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Mark Turin: A Grammar of the Thangmi Language:
with an Ethnolinguistic Introduction to theSpeakers 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. Hill
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies / Volume 76 / Issue 01 / February 2013, pp
148 ­ 150
DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X12001656, Published online: 12 March 2013

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0041977X12001656
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Nathan W. Hill (2013). Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 76, pp
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148

REVIEWS

reference. 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 translators
have 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’ mansion 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 Lelyveld
William Paterson University

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 HimalayanRegion.) xxxvii, 958 pp. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012. E169. ISBN
978 90 04 15526 8.
doi:10.1017/S0041977X12001656
This 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 fully
reviewed, incorporated and stunningly surpassed. The grammar covers the two dialects of Dolakhā and Sindhupālcok, ubiquitously distinguishing which information
pertains 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.), or
Burmese (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. chaṅn ‘barely beer’ and Chi.
漿 *tsaŋ ‘rice-water drink’; to Thangmi duŋ bisa ‘to enter (inside)’ and Classical.
Newar duṃ biya ‘to enter, to offer’ one can add Tib. doṅn ‘hole, pit’; to Thangmipriŋ ‘outside’ and Classical Newar pi piṃ ‘outside’ one can add Tib. phyi ‘outside’. In his discussions of Tibeto-Burman etymology Turin uses the reconstructionsof Benedict and Matisoff; this is an unfortunate decision. These two authors do not
use the comparative method and their reconstructions are useless to predict attested

REVIEWS

149forms. The comparison of Thangmi naru ‘horn’ to Tibetan ru ‘horn’ is more informative 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 < *ḫlʲ̥ 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-r̥əp ‘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 material
cognate to other languages. Th. aŋil ‘gums’ (Chi. 齦 *ŋən, Tib. rñil  sñil); Th.
.
almaŋ ‘dream’ (Chi. 夢 *C.məŋs, Tib. rmaṅn-, 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. ṅnāḥ); Th. naru ‘horn’ (Tib. ru); Th. narek ‘pheasant’ (Tib. sreg ‘partridge’, 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 caare 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 monosyllabic
form is probably original. The correspondence of Thangmi thapu ‘hearth’ with
Tibetan thab ‘hearth’, might make one think that the -u is original and lost in
Tibetan, but Thangmi me-thap ‘fire-place’ confirms that the -u is some kind of suffix. 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 morpheme -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-loṃ ḥ), Th. mus ‘body hair’(Chi. 毛 *C.mˤaw, Bur. muyḥ), Th. mut ‘blow’ (Bur. mhut), Th. nip ‘set (of the.
sun)’ (Chi. 入 *nup ‘enter’, Tib. nub ‘to sink, set’, Bur. ṅnup ‘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. ṅnag ‘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. ḫoṅn/yoṅn ‘come’, Bur. waṅn ‘go, come’), Th. min ‘ripen’ (Tib. smin,Bur. mhaññʔ), Th. cuk ‘insert’ (Tib. √tsug). For two words the comparision is problematic, but perhaps still compelling: Th. thaŋ ‘be well’ (Ch. 臧 *tsˤaŋ ‘good’, Tib.
.
bzaṅn < *bdzaŋ), Th. nem ‘home’ (Chi. 窨 *qəms ‘subterranean room’, Tib. khyim‘home’, Bur. im). Finally, the sequence -pra in mumpra ‘funeral’ might be cognate
to Tib. bla ‘soul’, Bur. prā, Chi. 魄 *pʰˤrak.
Although Thangmi phonology is not exotic, it yields up facets of considerable
historical 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 preceding -l- originated as morphological prefixes. Although Thangmi has the voicelessnasal n̥- it lacks both m̥ - and ŋ̊-. Whereas many Tibeto-Burman languages including
Chinese and Burmese obscure inherited -r and -l, Thangmi like Tibetan preserves
them 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 aŋil150REVIEWS‘gums’, Chi. 齦 *ŋən, Tib. rñil  sñil; Th. rul ‘snake’, Chi. 虺 *m̥ rujʔ, 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 affairs
originated from a merger in Sindhupālcok, it is possibly of great consequence for
etymological research.
Roughly speaking the Thangmi verb occupies a level of complexity in its agreement 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 Robert
Shafer respectively argued that fragmentary evidence of these same morphemes
occurs 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 against
LaPolla’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 structure, diet, clothing, religion, etc., many of which may be of great import for the comparative study of Himalayan anthropology. By way of example, the Thangmi havethree death rites, respectively on the day of death, shortly after (three days), and up
to a year after (pp. 153–4). These three stages in interment may help to shed light on
the three stages in the burial of Tibetan emperors as reported in the Old Tibetan
Annals.
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 with
Dzongka Tibetan dûdu (spelled ḫdug) is dubious (p. 399); there is quite a literature on Tibetan ḫdug and this proposal cannot be accepted without reference to this.
work. 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 would
have 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 commendably
includes close comparisons with Nepali, the contact language and regional lingua
franca, throughout; not only does he identify loans, but he elucidates Nepali influence in calques, fixed expressions and syntax. By laying bear the mediated nature of
his own acquisition of the language Turin achieves an honesty and explicitness that
few linguists attempt. The importance of this excellent description of an endangered
Himalayan language is difficult to overstate; the book is a triumph.
Nathan W. Hill
SOAS, University of London

Due to a typesetting error ṅ is doubled to ṅṅ throughout this review.