| Basum | |
|---|---|
| Region | Tibet,China |
Native speakers | (2,500 cited 1989)[1] |
Sino-Tibetan
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | basu1243 |
Basum (autonym:brag gsum 'three cliffs';Basong 巴松话;Bake[2]) is a divergentBodish language spoken by about 2,500 people inGongbo'gyamda County 工布江达县,Nyingtri Prefecture, Tibet, China. Basum is spoken by 13.5% of the population ofGongbo'gyamda County.Glottolog lists Basum as unclassified withinBodish.
Wang (2020) is a grammatical and morphosyntactic description of Basum.[3]
The Basum language is locally known asBäke (བག་སྐད་), which is derived frombrag-gsum skad, meaning ‘the language of the Three Rocks’. There are about 3,000 speakers in Zhoka and Tshongo townships,Gongbo'gyamda County 工布江达县, on the shores of theBasum Lake. Qu, et al. (1989) also reported that Basum is spoken in Cuogao Township 错高乡 and Xueka Township 雪卡乡 ofGongbo'gyamda County 工布江达县,Nyingtri Prefecture, Tibet, China.[4]
Qu, et al. (1989)[1] notes that Basum is mutually unintelligible with and quite different from Gongbu Tibetan (Chinese:工布话; 11,600 speakers), which is aCentral Tibetan language variety closely related toNyingchi Tibetan (Chinese:林芝话). Basum is also unintelligible with Niangpu 娘蒲话 (also called Muqu 牧区话), which is aKhams Tibetan language variety spoken by 4,310 people in Jiaxing 加兴 and Niangpu 娘蒲 townships ofGongbo'gyamda County. Qu, et al. (1989:61) notices some lexical similarities between Basum andCuona Menba (Tawang Monpa), anEast Bodish language.[1]
Suzuki & Nyima (2016)[5] consider Basum to be a non-Tibetic language.
Tournadre (2014)[2] classifies Basum (Bake) as an unclassifiedBodish language that does not belong to the Tibetic branch. Tournadre (2014: 112) notes that Basum has the negatora-, as opposed to the negatorma- ormyi- inTibetic languages. Also, unlike Tibetic languages, Basum does not palatalize Proto-Bodish *ti- and *si-.
A computational phylogenetic of various languages of Tibet by Jiang (2022) shows that Basum is divergent, and although it shows some similarities with theMedog dialect ofKhams Tibetan due to contact, as well as withEast Bodish ("Menba" or "Monpa") languages.[6]
Tournadre & Suzuki (2023) suggest that Basum may be related toDakpa (Tawang Monpa), an East Bodish language, since both languages share many lexical features as well as grammatical morphemes.[4]
Tournadre & Suzuki (2023) lists the following Basum words that have noTibetic cognates.[4]
| Gloss | Basum | Classical Tibetan |
|---|---|---|
| seven | ˉniː | bdun |
| four | ˉpər | bzhi |
| meat | ˉʔə ȵiː | sha |
| blood | ˉkɵʔ | khrag |
| leg | ´kiː | rkang |
| red | ´nde nde | dmar |
| stone | ´tɐ luŋ | rdo |
| I | ´ɦi | nga |
| you | ˉdo | khyed, khyod |
| he | ˉpho | kho |
| negation | ˉʔɐ | ma |
Qu, et al. (1989: 50–51) list the following Basum words with no cognates in neighboringTibetic languages.[1]
| Chinese gloss | English gloss | Basum |
|---|---|---|
| 脚 | foot, leg | ci¹⁴ |
| 酥油 | yak butter | ja⁵⁵ |
| 盐 | salt | npo⁵³ |
| 一 | one | tɯʔ⁵³ |
| 七 | seven | ȵi⁵⁵ |
| 走 | to walk | nõ⁵³ |
| 看 | to look | ɕẽ⁵³ |
| 睡 | to sleep | cã¹⁴ |
| 坐 | to sit | ȵɯ̃⁵⁵ |
| 我 | I (1.SG) | hi⁵³ |
| 你 | you (2.SG) | nto¹² |
| 他 | he (3.SG) | po⁵³ |
| 那 | that | ũ⁵³ |
| 多 | many | pi⁵⁵ |
| 红 | red | nte¹¹nte⁵³ |
| 吝啬 | stingy | phe⁵⁵mu⁵³ |
| 一点儿 | a little, a bit | ɐ⁵⁵mi⁵⁵ |
| 立即 | soon, quickly | a¹¹lu⁵³ |
| 全部 | all | nta¹¹le¹⁵ |
| 根本 | basically | ɐ¹¹nɐʔ⁵³ |
| 一定 | definitely, must | sɯ̃¹¹pa⁵³ |
Other divergent Basum words are (Suzuki & Nyima 2016):[5]
| Gloss | Basum |
|---|---|
| one | tɨʔ |
| four | bər |
| five | ŋo |
| seven | ni |
| you (sg) | do |
| blood | køʔ |
| meat | aȵi |
| iron | l̥ɐʔ |
| pig | pɐʔ |
Several hundred Basum lexical items are also documented in Qu & Jing (2017), a comparative survey of Central Tibetan lects.[7]
Sino-Tibetan branches | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WesternHimalayas (Himachal, Uttarakhand,Nepal,Sikkim) |
|  | |||
| EasternHimalayas (Tibet,Bhutan,Arunachal) | |||||
| Myanmar and Indo- Burmese border |
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| East andSoutheast Asia |
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| Dubious (possible isolates,Arunachal) |
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| Proposed groupings | |||||
| Proto-languages | |||||
Italics indicates single languages that are also considered to be separate branches. | |||||