A Grammar of Brokpa: a Trans-Himalayan language of Bhutan

Pema Wangdi investigated the Brokpa language spoken in the Eastern Himalayas, and produced a comprehensive grammar of this language, accompanied by a collection of texts. His works dealt with the core areas of this language including its sound system, the structure of words, phrases, and sentences. Linguistic typologists, cultural anthropologists, and students are using his works

A Discussion on the Singing Dialogue Tsangmo : Bridging Culture Between Bhutan and Japan, from the Past to the Future

Bhutanese tsangmo is a unique cultural heritage that has been at the heart of folk culture in many regions of Bhutan. It was considered to be on the verge of extinction due to the trends toward globalization and modernization. However, new attempts have already been made in schools, through radio programming, teacher education, and other means to ensure its continuation. These attempts involve wisely transformed styles of traditional ways of playing. Our research group has been investigating the real-life circumstances and unique value of these songs since 2010. In this paper, we describe our findings and exchange opinions between Bhutanese and Japanese, each discussing tsangmo from our own viewpoints, including the cultural heritage in Bhutan, the language as it relates to tsangmo, new attempts to promote passing on tsangmo, Bhutanese creative dialogue and Japanese education, and finally, understanding the importance of tsangmo within the prospects for Asia from the perspective of ethnomusicology. Through our discussion we hope to shine a light on the remarkable and rich cultural heritage of Bhutan so that it may thrive in future generations.This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP 26301043

Royal Manas National Park, Bhutan: A Hot Spot for Wild Felids

The non-uniformity of the distribution of biodiversity makes allocation of the limited resources available for conservation of biodiversity a difficult task. Approaches such as biodiversity hotspot identification, endemic bird areas, crisis ecoregions, global 200 ecoregions, and the Last of the Wild are used by scientists and international conservation agencies to prioritize conservation efforts. As part of the biodiverse Eastern Himalayan region, Bhutan has been identified as a conservation priority area by all these different approaches, yet data validating these assessments are limited. To examine whether Bhutan is a biodiversity hot spot for a key taxonomic group, we conducted camera trapping in the lower foothills of Bhutan, in Royal Manas National Park, from November 2010 to February 2011. We recorded six species of wild felids of which five are listed on the IUCN Red List: tiger Panthera tigris, golden cat Pardofelis temminckii, marbled cat Pardofelis marmorata, leopard cat Prionailurus bengalensis, clouded leopard Neofelis nebulosa and common leopard Panthera pardus. Our study area of 74 km(2) has c. 16% of felid species, confirming Bhutan as a biodiversity hot spot for this group

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Segmental and suprasegmental features of Brokpa

This paper analyzes segmental and suprasegmental features of Brokpa, a Trans-Himalayan (Tibeto-Burman) language belonging to the Central Bodish (Tibetic) subgroup. Segmental phonology includes segments of speech including consonants and vowels and how they make up syllables. Suprasegmental features include register tone system and stress. We examine how syllable weight or moraicity plays a determining role in the placement of stress, a major criterion for phonological word in Brokpa; we also look at some other evidence for phonological words in this language. We argue that synchronic segmental and suprasegmental features of Brokpa provide evidence in favour of a number of innovative processes in this archaic Bodish language. We conclude that Brokpa, a language historically rich in consonant clusters with a simple vowel system and a relatively simple prosodic system, is losing its consonant clusters and developing additional complexities including lexical tones

On Bodish languages in Bhutan: Language contact, genetic inheritance and parallelism in drift

Bhutan is located in the Eastern Himalayas, known as a hotspot of linguistic diversity. Bhutan shares a long border with India touching four states - Arunachal Pradesh to its east, Sikkim to its west, and Assam and West Bengal to its south. Bhutan also has a common border with Tibet to its north. It is estimated that more than 250 languages are spoken in the Himalayan region spanning several countries. Nineteen different languages are spoken in Bhutan with a population of less than a million. Eighteen of these are Tibeto-Burman (Trans-Himalayan). No focused studies have been conducted on the language contact situation in Bhutan. This paper deals with a comparison of a select set of phonological and grammatical features of four Bodish languages - Brokpa, Classical Tibetan, Dzongkha, and Tshangla - with a view to laying the groundwork for future work on language contact in Bhutan and beyond

What is a word in Brokpa?

This paper investigates the structure of phonological word and grammatical word in Brokpa, a Tibeto-Burman (Trans-Himalayan) language of Bhutan. Defining features of a phonological word include stress, tone, and segmental properties. A grammatical word is defined based on conventionalized coherence and meaning, fixed order of morphemes, and its behaviour in relation to derivational and inflectional marking. Grammatical and phonological words in Brokpa coincide in most instances. Typical mismatches include words involving non-cohering compounds and non-cohering reduplication. A formal distinction between phonological and grammatical word is the key to our understanding of the interactions between different parts of grammar in Brokpa, and help resolve potential ambiguities of the term "word" in this language

Segmental and suprasegmental features of Brokpa

This paper analyzes segmental and suprasegmental features of Brokpa, a Trans-Himalayan (Tibeto-Burman) language belonging to the Central Bodish (Tibetic) subgroup. Segmental phonology includes segments of speech including consonants and vowels and how they make up syllables. Suprasegmental features include register tone system and stress. We examine how syllable weight or moraicity plays a determining role in the placement of stress, a major criterion for phonological word in Brokpa; we also look at some other evidence for phonological words in this language. We argue that synchronic segmental and suprasegmental features of Brokpa provide evidence in favour of a number of innovative processes in this archaic Bodish language. We conclude that Brokpa, a language historically rich in consonant clusters with a simple vowel system and a relatively simple prosodic system, is losing its consonant clusters and developing additional complexities including lexical tones

Identifying who is who in Brokpa

Brokpa is a Bodish (Tibetic) language belonging to the Tibeto-Burman language family, also know as Trans-Himalayan. Brokpa is spoken by approximately 3,500 people in the highlands of Merak and Sakteng in Eastern Bhutan. Dondrop (1993) reports about 1,855 more Brokpa speakers living in small parts of Arunachal Pradesh in Northeast India. Brokpa is a close linguistic relative of Dzongkha, the national language of Bhutan. Animal husbandry and subsistence farming form the main means of livelihood for the Brokpa people Brokpa is a traditionally small-scale society. There are no stratified social classes and no local chiefs. there are community councils known as Gewog Tshogde in the main villages. This chapter deals with the ways in which the Brokpa language and the society are closely related and mutually reinforcing

FAIRifying STEM Data Ecosystem to Enhance Data Reuse

In the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) community, academic and research workflows and work practices are increasingly mediated and informed by data. However, making digital materials and resources findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) for teaching, learning, and research is an under-researched area. Thus, it is vital to examine the current data practices of STEM students and faculties and acquaint them with the FAIR data concept. FAIR Data Principles is a set of guidelines that underscore metadata, vocabularies, licences, and standards to enhance data reuse. A study was conducted among students and faculties in the STEM community of the Royal University of Bhutan (RUB) to unpack their current data practices and explore areas for improvement using the FAIR Data Principles. The STEM students and faculties of the RUB share and reuse digital materials and resources for teaching, learning, and research. Nevertheless, their data practice is not as widespread or desired in the literature on optimum data reuse. Moreover, the compliance of current data practices to the tenets of FAIR Data Principles is not satisfactory. A pragmatic solution is complementing data practices with policies and infrastructural systems that underscore FAIR Data Principles. A sensitisation programme such as seminars and hands-on exercises on data FAIRification is crucial to familiarise people with the essentialness of FAIR data, and doing so will provide a platform to develop their repertoire for FAIRifying data and encourage systematic sharing and reuse of data. An in-depth account of the FAIRifying STEM data ecosystem in the study contributes to the growing knowledge base on adopting FAIR Data Principles in other areas of data-informed work and life