ʼOle language

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Sino-Tibetan language of western Bhutan

title: "ʼOle language" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["languages-of-bhutan", "east-bodish-languages"] description: "Sino-Tibetan language of western Bhutan" topic_path: "linguistics" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ʼOle_language" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Sino-Tibetan language of western Bhutan ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox language"]

Field	Value
name	ʼOle
altname	Black Mountain Monpa
region	Black Mountains
speakers	1
date	2016
ref
familycolor	sino-tibetan
family	Sino-Tibetan?
script	Tibetan script
iso3	ole
glotto	olek1239
glottorefname	Olekha
speakers2	L2: 2 (2016)
ethnicity	100-150 ʼOle
states	Bhutan
map2	Lang Status 60-DE.svg
mapcaption2
::

ʼOle, also called ʼOlekha or Black Mountain Monpa, is a moribund, possibly Sino-Tibetan language spoken natively by 1 person in the Black Mountains of Wangdue Phodrang and Trongsa Districts in western Bhutan. The term ʼOle refers to a clan of speakers.

Geographic distribution

According to the Ethnologue, ʼOlekha is spoken in the following locations of Bhutan.

Trongsa District: 3 enclaves west of Mangde river
Wangdue Phodrang District: Adha, Jangji, Rukha, Thrumzur, and Wangling villages

Dialects are separated by the Black Mountains.

Classification

ʼOle forms a distinct branch of Sino-Tibetan/Tibeto-Burman. it is not closely related to Tshangla language of eastern Bhutan, also called "Monpa" and predating Dzongkha in the region, which belongs to a different branch of the family.

Gerber (2018) notes that Black Mountain Mönpa has had extensive contact with Gongduk before the arrival of East Bodish languages in Bhutan. The following comparative vocabulary table from Gerber (2020) compares Gongduk, Black Mountain Mönpa, and Bjokapakha, which is a divergent Tshangla variety.

::data[format=table]

Gloss	Gongduk	Black Mountain Mönpa
θɤm	guluŋ	tsham
dəli	líː	lɪ
mik	mek ~ mik	miŋ
nərəŋ	naktaŋ	nabali
ɤn	áː ~ waː	sha
rukɤŋ	ɦɤtphok ~ yöphok	khaŋ
winiʔ	kɔk	yi
gur	lɤk ~ lok	gadaŋ
bidɤʔ	dɤkpɛŋ ~ tɛ̤kɛŋ	bitiŋ
ki	cok	khɨ
dɤŋli	cö, khe	ri
wɤ	ghö	ŋamtsu
oki	cüla ~ khula	khu
don	pɔk	phakpa
kuŋwə	nye̤	ŋa
dɤr	θæːk	shiŋ
bekpələ	wɤm ~ wom	omsha
ledə	bæθaː	za
medə	bæmɛt	zamin
kət	mön ~ min	mɨŋ
kiŋ	mhiː̤ ~ mhe̤ː	phai
mi	áːmik ~ áːmit	mɨ
lə yu-	goː-	nai tha-
tɤŋ-	tuŋ-	thoŋ-
məl- ~ mɤt-	mak-	got-
mi- ~ mu-	buŋ- ~ bæŋ-	laŋ-
komθ-	θɛː- ~ θɛʔ-	shi-
tɤt-	θüt- ~ θut- ~ θit	she-
::

Comparison of numerals:

::data[format=table]

Gloss	Gongduk	Black Mountain Mönpa
ti	tɛk	thur
niktsə	nhü	ɲiktsiŋ
towə	sam	sam
piyə	blö	pshi
ŋəwə	lɔŋ	ŋa
kukpə	o̤ːk	khuŋ
ðukpə	nyí	zum
yitpə	jit [ʤit]	yɪn
guwə	doːga	gu
deyə	chö	se
::

Comparison of pronouns:

::data[format=table]

Pronoun	Gongduk	Black Mountain Mönpa
ðə	kö	jaŋ
gi	iŋ	nan
gon	hoʔma (); hoʔmet ()	dan
ðiŋ	ɔŋdat (); anak ()	ai
giŋ	iŋnak	nai
gonmət	hoʔoŋ	dai
::

Dialects

Black Mountain Monpa is spoken in at least 6 villages. The variety spoken in Rukha village, south-central Wangdi is known as ʼOlekha. Out of a population of 100-150 people (about 15 households) in Rukha village, there is only one elderly female fluent speaker and two semi-fluent speakers of ʼOlekha.

George van Driem (1992) reports a Western dialect (spoken in Rukha and Reti villages) and Eastern dialect (spoken in Cungseng village).

According to Tournadre & Suzuki (2023), there are three dialects, spoken by 500 speakers in Tronsa ཀྲོང་སར་ and Wangdi Phodr’a དབང་འདུས་ཕོ་བྲང་ districts..

western (in Riti and Rukha)
northern (in Wangling, Jangbi, and Phumz’ur)
southern (in Cungseng and Berti)

History

ʼOle was unknown beyond its immediate area until 1990, and is now highly endangered, and was originally assumed to be East Bodish. George van Driem described ʼOle as a remnant of the primordial population of the Black Mountains before the southward expansion of the ancient East Bodish tribes.

More recently, Gwendolyn Hyslop (2016), agreeing with van Driem, has suggested that ʼOle is an isolate branch of the Sino-Tibetan family that has been heavily influenced by East Bodish languages. Because of the small number of cognates with East Bodish languages once loans are identified, Blench and Post provisionally treat ʼOle as a language isolate, not just an isolate within Sino-Tibetan.

Phonology

::data[format=table title="Consonants"]

Labial	Alveolar	Retroflex	Palatal
		() ()
		()
	()
	()
	,		,

	,
::

Consonants in parentheses are only found in loanwords.
/s z/ are realized as dental fricatives [θ ð] in eastern dialects.
The stops /t k/ are glottalised and unreleased [ʔt̚ ʔk̚] at the end of syllables.

::data[format=table title="Vowels"]

Front	Central	Back	Unrounded	Rounded	High	Mid	Low



::

/a/ can often be heard as [ɑ~ə].
A distinction in vowel length can be attested, but it is not known whether it is phonemic.

Additionally, ʼOle has two tones; high and low.

Vocabulary

Hyslop (2016) notes that ʼOlekha has borrowed heavily from East Bodish and Tibetic languages, but also has a layer of native vocabulary items. Numerals are mostly borrowed from East Bodish languages, while body parts and nature words are borrowed from both Tibetic and East Bodish languages. Hyslop (2016) lists the following ʼOlekha words of clearly indigenous (non-borrowed) origin.

six: **
head: **
face: **
rain: **
earth: **
ash: **
stone: **
fire: **
grandfather: **
grandmother: **
chicken: **
mustard: **
cotton: **
eggplant: **
foxtail millet: **

The pronouns and lexical items for all foraged plants are also of indigenous origin. Additionally, the central vowel /ɤ/ and voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/ are only found in non-borrowed words.

Words whose origin is not certain (i.e., may or may not be borrowed) are:

nose: ** (perhaps borrowed from East Bodish?)
arm: ** (perhaps borrowed from Tibetic?)
wind: **
water: **
mother: **
father: **
dog: **
sheep: **
barley: **
bitter buckwheat: **

The cardinal numerals are:

tɛk
nhü
sam
blö
lɔŋ
o̤ːk
nyí
jit [ʤit]
doːga
chö

References

"Olekha".
van Driem, George. (July 1992). "In Quest of Mahākirānti". Center of Nepal and Asian Studies Journal.
Gerber, Pascal. 2018. ''[https://www.academia.edu/36564118/Areal_features_in_Gongduk_Bjokapakha_and_Black_Mountain_M%C3%B6npa_phonology_Draft_ Areal features in Gongduk, Bjokapakha and Black Mountain Mönpa phonology]''. Unpublished draft.
(2020). "Areal features in Gongduk, Bjokapakha and Black Mountain Mönpa phonology". [[Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area]].
Gwendolyn Hyslop. 2016. Worlds of knowledge in Central Bhutan: Documentation of ʼOlekha. Language Documentation & Conservation 10. 77-106.
van Driem, George. 1992. ''The Monpa language of the Black Mountains''. Presented at ICSTLL 25.
(2023). "The Tibetic Languages: an introduction to the family of languages derived from Old Tibetan". LACITO.
Blench, R. & Post, M. W. (2013). [https://www.academia.edu/627686/Rethinking_Sino-Tibetan_phylogeny_from_the_perspective_of_North_East_Indian_languages Rethinking Sino-Tibetan phylogeny from the perspective of Northeast Indian languages]
van Driem, George L.. (1993). "Language Policy in Bhutan". [[SOAS, University of London]].
van Driem, George L.. (2011). "Tibeto-Burman subgroups and historical grammar". Himalayan Linguistics Journal.

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