Sino-Tibetan language of Nepal
Yolmo (Hyolmo) or Helambu Sherpa, is a Tibeto-Burman language of the Hyolmo people of Nepal (ISO 639-3: , GlottoCode: yolm1234). Yolmo is spoken predominantly in the Helambu and Melamchi valleys in northern Nuwakot District and northwestern Sindhupalchowk District. Dialects are also spoken by smaller populations in Lamjung District and Ilam District and also in Ramecchap District (where it is known as Syuba). It is very similar to Kyirong Tibetan and less similar to Standard Tibetan and Sherpa. There are approximately 10,000 Yolmo speakers, although some dialects have larger populations than others.
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Language name.
Yolmo is both the name of the language (glottonym), and the ethnic group of people who speak the language (ethnonym). Yolmo is also written "Hyolmo, Yholmo" or "Yohlmo". The 'h' in all of these spellings marks that the word has low tone. Sometimes the language is referred to as "Yolmo Tam", "tam" is the Yolmo word for 'language'.
The language is also referred to as Helambu Sherpa. This usage was common in the 1970s (see, for example, Clarke's work from the early 1980s). This name appears to have been an attempt by Yolmo speakers to align themselves with the widely recognised and prosperous Sherpas of the Solu-Khumbu district. While there are many cultural affinities between the two groups, the Sherpa language is not mutually intelligible with Yolmo. With a growing recognition of Nepal's ethnic minorities (Janajati), Yolmo people have moved away from associating themselves with the Sherpas in recent decades.
Language family.
Yolmo is part of the family of languages called Kyirong-Kagate. The languages of this family are located along the Himalayan hills and mountains mostly on the Nepal side of the border, although Kyirong is in the Tibet Antonymous Region. Along with Yolmo, Kyirong and Syuba, other languages in the family include Tsum, Nubri and Gyalsumdo.
The language family is better considered be Kyirong-Yolmo. Yolmo has far more speakers (at least 10,000) than Kagate (Syuba) (1,500), Yolmo speakers are found in multiple districts, including Melamchi, Lamjung and Ilam, while Kagate speakers are based in Ramechhap. Also, "Kagate" is an exonym, and speakers now prefer the endonym "Syuba", which carries less pejorative stigma than the caste-associated term "Kagate" ('papermaker').
This is part of a larger cluster of Tibetic languages, which all have their roots in the language that was the basis for Classical Tibetan.
History.
Yolmo speakers traditionally reside in the Helambu and Melamchi Valley regions in the Nuwakot and Sindhupalchowk districts of Nepal. Yolmo speakers migrated to the area, across the Himalaya, from the Kyriong, in what is now Southwest Tibet, over 300 years ago. This migration appears to have occurred slowly over multiple generations, rather than one large migration event. Main villages where Yolmo speakers reside include Melamchi Ghyang, Tarke Ghyang, Nakote, Kangyul, Sermathang, Norbugoun, Timbu, and Kutumsang.
Yolmo speakers are Buddhist, with the role of head Lama patrilineal. Yolmo Lamas are called upon to perform religious rituals for the Tamang-speaking communities that live in villages below the Yolmo-inhabited areas. This has created a strong socio-cultural link between the two groups that is reflected in traditional marriage practice where Tamang women marry into Yolmo villages. There is also a distinct local tradition of "pòmbo" (often referred to as 'shamanism' in the literature on this topic). The "pòmbo" tradition, passed from father to son, is focused on healing, particularly with regard to 'soul loss'. This practice appears to be evolving fit with the modern focus on Buddhism among Yolmo people. For example, "pòmbo" blood sacrifices are no longer performed as commonly. While there are similarities, including a shared etymology, these local practitioners are not formally associated with the Bon of Tibet.
Traditionally Yolmo people were yak herders and traders. They currently practice a combination of mixed agriculture involving livestock herding, hotel management, restaurants, and trading. Although outward migrants would often return to village life, speakers of Yolmo are increasing settling in Kathmandu, or moving overseas, which has an effect on transmission of the language as speakers move towards dominant languages of formal education such as Nepal and English.
For more on the history of Yolmo speakers, see the Yolmo people page.
Dialects.
There are a number of of Yolmo, spread throughout Nepal, thanks to migration in recent centuries, including in Lamjung and Ilam. There are also closely related languages that should be considered when discussing Yolmo, including Kagate (Syuba) and Langtang. Some of these varieties have been documented in more detail than others. Some of the dialects also have more mutual intelligibility, which means it is easier for the speakers to understand each other. Below is a list of established dialects, including what is known about each.
Melamchi Valley Yolmo.
The variety of Yolmo documented by Anna Marie Hari is mostly spoken in the Melamchi Valley area. Hari documented the variety of Yolmo mostly spoken around the villages of Sermathang and Chhimi. Hari also encountered speakers from other areas in the Melamchi and Helambu valleys, and suggested there are two dialects across this area. mostly distinguished by vocabulary. The two dialects are the 'western' dialect, mostly in Nuwakot district and the 'eastern' dialect, which Hari's work focuses on. While discussing these dialects Hari also observes that the variety spoken around Tarkeghyang is different again, suggesting there may be more than two dialects spoken in the area.
Hari produced a Yolmo-Nepali-English dictionary of the language with Chhegu Lama, and a sketch grammar. Hari also translated the New Testament of the Bible into Yolmo. Original cassette recordings of her work have been digitised and archived with PARADISEC. Unless otherwise stated, all discussion of the grammar of Yolmo on this page is drawn from the work on Melamchi Valley Yolmo.
Langtang.
Northwest of the Yolmo-speaking areas in the Langtang valley of the Rasuwa District are three villages that speak a language that is mutually intelligible with Yolmo. This language also shares features with Kyirong and is likely part of a dialect continuum between Yolmo and Kyirong.
Lamjung Yolmo.
Lamjung Yolmo is spoken by around 700 people in five villages of the Lamjung District of Nepal. Yolmo speakers have been residing in this area for over a century. Gawne has written a sketch grammar and a Lamjung Yolmo-Nepali-English dictionary. There is also a digital archive of Lamjung Yolmo recordings archived with PARADISEC.
Ilam Yolmo.
A dialect of Yolmo is reportedly spoken in the Ilam District of far east Nepal. There is very little documentation of this variety, but it is mutually intelligible with Syuba. Recordings from the dialect are available as a subset of an online collection of Syuba materials archived with PARADISEC.
Syuba (Kagate).
Although Syuba has a distinct name, and a separate ISO 639-3 code (SYW), linguistically it can be considered a dialect of Yolmo. Syuba speakers say their families migrated to the area more than a century ago. Hari, who worked on both Yolmo and Syuba observes that "to quite a large extent they are mutually intelligible dialects". The lexical similarity between Syuba and Melamchi Valley Yolmo is at least 79%, with the similarity between Syuba and Lamjung Yolmo even higher (88%). There is a higher level of similarity between Yolmo and Syuba than there is between either of these languages and Kyirong. This all suggests that the separated dialects may have more in common with each other than with the main dialect area. In 2016 the Syuba community published a Syuba-Nepali-English dictionary.
Three open access collections of Syuba, MH1 digitised from Monika Hölig's 1970s recordings, SUY1 documentation by Lauren Gawne (2009-2016), MTC1 a 2013 BOLD documentation by the Mother Tongue Centre Nepal.
Language vitality.
Using the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS), Ethnologue gives Yolmo a vitality rating of 6a 'Vigorous', but does not cite a source for this claim. The vitality of the language varies depending on the location. In the Melamchi Valley area the language is spoken mostly by older adults. The younger generations having largely shifted to Nepali, though the language is being maintained for religious practices. The shift towards Nepali for younger speakers has also been observed in Lamjung, as this is the language used in schools. The Syuba variety in Ramechhap is currently still spoken across all generations, including children. Mitchell &amp; Eichentopf give it an EGIDS rating of 6a 'Vigorous', which is the likely reference for the Ethnologue rating. This is a recent survey with primary data presented, and is in concord with the first author's own observations of this community. There is insufficient data on the Ilam or Langtang variety to assess their vitality at this stage.
Language contact.
The majority of Yolmo speakers are minimally bilingual in the national language Nepali. For older speakers Nepali was mostly used for interaction with people outside their community, and they may be less proficient, while younger speakers are likely to have attended school in Nepali and are proficient.
While there is relatively little influence of Nepali on basic vocabulary (such as the Swadesh list below), Nepali words are commonly adopted into Yolmo. In Hari &amp; Lama's dictionary of over 4000 entries there are over 200 entries marked with some kind of Nepali influence. The extent to which Nepali words have been reconfigured to Yolmo phonology has not been systematically studied. One observation is that Nepali verbs take a suffix "-ti" before any tense or aspect marking. This suffix is not voiced in any environment, unlike the perfective aspect marker "-ti".
In the Helambu area Tamang women would marry into the villages, but they appeared to move to Yolmo-speaking when they married in (although contact with Tamang may account for some features of Yolmo, such as the general fact evidential, below).
Individuals may also have other languages in their personal repertoire, through marriage to someone from a different language group, international work or engagement with tourists from different countries. English is increasingly common as a language of education.
Orthography.
Hyolmo does not have a written tradition although there are attempts to develop an orthography based on Devanagari, the script used to write the national language Nepali, as seen in the publication of two dictionaries. Syuba speakers also settled on a Devanagari orthography for their dictionary. All of these dictionaries also present the languages in Roman orthographies.
Devanagari.
The modifications to Devanagari are minor, and are intended to ensure that all sounds in the language can be represented. None of the orthographies use the 'inherent schwa vowel', meaning that a consonant without an overt vowel is not treated as having an implied vowel. Consonants remain the same as in the existing Devanagari tradition, with the use of joined digraphs to represent additional sounds in the language, such as the combination of क (k) and य (y) for the palatal stop क्य ([c] 'kh'), स (s) and य (y) for the palatal fricative स्य ([ʃ] 'sh'), र and ह for the voiceless liquid र्ह ([r̥] 'rh'), and ल and ह for the voiceless lateral ल्ह ([l̥] 'lh') ह्य ('hy').
Vowel length is unmarked in the Syuba dictionary, in the two Yolmo dictionaries the standard Devanagari length distinctions are made, with the addition of a small diacritic below the 'a' vowel ( ा) to indicate a longer vowel. The Hari &amp; Lama and Gawne dictionaries both use ह (h) after the vowel to mark low tone (e.g. टाह "ʈà" 'pheasant'), while in (the Syuba orthography a represents the low tone (टाः "ʈà" 'pheasant'). High tone is left unmarked.
Roman.
All three dictionaries also make use of variations on a Romanised orthography, although this does not appear to be used or preferred by Hyolmo speakers, and is intended for the English-literate audience of the dictionaries. Consonants predominantly take their form from the International Phonetic Alphabet, with some exception where there is a more common preference in English, such as digraphs for the palatal stops ([c] 'ky', [ch] 'khy', [ɟ] 'gy') and non-superscript for aspiration (e.g. "phá" 'pig'). This is represented in the consonant chart in the Phonology section.
The vowels in Hyolmo follow the International Phonetic Alphabet, except for [ɔ] which uses 'o' for ease of typing. Long vowels are represented by double characters, e.g. [ɲíː] 'two' is represented as "ɲíi", except in the Syuba dictionary where vowel length is not indicated in either the Devanagari or Roman scripts. For tone Hari uses a 'h' after the vowel to represent low tone, (e.g. "toh" 'stone') with high tone unmarked (e.g. "to" 'rice'), Gawne uses the International Phonetic Alphabet convention of using accents over the vowel to mark high and low tone (e.g. "tó" 'rice' and "tò" 'stone'),