Nam language

Wikipedia

Nam
RegionCentral Asia
Extinct(date missing)
Sino-Tibetan
  • (unclassified)
    • Nam
Language codes
ISO 639-3None (mis)
Glottolognamm1235

Nam is an unclassified extinct language preserved in Tibetan transcriptions in a number of Dunhuang manuscript fragments. The manuscript fragments are held at the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Classification

According to Ikeda Takumi, the research of F. W. Thomas, published in 1948, concluded that Nam "was one of the old Qiang [languages] spoken around the Nam mountain range near Koko nor in Qinghai province", associated with a country called Nam tig which is mentioned in some historical records. However, Ikeda further states that Thomas' conclusions were widely criticized.[1]

Glottolog accepts that it was at least Sino-Tibetan.[2]

Lexicon

Wen (1981: 18–19) lists the following basic vocabulary items, which have been taken from Thomas (1948: 399–451).

No.Chinese glossEnglish glossNam
1skymo, nam
2cloudgmog, mog, mog
3sungnyi
4moon’la, la
5firesme/’me, ’me’i, me, ’mye, ye
6water’ldya, ’ldya
7mountain’ri, gri, gri’i, ’ri’i
8stone’rto, rto
9tigercho
10bear (animal)gre
11牦牛yak’brong
12horserta, rta’, ’rta, ’rta’
13donkeygzu, ’ju, ’zu, ’dzu, ’ju’u’gduz
14dog’kyi
15pig’phag
16head’bu, ’ko
17eye’me’i, méi, mye
18齿toothswa
19hand’phyag
20heartsyning, snyang
21blindklu
22dead’shi, shi (gshi, bshi)
23arrow’da’, ’lda’?
24doorrgo, ’go, ’ko(rgor)
25bigrbo, bo-bon, rbom, ’bom, ’rbom
26smallbyi, hbyi
27highshid, ’shid, tho, ’tho, stang, ’stang

References

  1. Ikeda Takumi. "Spotlights to the decipherment of the Nam language". The 41st International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics. p. abstract. Retrieved November 27, 2010.[permanent dead link]
  2. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "Nam". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

Further reading