The Brokpa language (Brokpa kay) (Dzongkha: དྲོག་པ་ཁ།, དྲོགཔ་ཁ།, Dr˚okpakha, Dr˚opkha), also called the Merak-Sakteng language after its speakers' home regions, is a Southern Tibetic language spoken by about 5,000 people mainly in Mera and Sakteng Gewogs in the Sakteng Valley of Trashigang District in Eastern Bhutan.[2][3] Brokpa is spoken by descendants of pastoral yakherd communities.[3]
Brokpa | |
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Brokpa kay | |
Region | Bhutan |
Native speakers | 5,000 (2006)[1] |
Language family | Sino-Tibetan
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Writing system | Tibetan script |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | sgt |
Glottolog | brok1248 |
ELP | Brokpake |
The word brokpa has two parts. 'brok' and 'pa'. In Tibetic 'Brok' means pastoral land and 'pa' is a demonym, so the word 'Brokpa' refers to the language spoken by the people living on the mountains. Roger Blench has also recently named a language complex called Senge spoken in three villages northwest of Dirang in West Kameng district.[4]
Dondrup (1993:3) lists the following Brokpa villages.
The 1981 census counted 1,855 Brokpa people in Arunachal Pradesh.
Sino-Tibetan branches | |||||
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Western Himalayas (Himachal, Uttarakhand, Nepal, Sikkim) |
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Eastern Himalayas (Tibet, Bhutan, Arunachal) | |||||
Myanmar and Indo-Burmese border |
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East and Southeast Asia |
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Dubious (possible isolates) (Arunachal) |
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Proposed groupings |
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Proto-languages |
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Italics indicates single languages that are also considered to be separate branches. |
Bodic (Tibeto-Kanauri) languages | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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West Himalayish (Kanauric) |
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Bodish |
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Tamangic |
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Languages of Bhutan | |||||||||||||
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Sino-Tibetan |
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Indo-Aryan | |||||||||||||
Isolate |
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