Indian Constitution. They claim that Bhoti is spoken by Ladakhis, Baltis, Tibetans, and throughout the Himalayas from Baltistan to Arunachal Pradesh.