Hill, Nathan W.

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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studieshttp://journals.cambridge.org/BSOAdditional services for Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies:Email alerts: Click hereSubscriptions: Click hereCommercial reprints: Click hereTerms of use : Click hereMark Turin: A Grammar of the Thangmi Language: with an Ethnolinguistic Introduction to the Speakers and Their Culture. (Brill's Tibetan Studies Library. Languages of the Greater Himalayan Region.) xxxvii, 958 pp. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012. €169. ISBN 978 90 04 15526 8.Nathan W. HillBulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies / Volume 76 / Issue 01 / February 2013, pp 148 ­ 150DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X12001656, Published online: 12 March 2013Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0041977X12001656How to cite this article:Nathan W. Hill (2013). Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 76, pp 148­150 doi:10.1017/S0041977X12001656Request Permissions : Click hereDownloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/BSO, IP address: 128.103.149.52 on 20 Mar 2013reference. The criteria for dating are unclear; the dates are often simply incorrect.There are numerous misprints and mistranslations: hamara mulk (our country) istranslated as “U.P.” (p. 54); padr means father, not son (p. 61). The translatorshave been unable to decipher English names written in Urdu script or makesense of Sayyid Ahmad’s efforts to develop a new, more colloquial, style ofUrdu prose and to coin new terminology. A single example will have to suffice:“Sir William Mill’s house in Vermont” (p. 203) should be Sir William Miles’ man-sion and parkland, makān va ramna (Asghar Abbas, p. 140). A revised edition ofthe translation, making due use of the new Urdu one, would be a worthyundertaking.David LelyveldWilliam Paterson UniversityMARK TURIN:A Grammar of the Thangmi Language: with an EthnolinguisticIntroduction to the Speakers and Their Culture.(Brill’s Tibetan Studies Library. Languages of the Greater HimalayanRegion.) xxxvii, 958 pp. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012. E169. ISBN978 90 04 15526 8.doi:10.1017/S0041977X12001656This is the first, and sobriety compels one to fear the last, book-length study ofThangmi grammar. The tiny preceding literature on this language is here fullyreviewed, incorporated and stunningly surpassed. The grammar covers the two dia-lects of Dolakhā and Sindhupālcok, ubiquitously distinguishing which informationpertains to which dialect. The structure of the work is the usual: discussion ofStammbaum, contextualization of the people and their homeland, phonology, thenoun, the verb, sentence level morpho-syntax, a selection of texts, a comprehensivelexicon.Turin argues that Thangmi and Newar are members of the same sub-branch; hebases this suggestion on cognates shared by Thangmi and Newar, but lacking inother languages (pp. 25–8). This hypothesis may prove true, but for some ofTurin’s comparisons cognates also exist in Chinese (Chi.), Tibetan (Tib.), orBurmese (Bur.). Thus, to the comparison of Thangmi gui gwi ‘thief’ toClassical Newar khu ‘thief’ one can add Chi. 寇 *kʰˤos ‘steal’, Tib. rku ‘steal’,and Old Bur. khuiw ‘steal’. Similarly, to Thangmi cime ‘hair (on the scalp)’ andClassical Newar cimŭ ‘hair (of the body)’ one can add Chi. 髟 *sˤram ‘long hair’,Tib. ag-tshom ‘beard’, and Bur. chaṃ- ‘hair’; to Thangmi thoŋ ‘home-made beer’and Classical Newar thvaṃ ‘beer’ one can add Tib. chanṅ. ‘barely beer’ and Chi.漿 *tsaŋ ‘rice-water drink’; to Thangmi duŋ bisa ‘to enter (inside)’ and ClassicalNewar duṃbiya ‘to enter, to offer’ one can add Tib. donṅ. ‘hole, pit’; to Thangmipriŋ ‘outside’ and Classical Newar pi piṃ ‘outside’ one can add Tib. phyi ‘out-side’. In his discussions of Tibeto-Burman etymology Turin uses the reconstructionsof Benedict and Matisoff; this is an unfortunate decision. These two authors do notuse the comparative method and their reconstructions are useless to predict attested148 R E V I E W Sforms. The comparison of Thangmi naru ‘horn’ to Tibetan ru ‘horn’ is more infor-mative and persuasive than comparison to “*krew = krəw or *ruŋ = rwaŋ” (p. 20).The Thangmi lexicon is of great interest to historical linguistics. In many cases aThangmi word has more morphological material than cognate languages evince.Such cases divide into two types. In the first type, other languages have whatlooks like a reduced version of the Thangmi cognate: Th. cawah ‘walk’ (Bur.swā), Th. kili ‘excrement’ (Chi. 屎 *qʰijʔ, Tib. lči < *ḫl ̡̥i, Old Bur. khliy); Th.calaʔ-uni ‘moon’ (Tib. sla zla, Bur. la, in Thangmi -uni is the word for ‘day’);Th. kerep ‘cry’ (Chi. 泣 *k-rə̥p ‘weep’, Tib. khrab-khrab ‘a person prone toweep’); Th. sirik ‘louse’ (Chi. 蝨 *srik, Tib. śig); Th. suwa ‘tooth’ (Tib. so, Bur.swāḥ). In the second type Thangmi has an extra syllable before or after the materialcognate to other languages. Th. aŋil ‘gums’ (Chi. 齦 *ŋən, Tib. rñil sñil); Th.almaŋ ‘dream’ (Chi. 夢 *C.məŋs, Tib. rmanṅ.-, Bur. mak); Th. ulam ‘path’ (Chi.冘 *ləm ‘walk’, Tib. lam ‘path’, Bur. lamḥ); Th. olon ‘milk, yoghurt’ (Tib. źo <*lʲo ‘yoghurt’, Japhug Rgyalrong tɤ-lu ‘milk’); Th. naŋa ‘fish’ (Chi. 魚 *ŋa, Tib.ña, Bur. nṅ.āḥ); Th. naru ‘horn’ (Tib. ru); Th. narek ‘pheasant’ (Tib. sreg ‘par-tridge’, Bur. rac ‘pheasant’); Th. catok- ‘torch’ (Chi. 燭 *tok ‘torch’, Tib. dugs‘light, kindle’, Bur. tok < *tuk ‘blaze, flame’). Because the a-, u-, o-, na-, and ca-are unpredictable, it is tempting to suggest that the disyllabic form of the word inThangmi represents an archaism. In some cases, however, another lexical item inThangmi containing the same lexical stem demonstrates that the monosyllabicform is probably original. The correspondence of Thangmi thapu ‘hearth’ withTibetan thab ‘hearth’, might make one think that the -u is original and lost inTibetan, but Thangmi me-thap ‘fire-place’ confirms that the -u is some kind of suf-fix. Similarly, in the Thangmi word moro ‘corpse’, compared to Tibetan ro ‘corpse’,the element mo- can be seen to be a prefix as soon as one recognizes that the mor-pheme -ro- ‘corpse’ also occurs in the word rojeme ‘the fire on which a corpse isburnt’.I offer here a few Tibeto-Burman comparisons which Turin omits: Th. chyou ‘fat’(Tib. tsho-ba, Bur. chū), Th. loŋsek ‘heart’ (Bur. nha-loṃḥ), Th. mus ‘body hair’(Chi. 毛 *C.mˤaw, Bur. muyḥ), Th. mut ‘blow’ (Bur. mhut), Th. nip ‘set (of thesun)’ (Chi. 入 *nup ‘enter’, Tib. nub ‘to sink, set’, Bur. nṅ.up ‘to dive, go beneath’),Th. nunu ‘milk, breast’ (Chi.乳 *noʔ ‘milk, nipple’, Tib. nu-ma ‘breast’, Bur. nuiwʔ‘breast’), Th. ŋah ‘say’ (Chi. 語 *ŋaʔ ‘speak’, Tib. nṅ.ag ‘speech’), Th. pleŋ- ‘fill’(Old Bur. plaññʔ < *pliŋʔ), Th. sat- ‘kill’ (Chi. 殺 *srat, Tib. √sad, Bur. sat), Th.tak- ‘weave’ (Chi. 織 *tək, Tib. √tag, Bur. rak), Th. waŋ ‘come’ (Ch. 往 *ɢʷaŋʔ‘go’, Tib. ḫonṅ./yonṅ. ‘come’, Bur. wanṅ. ‘go, come’), Th. min ‘ripen’ (Tib. smin,Bur. mhaññʔ), Th. cuk ‘insert’ (Tib. √tsug). For two words the comparision is pro-blematic, but perhaps still compelling: Th. thaŋ ‘be well’ (Ch. 臧 *tsˤaŋ ‘good’, Tib.bzanṅ. < *bdzaŋ), Th. nem ‘home’ (Chi. 窨 *qəms ‘subterranean room’, Tib. khyim‘home’, Bur. im). Finally, the sequence -pra in mumpra ‘funeral’ might be cognateto Tib. bla ‘soul’, Bur. prā, Chi. 魄 *pʰˤrak.Although Thangmi phonology is not exotic, it yields up facets of considerablehistorical or typological interest. The presence of the medial -w- only after velarspotentially supports the reconstruction of labio-velar consonants inTibeto-Burman. Medial -l- occurs only after b- g-, p-, k- perhaps suggesting thatas in Tibetan etymologically -l- is not a medial, but rather phonetic material preced-ing -l- originated as morphological prefixes. Although Thangmi has the voicelessnasal n̥- it lacks both m̥- and ŋ̊-. Whereas many Tibeto-Burman languages includingChinese and Burmese obscure inherited -r and -l, Thangmi like Tibetan preservesthem intact (e.g. Th. sarma ‘young, fresh’, Chi. 鮮 *ser ‘fresh’, Tib. gsar ‘new’,Bur. sa ‘titivate’; Th. per ‘fly’, Chi. 飛 *Cə.pər, Tib. ḫphur; Thangmi aŋilR E V I E W S 149‘gums’, Chi. 齦 *ŋən, Tib. rñil sñil; Th. rul ‘snake’, Chi. 虺 *m̥rujʔ, Tib. sbrul <*smrul, Bur. mruy). An intriguing phenomenon which requires further clarificationis the appearance of a glottal stop final in the Sindhupālcok dialect, where Dolakhāsometimes has a glottal stop but other times has -k (p. 188). If this state of affairsoriginated from a merger in Sindhupālcok, it is possibly of great consequence foretymological research.Roughly speaking the Thangmi verb occupies a level of complexity in its agree-ment system midway between the Kiranti languages, to which Turin makes frequentcomparison, and the Dolakhā dialect of Newar as described by Carol Genetti.Highlights of inherited morphology include a third person patient morpheme -u(p. 366) and an imperative suffix -o (p. 430). Guillaume Jacques and RobertShafer respectively argued that fragmentary evidence of these same morphemesoccurs in Tibetan. Another striking Thangmi–Tibetan parallel is that ‘eat’ isamong the more irregular of verbs in both languages. Filling in the overall pictureof verbal morphology in the family, Thangmi provides further evidence againstLaPolla’s theory that agreement is everywhere an innovation.Thangmi word order is not always what one would expect for a language of thisregion. Adjectives precede the nouns they modify (p. 309) and compound verbs ofmotion are prefixing, ya-cya ‘go to eat’, ya-yo ‘go to look’ (p. 462).In addition to a comprehensive description of Thangmi grammar, the work underreview contains an ethnographic survey of the Thangmi. The detail and clarity ofpresentation far exceeds the level of cultural description found in most grammars.A short review cannot do justice to the wide array of observations on family struc-ture, diet, clothing, religion, etc., many of which may be of great import for the com-parative study of Himalayan anthropology. By way of example, the Thangmi havethree death rites, respectively on the day of death, shortly after (three days), and upto a year after (pp. 153–4). These three stages in interment may help to shed light onthe three stages in the burial of Tibetan emperors as reported in the Old TibetanAnnals.The grammar is of course not without blemishes. Too little is said about wordclasses, in particular the reasons for distinguishing adjectives from nouns(p. 250). The gerunds and the participles are similarly insufficiently distinguished(pp. 464–8). The proposal that the non-preterite tense marker -du is cognate withDzongka Tibetan dûdu (spelled ḫdug) is dubious (p. 399); there is quite a litera-ture on Tibetan ḫdug and this proposal cannot be accepted without reference to thiswork. When Ramble says that Bonpos fled Khri-sroṅn.-lde-brtsan, this reflects awell-known Tibetan tale, but not the current state of scholarship on Bon (p. 67,note 50). A distinction between elicited and naturally occurring examples wouldhave added value. Such minor objections do not detract from the overall value ofthe work.In other respects Turin’s grammar reflects a methodological high water mark, e.g.he includes longitudes and latitudes for villages (p. 75). Turin commendablyincludes close comparisons with Nepali, the contact language and regional linguafranca, throughout; not only does he identify loans, but he elucidates Nepali influ-ence in calques, fixed expressions and syntax. By laying bear the mediated nature ofhis own acquisition of the language Turin achieves an honesty and explicitness thatfew linguists attempt. The importance of this excellent description of an endangeredHimalayan language is difficult to overstate; the book is a triumph.Nathan W. HillSOAS, University of London150 R E V I E W SDue to a typesetting error ṅ is doubled to ṅṅ throughout this review. 

Review of Mark Turin, A Grammar of the Thangmi Language

Nathan W. Hill

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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies

Mark Turin: A Grammar of the Thangmi Language: with an Ethnolinguistic Introduction to the Speakers and Their Culture. (Brill's Tibetan Studies Library. Languages of the Greater Himalayan Region.) xxxvii, 958 pp. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012. €169. ISBN 978 90 04 15526 8.

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Review of Mark Turin, A Grammar of the Thangmi Language

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