<Contribution from the Yunnan Forum>Languages in the Kingdom of Bhutan --Linguistic Diversity: With Special Reference to the Lhokpu Language--

Linguistically speaking, Bhutan is full of diversity with more than 19 languages spoken in this country. This linguistic diversity can be attributed to Bhutan's geographical location with its deep valleys and high mountain passes. Nowadays, strictly speaking, almost all languages in this country are endangered. This paper presents the Lhokpu phonetic description and its phonological analysis as well as lexical comparison with Proto-Tibeto-Burman forms. The language data, collected during the author's visit to the village of Tâba between 2013 and 2017, are of a speaker from Tâba village, Chhuka district. The estimated number of native speakers of this language is approximately 1, 000 according to Dzongkha Development Commission. The syllable canon is (C1) (C2) V (C3)/T. The minimum syllable type is a single vowel, such as one of the forms for the word for /a/ 'interjection'. Although a glottal stop frequently appears at the beginning of a syllable beginning with no consonant, there is no phonemic contrast between vocalic onset and glottal onset. Lhokpu has 35 consonants at six points of articulation, plus consonant clusters, both initial and final position. Unlike most Tibeto-Burman languages, Lhokpu has many consonant finals, including clusters, due to the collapsing of two syllables into one. The phonetic chracterisation of Lhokpu consonant and vowel phonemes is listed in this paper. The initial analysis of core vocabulary of Lhokpu is demonstrated for the purpose of historicalcomparative linguistics research in the context of Tibeto-Burman. Lastly but not least, the problems of endangered languages will be dealt with