Chhitkul-Rakchham (Himachal Pradesh, India) — Language Snapshot
- Philippe Antoine Martinez
Abstract
Chhitkul-Rakchham is a Tibeto-Burman (hereafter TB) language of the West-Himalayish subgroup spoken in the Kinnaur district of Himachal Pradesh, northern India. In the existing literature it is referenced as Chitkuli, a name based on one of the villages (Chhitkul, colloquially shortened to Chhul) where it is spoken, plus the suffix -i, an Indo-Aryan borrowing that has been added to the names of many TB languages of the area. It is also spoken in in Rakchham village (from rak, ‘stone’, and chham, ‘bridge’) and hence we name the language Chhitkul-Rakchham. It has no script and is the tongue of the high caste in both villages – the lower castes speak an Indo-Aryan variety. Chhitkul-Rakchham has borrowed heavily from Hindi, and, interestingly, borrows more from English than from the local TB lingua franca, Standard Kinnauri. The language is more endangered than previously reported.
Keywords: Tibeto-Burman, West-Himalayish, Kinnaur, Chitkuli, caste, Hindi
How to Cite:
Martinez, P., (2019) “Chhitkul-Rakchham (Himachal Pradesh, India) — Language Snapshot”, Language Documentation and Description 16, 192-200. doi: https://doi.org/10.25894/ldd129
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