Kusunda language
Encyclopedia
Kusunda is a language isolate
spoken by a handful of people in western Nepal
. It has only recently been described in any detail.
For decades the Kusunda language was thought to be on the verge of extinction, with little hope of ever knowing it well. The little material that could be gleaned from the memories of former speakers suggested that the language was an isolate, but without much evidence either way it was often classified along with its neighbors as Tibeto-Burman
.
However, in 2004 three Kusunda
s, Gyani Maya Sen, Prem Bahadur Shahi and Kamala Singh, were brought to Kathmandu for help with citizenship papers. There, members of Tribhuvan University
discovered that one of them was a fluent speaker of the language. Several of her relatives were also discovered to be fluent. There are now known to be at least seven or eight fluent speakers of the language, the youngest in her thirties. However, the language is moribund
, with no children learning it, as all Kusunda speakers have married outside their ethnicity.
Watters
(2005) published a mid-sized grammatical description of the language, plus vocabulary, which shows that Kusunda is indeed a language isolate, not just genealogically but also lexically, grammatically, and phonologically distinct from its neighbors. It appears that Kusunda is a remnant of the languages spoken in northern India prior to the influx of Tibeto-Burman- and Indo-Iranian
-speaking peoples.
groups; a word will normally have vowels from the upper or lower set, but not both simultaneously. However, there are very few words that consistently have upper or lower vowels; most words may be pronounced either way, though those with uvular consonant
s require the lower set (as in many languages). The few non-uvular words that make a distinction generally only do so in careful enunciation.
Kusunda vowels. Words may have vowels from the upper (red) or lower (green) sets, but not both.
Kusunda consonants seem to only contrast the active articulator, not where that articulator makes contact. For example, apical consonants may be dental, alveolar
, retroflex
, or palatal
: /t/ is [t̪] before /i/, [t] before /e, ə, u/, [ʈ] before /o, a/, and [c] when there is a following uvular, as in [coq] ~ [tok] 'we'.
In addition, many consonants vary between stops
and fricatives (for instance, it appears that /p/ surfaces as [b] between vowels, whereas /b/ surfaces as [β]), and aspiration
appears to be recent to the language. Kusunda lacks the retroflex consonant
s common to the region, and is unique in the region in having uvular consonant
s.
ʕ does not occur initially, and ŋ only occurs at the end of a syllable, unlike in neighboring languages. ɴʕ only occurs between vowels; it may be |ŋ+ʕ|.
persons
.
Other case suffixes include -ma "together with", -lage "for", -əna "from", -ga, -gə "at, in".
There are also demonstrative pronouns na and ta. Although it is not clear what the difference between them is, it may be animacy
.
Subjects may be marked on the verb, though when they are, they may either be prefixed or suffixed. An example with am "eat", which is more regular than many verbs, in the present tense (-ən) is,
Other verbs may have a prefix ts- in the first person, or zero in the third.
as traditionally classified. Others have linked it to Munda
(see Watters
2005); Yeniseian
(Gurov 1989); Burushaski
and Caucasian (Reinhard and Toba 1970; this would be a variant of Gurov's proposal if Sino-Caucasian is accepted); the Nihali
isolate in central India (Fleming 1996, Whitehouse 1997); and again with Nihali, as part of the Indo-Pacific
hypothesis (Whitehouse et al. 2004).
None of these proposals took Watters' more recent data into consideration, and none is widely accepted. Kusunda pronouns do resemble those of the languages of the Andaman Islands
and West New Guinea
: Compared to Juwoi
, we have tsi (likely from *ti) vs. tui "I", tsi-yi (*ti-ye) vs. tii-ye "my", nu vs. ŋui "thou" (Kusunda has no initial ŋ), ni-yi (*ni-ye) vs. ŋii-ye "thy", gi-na "that" vs. kitɛ "this". (See a summary here.)
Language isolate
A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
spoken by a handful of people in western Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
. It has only recently been described in any detail.
For decades the Kusunda language was thought to be on the verge of extinction, with little hope of ever knowing it well. The little material that could be gleaned from the memories of former speakers suggested that the language was an isolate, but without much evidence either way it was often classified along with its neighbors as Tibeto-Burman
Tibeto-Burman languages
The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non-Chinese members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken thoughout the highlands of southeast Asia, as well as lowland areas in Burma ....
.
However, in 2004 three Kusunda
Kusunda
The Kusunda or Ban Raja , known to themselves as the Mihaq or Myahq The Kusunda or Ban Raja ("people of the forest"), known to themselves as the Mihaq or Myahq The Kusunda or Ban Raja ("people of the forest"), known to themselves as the Mihaq or Myahq (The Kusunda or Ban Raja ("people of the...
s, Gyani Maya Sen, Prem Bahadur Shahi and Kamala Singh, were brought to Kathmandu for help with citizenship papers. There, members of Tribhuvan University
Tribhuvan University
Tribhuvan University [त्रिभुवन विश्वविध्यालय] is a public university located in Kirtipur, Kathmandu, Nepal. Established in 1959, TU is the oldest of the five universities in Nepal...
discovered that one of them was a fluent speaker of the language. Several of her relatives were also discovered to be fluent. There are now known to be at least seven or eight fluent speakers of the language, the youngest in her thirties. However, the language is moribund
Moribund
Moribund refers to a literal or figurative state of near-death.Moribund may also refer to:* "Le Moribond", a song by Jacques Brel which became better known for its rewritten English-language version, "Seasons in the Sun"...
, with no children learning it, as all Kusunda speakers have married outside their ethnicity.
Watters
David E. Watters
David E. Watters, Ph.D., was a Tibeto-Burman linguist and institute folklorist. He was adjunct faculty at the University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon and was a visiting scholar at Tribhuvan University from 2001 to 2006, Kathmandu, Nepal. Watters was the Director of the Oregon Summer Institute of...
(2005) published a mid-sized grammatical description of the language, plus vocabulary, which shows that Kusunda is indeed a language isolate, not just genealogically but also lexically, grammatically, and phonologically distinct from its neighbors. It appears that Kusunda is a remnant of the languages spoken in northern India prior to the influx of Tibeto-Burman- and Indo-Iranian
Indo-Iranian languages
The Indo-Iranian language group constitutes the easternmost extant branch of the Indo-European family of languages. It consists of three language groups: the Indo-Aryan, Iranian and Nuristani...
-speaking peoples.
Phonology
Kusunda has six vowels in two harmonicVowel harmony
Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on which vowels may be found near each other....
groups; a word will normally have vowels from the upper or lower set, but not both simultaneously. However, there are very few words that consistently have upper or lower vowels; most words may be pronounced either way, though those with uvular consonant
Uvular consonant
Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and...
s require the lower set (as in many languages). The few non-uvular words that make a distinction generally only do so in careful enunciation.
| Vowels | Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
i | u | |
| Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel... |
e | ə | o |
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
a |
Kusunda vowels. Words may have vowels from the upper (red) or lower (green) sets, but not both.
Kusunda consonants seem to only contrast the active articulator, not where that articulator makes contact. For example, apical consonants may be dental, alveolar
Alveolar consonant
Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
, retroflex
Retroflex consonant
A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...
, or palatal
Palatal consonant
Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
: /t/ is [t̪] before /i/, [t] before /e, ə, u/, [ʈ] before /o, a/, and [c] when there is a following uvular, as in [coq] ~ [tok] 'we'.
In addition, many consonants vary between stops
Stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...
and fricatives (for instance, it appears that /p/ surfaces as [b] between vowels, whereas /b/ surfaces as [β]), and aspiration
Aspiration (phonetics)
In phonetics, aspiration is the strong burst of air that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. To feel or see the difference between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, one can put a hand or a lit candle in front of one's mouth, and say pin ...
appears to be recent to the language. Kusunda lacks the retroflex consonant
Retroflex consonant
A retroflex consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated between the alveolar ridge and the hard palate. They are sometimes referred to as cerebral consonants, especially in Indology...
s common to the region, and is unique in the region in having uvular consonant
Uvular consonant
Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and...
s.
| Consonants | Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals... |
Coronal Coronal consonant Coronal consonants are consonants articulated with the flexible front part of the tongue. Only the coronal consonants can be divided into apical , laminal , domed , or subapical , as well as a few rarer orientations, because only the front of the tongue has such... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ŋ | ɴʕ | ||
| Plosive | p~b b~β (pʰ bʱ) |
t~d d (tʰ dʱ) |
k~ɡ ɡ~ɣ (kʰ~x ɡʱ) |
q~ɢ (qʰ) |
ʔ |
|
| Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
ts dz (tsʰ dzʱ) |
|||||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
s | ʁ~ʕ | h | |||
| Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
w | l | j | |||
| Flap Flap consonant In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:... |
ɾ |
ʕ does not occur initially, and ŋ only occurs at the end of a syllable, unlike in neighboring languages. ɴʕ only occurs between vowels; it may be |ŋ+ʕ|.
Pronouns
Kusunda has several cases, marked on nouns and pronouns; here we illustrate three, nominative (Kusunda, unlike its neighbors, has no ergativity), genitive, and accusativeAccusative case
The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...
persons
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
.
| Nominative | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| First person | tsi | tok |
| Second person | nu | nok |
| Third person | gina | |
| Genitive | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| First person | tsi, tsi-yi | tig-i |
| Second person | nu, ni-yi | ? nig-i |
| Third person | (gina-yi) | |
| Accusative | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| First person | tən-da | (toʔ-da) |
| Second person | nən-da | (noʔ-da) |
| Third person | gin-da | |
Other case suffixes include -ma "together with", -lage "for", -əna "from", -ga, -gə "at, in".
There are also demonstrative pronouns na and ta. Although it is not clear what the difference between them is, it may be animacy
Animacy
Animacy is a grammatical and/or semantic category of nouns based on how sentient or alive the referent of the noun in a given taxonomic scheme is...
.
Subjects may be marked on the verb, though when they are, they may either be prefixed or suffixed. An example with am "eat", which is more regular than many verbs, in the present tense (-ən) is,
| am "eat" | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| First person | t-əm-ən | t-əm-da-n |
| Second person | n-əm-ən | n-əm-da-n |
| Third person | g-əm-ən | g-əm-da-n |
Other verbs may have a prefix ts- in the first person, or zero in the third.
Long-range comparisons
Before the recent discovery of active Kusunda speakers, there were several attempts to link the language to an established language family. B. K. Rana (2002) maintains that Kusunda is a Tibeto-Burman languageTibeto-Burman languages
The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non-Chinese members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken thoughout the highlands of southeast Asia, as well as lowland areas in Burma ....
as traditionally classified. Others have linked it to Munda
Munda languages
-Anderson :Gregory Anderson's 1999 proposal is as follows. Individual languages are highlighted in italics.*North Munda **Korku**Kherwarian***Santhali***Mundari*South Munda **Kharia–Juang***Juang***Kharia...
(see Watters
David E. Watters
David E. Watters, Ph.D., was a Tibeto-Burman linguist and institute folklorist. He was adjunct faculty at the University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon and was a visiting scholar at Tribhuvan University from 2001 to 2006, Kathmandu, Nepal. Watters was the Director of the Oregon Summer Institute of...
2005); Yeniseian
Yeniseian languages
The Yeniseian language family is spoken in central Siberia.-Family division:0. Proto-Yeniseian...
(Gurov 1989); Burushaski
Burushaski language
The Burushaski or Burushko language , is a language isolate . It is spoken by some 87,000 Burusho people in the Hunza, Nagar, Yasin, and Ishkoman valleys, and some parts of the Gilgit valley, in Gilgit–Baltistan in Pakistan and by about 300 Burusho people in Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, India...
and Caucasian (Reinhard and Toba 1970; this would be a variant of Gurov's proposal if Sino-Caucasian is accepted); the Nihali
Nihali language
Nihali, also known as Nahali or erroneously as Kalto, is a language isolate spoken in west-central India by around 2,000 people out of an ethnic population of 5,000...
isolate in central India (Fleming 1996, Whitehouse 1997); and again with Nihali, as part of the Indo-Pacific
Indo-Pacific languages
Indo-Pacific is a hypothetical language macrofamily proposed in 1971 by Joseph Greenberg. Supporters of Indo-Pacific see it as an extremely ancient and internally diverse family...
hypothesis (Whitehouse et al. 2004).
None of these proposals took Watters' more recent data into consideration, and none is widely accepted. Kusunda pronouns do resemble those of the languages of the Andaman Islands
Andamanese languages
The Andamanese languages form a proposed language family spoken by the Andamanese peoples, a group of Negritos who live in the Andaman Islands, a union territory of India. Its validity is disputed...
and West New Guinea
West Papuan languages
The West Papuan languages are a hypothetical language family of about two dozen Papuan languages of the Bird's Head Peninsula of far western New Guinea and the island of Halmahera, spoken by about 220 000 people in all....
: Compared to Juwoi
Oko-Juwoi language
The Juwoi language, Oko-Juwoi , is an extinct Great Andamanese language, of the Central group. It was spoken in the west central and southwest interior of Middle Andaman.-External links:*...
, we have tsi (likely from *ti) vs. tui "I", tsi-yi (*ti-ye) vs. tii-ye "my", nu vs. ŋui "thou" (Kusunda has no initial ŋ), ni-yi (*ni-ye) vs. ŋii-ye "thy", gi-na "that" vs. kitɛ "this". (See a summary here.)
Further reading
- Reinhard, Johan and Sueyoshi Toba. (1970): A preliminary linguistic analysis and vocabulary of the Kusunda language. Summer Institute of Linguistics and Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu.http://languageserver.uni-graz.at/ls/book?id=2632
- Toba, Sueyoshi. 2000. Kusunda wordlists viewed diachronically. Journal of Nationalities of Nepal 3(5): 87-91.http://www.ethnologue.com/show_work.asp?id=43518
- Toba, Sueyoshi. 2000. The Kusunda language revisited after 30 years. Journal of Nationalities of Nepal 3(5): 92-94.http://www.ethnologue.com/show_work.asp?id=43519
- Watters, David E. 2005. Kusunda: a typological isolate in South Asia. In Yogendra Yadava, Govinda Bhattarai, Ram Raj Lohani, Balaram Prasain and Krishna Parajuli (eds.), Contemporary issues in Nepalese linguistics p. 375-396. Kathmandu: Linguistic Society of Nepal.
- Rana, B.K. Significance of Kusundas and their language in the Trans-Hilayan Region. Mother Tongue. Journal of the Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory (Boston) IX, 2006, 212-218
External links
- Kusunda language does not fall in any family: Study, Himalayan News Service, Lalitpur, October 10, 2004
- Partial bibliography
- Portal to Asian Internet Resources (Project). Bibliography for Seldom Studied and Endangered South Asian Languages. Germany: John Peterson.
- Rana, B.K. A Short note on Kusunda language. Janajati 2/4, 2001.
- Rana, B.K., Linguistic Society of Nepal New Materials on Kusunda Language, Presented to the Fourth Round Table International Conference on Ethnogenesis of South and Central Asia, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, USA. May 11-13, 2002
- Rana, B.K., Significance of Kusundas and Their Language in the Trans-Himalayan Region, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, October 21-22, 2006
- Watters, David. Notes on Kusunda Grammar: A language isolate of Nepal. Himalayan Linguistics Archive 3. 1-182, 2006
- Whitehouse P, T Usher; M Ruhlen; WS Wang. 2004. Kusunda: an Indo-Pacific Language in Nepal. Published online before print March 31, 2004, 10.1073/pnas.0400233101 PNAS, April 13, 2004, vol. 101, no. 15, 5692-5695