The East Bodish languages are a small group of non-Tibetic Bodish languages spoken in eastern Bhutan and adjacent areas of Tibet and India. They include:

Overview

"Bod" (བོད) is the endonym for Tibet. The term "East Bodish" first appeared in Shafer (1955). He classified "Dwags" (Takpa) into the "East Bodish Unit" within the Bodish Branch of Sino-Tibetan. Michael Aris mentioned the "Bum-thang" language spoken in areas such as "Tongsa", "Mangdelung", Kheng, and "Kurtö", which retains "the most archaic features of all the Bhutanese languages" George van Driem states that Bumthang, Kheng and Kurtöp could be considered dialects of a single language. Bhutanese anthropologist Kelzang Tashi treats Bumthang, Kheng, and Kurtöp as dialects of the language spoken by Üchogpa, which translates to the people of Central Bhutan The East Bodish languages do not share certain lexical innovations with Old Tibetan (e.g. Tibetan bdun; Takpa nis for 'seven'). The branch is not a subgroup of Tibetic as defined by Nicolas Tournadre. George van Driem initially proposed that 'Ole belonged to the group, but later decided that it belonged to a group of its own. Although the East Bodish languages are closely related, Tshangla and related languages of eastern Bhutan, also called "Monpa" and predating Dzongkha, form a sister branch not to the East Bodish group, but to its parent Bodish branch. Thus the ambiguous term "Monpa" risks separating languages that should be grouped together, whereas grouping languages together that are quite distinct. Zakhring is apparently also related, though strongly influenced by Miju or a similar language.

Internal classification

Hyslop (2010) classifies the East Bodish languages as follows. She regards the Dakpa–Dzala and Bumthangic subgroups as secure, and the placement of Phobjip and Chali as more tentative. Lu (2002) divides the "Menba language" (门巴语) into the following subdivisions:

Reconstruction

Hyslop (2014) reconstructs the following Proto-East Bodish forms. Additional reconstructions can be found in Hyslop (2016).