Preliminary Notes on Dakpa (Tawang Monpa)

Abstract

Introduction The languages of the East Bodish branch of Tibeto-Burman remain amongst some of the least documented within the family. Languages of Arunachal Pradesh, in particular those of the western portion of the state, likewise remain almost utterly undescribed. These facts are compounded by the difficulty in travelling to the regions in which East Bodish languages are spoken (Bhutan, Arunachal Pradesh, Tibet) and the near impossibility of gaining government permission for the research. This article endeavours to contribute to these descriptive deficiencies by outlining some phonological and morphological aspects of Dakpa (Tawang Monpa, a.k.a Northern Monpa), spoken in Tawang district, Arunachal Pradesh, India, based on data we collected while there in 2007. As it seems unlikely any further work will be done on Dakpa in the near future, in this article we aim to bring into light what little data and analyses we have. This article provides a preliminary phonemic inventory and discusses some grammatical morphology in Dakpa of Tawang. Whenever possible, Dakpa data will be presented in the light of other East Bodish languages (Bumthang, van Driem, 1995a), (Kurtop, Dzala, Chali, our field notes) and/or in comparison to the Dakpa data recently presented in van Driem (2007). We will conclude by highlighting some aspects of Dakpa that appear unusual in the context of East Bodish. It must be stressed that the analyses in this paper are preliminary. More thorough analyses will have to wait for further research.